SETTING THE AGENDA Transportation Infrastructure Good Government Women's Equality DREAM Act Insurance Labor
December 11, 2014
BEHIND THE
SNOW
AN IN-DEPTH EXAMINATION OF HOW GOVERNMENT RESPONDED TO THE BUFFALO BLIZZARD By CHRIS THOMPSON
CIT YANDSTATENY.COM
@CIT YANDSTATENY
CONTENT S
December 11, 2014
9.......
11.......
CITY
Identity Politics: How the new IDNYC card will effect undocumented New Yorkers’ lives By Deborah Vincent D’Souza
STATE
The Cost of Justice: Funding New York’s public defense system By Susan Arbetter
BUFFALO
High Rise Anxiety: As downtown booms, future of One Seneca Tower uncertain By Chris Thompson
13....... Breaking Through: Keys to effective advocacy 14......
21......
CITY AND STATE, LLC Chairman Steve Farbman President/CEO Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com
PUBLISHING
By Gabe Ponce de Leon
Publisher Andrew A. Holt aholt@cityandstateny.com
COVER STORY
Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@cityandstateny.com
Behind the Snow: Inside the government’s handling of the Buffalo blizzard By Chris Thompson
SPOTLIGHT: SETTING THE AGENDA
22...... Transportation Infrastructure 27...... Labor 32...... Insurance 34...... Women’s Equality Act 36...... DREAM Act 38...... Good Government 40......
61 Broadway, Suite 2825 New York, NY 10006 Editorial (212) 894-5417 General (646) 517-2740 Advertising (212) 284-9712 advertising@cityandstateny.com
PERSPECTIVES
Senate Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeff Klein on a New Deal for New York ... Jonathan Bowles and Jeanette Estima on reinventing New York City’s libraries
42...... Beyond Borders
A Q & A with Sandra Fuentas-Berain, consul general of Mexico in New York
Chief of Staff Jasmin Freeman jfreeman@cityandstateny.com Business Development Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com Director of Marketing Samantha Diliberti sdiliberti@cityandstateny.com Office Administrator Kyle Renwick krenwick@cityandstateny.com Distribution Czar Dylan Forsberg EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Morgan Pehme mpehme@cityandstateny.com Managing Editor Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstateny.com Albany Bureau Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com Albany Reporter Ashley Hupfl ahupfl@cityandstateny.com Buffalo Reporter Chris Thompson cthompson@cityandstateny.com Policy Reporter Wilder Fleming wfleming@cityandstateny.com Associate Editor Helen Eisenbach Columnists Alexis Grenell, Nicole Gelinas, Michael Benjamin, Seth Barron, Jim Heaney, Gerson Borrero, Susan Arbetter PRODUCTION Art Director Guillaume Federighi gfederighi@cityandstateny.com
SETTING THE AGENDA Transportation Infrastructure Good Government Women's Equality DREAM Act Insurance Labor
December 11, 2014
Graphic Designer Michelle Yang myang@cityandstateny.com
BEHIND THE
SNOW
AN IN-DEPTH EXAMINATION OF HOW GOVERNMENT RESPONDED TO THE BUFFALO BLIZZARD By CHRIS THOMPSON
CIT YANDSTATENY.COM
@CIT YANDSTATENY
cit yandstateny.com
Marketing Graphic Designer Charles Flores, cflores@cityandstateny.com Cover: Photo by Daniel Novak, Design by Guillaume Federighi
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Web Manager Lydia Eck, leck@cityandstateny.com Illustrator Danilo Agutoli
city & state — December 11, 2014
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THE CASE FOR A PAY RAISE IN ALBANY
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city & state — December 11, 2014
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rue story: A newly elected state legislator was seeking the guidance of a sitting lawmaker about transitioning to Albany when the conversation turned serious: “What’s your second job?” asked the By Morgan Pehme incoming freshman. Editor-in-Chief The veteran’s response—that he was a full-timer with no outside income—caused the newbie to recoil in shock: How did he support himself? After all, $79,500 a year was not nearly enough to take care of a family, carry a mortgage, make car payments, and cover all of the other expenses that were already baked into the cake of this person’s life. Doubtless, some of you reading this anecdote will have no sympathy for the freshman, but as a father in my mid-30s living in as expensive a city as New York, I do. The notion that lawmakers should endure economic hardship so their experience will more closely align with those of their constituents in need may sound like poetic justice, but in reality the current salary of members of the Legislature is one of the principal catalysts for the deplorable epidemic of corruption that infects our state capital. We cannot ignore human nature—or at least the nature that our current crop of legislators has exhibited. There is a reason beyond pure greed and a gross sense of entitlement that former Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson salivated when he was offered an envelope stuffed with $10,000 in cash: He probably needed the dough. I am not excusing Stevenson’s actions, or those of the raft of other elected officials in recent years who have trampled on the public trust by accepting bribes. My point is that while we so often talk about raising teacher salaries so that we can lure the best possible applicants to educate our children, why do we not apply this same standard to attracting the best people to represent us in the state Legislature? While $79,500 may be a decent living in many parts of New York, in places like the five boroughs, Westchester, Long Island and others it is not a great deal more that the median household income. As a result, for our downstate legislators we have created the conditions for largely three types of people to represent us: the independently wealthy or those married to individuals who can support them; parttime legislators whose outside income cannot be verified as to conflicts of interest; and bottom feeders
and machine hacks who are either unqualified for more lucrative employment or seeking to leverage their positions for personal gain. (These are the folks that generally wind up indicted.) There are notable exceptions, of course, but those virtuous, selfsacrificing individuals are just that—exceptions. With state lawmakers’ salaries at their current level, how can we expect the standouts in so many professional fields, our top graduates—most of whom are carrying the weight of colossal student loans— and even our leading activists (I’m willing to bet if you pulled the 990s of most nonprofits you’d find their executive directors make more than $79K), to turn down paychecks commensurate with their talents, and compromise their fiscal stability in exchange for the often thankless privilege of serving in the Legislature? Personally, I would be more than willing to support state lawmakers raising their salaries to bring them in line with what New York City Council members make ($112,500). I would even be receptive to an increase that more closely aligned their pay with that of members of Congress ($174,000). But any such hike has to come in conjunction with a new set of rules designed to radically diminish the temptations of corruption and take major steps toward restoring the public trust. Here are my conditions: the elimination of per diems—a system that the Moreland Commission revealed is rife with abuse; no lulus for committee chairs—a carrot the leaders of the Legislature exploit to infringe upon their members’ independence— and most important, requiring that the only job our lawmakers are allowed to have is the one they were elected to do. Though ideally I would also like to do away with outside income altogether, I am willing to budge on that point. I have no objections, for instance, to a member of the Legislature teaching a course or receiving compensation for writing a book (as long as it’s better than the usual torturous fare our politicians turn out). However, any outside income must be subjected to the most robust of disclosure requirements—not like the loophole-laden system now in place—so that the public can clearly see that the monies received for such work does not pose a conflict of interest. Let’s be honest: Many of our state lawmakers have not earned a pay raise on the basis of an objective evaluation of the quality of their work. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to increase the salary members of the Legislature are paid if we want to populate its chambers with lawmakers who are worthy of a bigger paycheck.
Letters to the
Editor SETTING THE AGENDA
Ed u c a t i o n / H ea l t h / En erg y
November 24, 2014
P A R T N E R S I N P O W E R The unlikely alliance between Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie By ZACK FINK
CIT YANDSTATENY.COM
@CIT YANDSTATENY
In the Nov. 24 issue, City & State Editor Morgan Pehme wrote in his column that citywide officials in New York City other than the mayor should turn down their taxpayer-funded security details. NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer is a spoiled child having a temper tantrum. Perhaps he needs a time out. Who knew that taxpayers are paying for members of the NYC Police Department Intelligence Division to serve as his personal security detail? They have to pick him up at home each morning and drive him to work. Sometimes, they even had to drive his wife to and from work. Is anyone aware that Stringer is the target of any terrorist groups which would merit this level of protection? I seriously doubt that al-Qaeda, Hezballah, ISIS or any other terrorist group know who he is or are even aware of his existence. Municipal employees could never get away with the same abuses. They could not use city vehicles during work hours to chauffeur spouses around town. At a minimum, they would have to reimburse the City for the costs of all these personal trips. At worse, they could be fired from their jobs. Perhaps the NYC Department of Investigation needs to take a look at this serious potential waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Stringer could give up both his free parking space at City Hall and his special police parking permit. He can use his transit check to purchase Metrocards. Why not ask his wife to do the same? This will afford Stringer the opportunity to join several million constituents who use public transportation on a daily basis and also contribute to a cleaner environment.
—Larry Penner (Great Neck, NY)
To have your letter to the editor considered for publication, leave a comment at www.cityandstateny.com, tweet us @CityAndStateNY, email editor@cityandstateny.com or write to 61 Broadway, Suite 2825, New York, NY 10006. Letters may be edited for clarity or length. cit yandstateny.com
city & state — November 04, 2014
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cit yandstateny.com
POLITICS PAYS
WITH ALBANY LAWMAKERS ASKING FOR A RAISE, C&S PUTS THEIR SALARIES IN PERSPECTIVE By ASHLEY HUPFL NEW YORK LAWMAKER SALARY:
$ 79,500
LOWEST LAWMAKER SALARY:
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$ 200
HIGHEST LAWMAKER SALARY:
FOR 2 YEARS
$90,526
NEW YORK LEGISLATOR PAY HISTORY
NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL PAY HISTORY $112,500
$110,000
$110,000
$100,000
$100,000
$90,000
$90,000
$79,000
$70,000
$50,000
$60,000
$23,500
PRE 1979
$28,878
$30,804
1979
1982
$55,000
$50,000
$43,000
$40,000
$20,000
$70,500
$70,000 $57,500
$60,000
$30,000
$80,000
THE NEW YORK TIMES
city & state — December 11, 2014
$80,000
$90,000
$40,000
$32,960
$30,000
1983
1985
1988
1998
$20,000
1987
1995
1999
2006 cit yandstateny.com
CITY
IDENTITY POLITICS
DE BLASIO UNVEILS ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS TO OBTAIN AN IDNYC AS PROGRAM PREPARES TO LAUNCH By DEBORAH VINCENT D’SOUZA
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WILLIAM ALATRISTE
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at a hearing on Municipal IDs in July. undocumented immigrants. “It’s especially a problem when there is a language barrier.” Undocumented immigrants are vulnerable to being detained and having to stay overnight in prison because they cannot prove who they are, said Anthony Perez of Faith in New York, a federation of congregations. Future undocumented people stopped by the police will soon be able to show their IDNYC. Even those immigrants who already possess some form of identification, such as a passport from another country or the $465 work authorization card immigrants covered by DACA carry, will find using an IDNYC a boon,
advocacy groups maintain. “Having more than one form of ID is never a bad thing,” said the New York Immigration Coalition’s Elizabeth Plum, who points to the great danger of misplacing one’s ID when a person has no backup. Plum applauds the New York City government for creating a program she believes is safe, secure and accessible for all New Yorkers. Beyond providing its bearer with a degree of protection, IDNYC can change lives in other ways. Libertad came to America from Ecuador with the dream of being a cosmetologist—a dream she had to abandon without the government-issued photo ID required
to take the exam to earn her license to practice. Her IDNYC will now allow her to start down the path toward achieving her goal. Shamsher, 44 (whose last name has been withheld, like the other undocumented immigrants in this story), is a member of the Sikh community in Queens and works for a construction company. He hopes to join a labor union once he gets his ID card, in part because he had no recourse those times various past employers did not give him wages he was owed. To ensure the proposed rules addressed numerous concerns of undocumented New Yorkers like
city & state — December 11, 2014
ibertad, whose name means freedom, is a woman of good humour and infectious smiles. But when she talks about the day her daughter called to tell her she had not been able to get a job at McDonald’s because she did not have a governmentissued ID, Libertad’s eyes well up and her face crumples. Libertad, 47—whose last name has been withheld so as not to expose her to possible deportation—and her daughter are two of New York City’s estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by President Barack Obama in 2012, which permitted undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to apply for exemption from deportation for two years, Libertad’s daughter is now eligible to get a state-issued ID. But for the undocumented like Libertad who came to the United States as adults and are not covered by President Obama’s immigration executive order announced last month, New York City’s forthcoming municipal ID card program may be their best path to obtain legitimate identification. The program, which was passed by the City Council in June and recently branded “IDNYC,” will make governmentissued ID cards available starting in January 2015 to all New Yorkers regardless of resident status. The scope of the card is limited. It does not make the undocumented eligible to receive a driver’s license or change their resident status. Still, immigrant advocacy groups in the city believe its impact will be substantial. “When the police stop you, the onus is on you to prove who you are,” said Harpreet Singh Toor, a Sikh community leader who works with
CITY
Shamsher, the city conducted months of outreach to advocacy groups. In October the New York City Human Resources Administration held a public hearing to give those in charge of the program, including Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Nisha Agarwal, a chance to listen to comments on the suggested guidelines.
law enforcement agencies such as the NYPD, FBI and Homeland Security without requiring a warrant to access them. Ultimately the city decided to disallow such records from being available to law enforcement agencies without a warrant. Another concern advocacy groups brought up was that expired
“With an ID card I can prove that I am a New Yorker. It won’t be important if you’re undocumented or a citizen—you’re a New Yorker.” Groups including the New York Immigration Coalition, the Center for Popular Democracy and the New York Civil Liberties Union were concerned that documents initially provided by applicants were to be stored on file for two years, making them available to
documents would not be accepted as proof of identity to get an IDNYC. Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled the eligibility requirements for the IDNYC on Dec. 5. The new eligibility rules allow expired passports to be accepted as proof of identity three years after
their expiration date. The new rules operate on a point system similar to that used by the Department of Motor Vehicles; expired documents will be worth two points toward the four points necessary to qualify, while a valid foreign passport will be worth three. Renewing a foreign passport while in the U.S. illegally does not always present a problem; some countries’ consulates enable them to do so. Fifty-two-year-old Alma, who cleans homes on the Upper West Side for a living, came to the U.S. from Mexico on a tourist visa 22 years ago to escape gang violence. She has always had her Mexican passport to show as proof of identity, allowing her to open bank accounts, get a credit card and enter government buildings. These privileges are currently unavailable to undocumented people from countries such as India and Nepal, whose consulates refuse to renew the passports of those staying in the U.S. illegally. Alma’s daughter, who was born in the states, will turn 21 soon, making Alma ineligible for President Obama’s provisional deferred deportation offer to parents of children
who are U.S. citizens. The IDNYC rules do present a new wrinkle for those without valid passports, ironically making it more difficult for undocumenteds who most desperately require a municipal ID card. This challenge has led the city to add a few more documents to the list of those accepted as proof of identity, including a handwritten lease (one point), mobile food vending unit license (two points) and an NYC Department of Parks and Recreationissued recreation center membership card (one point). The move toward municipal IDs is an effort by the city to reaffirm New York’s historic reputation as a port of entry for outsiders. While there have been discussions about the stigma that may accompany the card if legal citizens do not register for one themselves, Libertad insists she is not going to feel marked by it. If anything, she feels it will be the source of more equality. As Alma puts it, “With an ID card I can prove that I am a New Yorker. It won’t be important if you’re undocumented or a citizen—you’re a New Yorker.”
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city & state — December 11, 2014
Hurricane Sandy showed us, when it comes to transportation, we’re all in this together.
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cit yandstateny.com
STATE
S TAT E
THE COST OF JUSTICE
I
ndigent defense advocates are using recent calls to reform the justice system to push for funding for a statewide public defense system. In October the state settled the long-running Hurrell-Harring lawsuit, which was filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union. The class action settlement addressed deficiencies in the public defense systems of five counties: Ontario, Onondaga, Schuyler, Suffolk and Washington. Two days after the grand jury decision in the Eric Garner case, a press release from the New York State Defenders Association stated, “Public defense lawyers should have a critical role in ending injustice in those [police fatality]—and in all—cases.” The release credited Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the settlement in Hurrell, but argued that the issues raised by the case were not confined to New York counties covered by the suit. Thus NYSDA requested “adequate” funding for the state’s entire public defense system in the next executive budget. The request did not come as a surprise to those who have followed the case. “The only practical way that you
cit yandstateny.com
THE TIMELINE While the settlement in Hurrell is limited in scope, the agreement is complex. It includes a calendar of benchmarks to be fulfilled by the state and the counties with significant help from the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services. The calendar will go into effect after a series of fairness hearings during which the judge will hear from members of the class: poor defendants. When the hearings are completed, the judge will initial the settlement. That day is considered the “effective date”: the date that triggers the calendar. The effective date is expected to be in late January or early February. From the effective date, the Office of Indigent Legal Services will have six months to develop a plan to put into action the four major elements of the settlement agreement: ensuring counsel at arraignment; tracking attorney caseloads; improving the quality of legal services; and issuing eligibility criteria. Fourteen months from the effective date, the state must make a good faith
effort to start implementing plans for counsel at arraignment. At 15 months, the state must take tangible steps to enable providers to comply with new caseload standards. At 18 months, ILS must issue the first annual report on eligibility requirements—standards for all counties outside of New York City to help determine who is too poor to pay for a private attorney. There are benchmarks through 48 months. The settlement expires seven and a half years after the effective date. “This is a challenge that we’re very excited about,” said William Leahy, ILS’ executive director. “We have been and will continue to be very insistent that we must be given the fiscal and staffing tools that will enable us to carry out this great responsibility with maximum effectiveness.” THE PRICE TAG ILS does not have the tools now. With 11 employees at the moment, the office is only working at half-staff. To bring his team up to appropriate staffing levels, Leahy is asking the state for $800,000 dollars, as well as $950,000 to establish a HurrellHarring enforcement unit, which would be comprised of eight additional staff members: five attorneys, and three researchers and paralegals. In addition to money for personnel, Leahy’s state operating funds request includes $800,000 to create an appellate resource center, modeled after the New York Prosecutors Training Institute, a not-for-profit corporation created in 1995 by the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, as well as $2 million to establish four regional support centers “to provide uniform high-quality representation in every
county.” The portion of Leahy’s request earmarked to provide financial assistance to localities is significantly larger: $31 million. The biggest portion of that sum is $20 million for caseload relief and quality improvement in the upstate public defender and assigned counsel programs for a single year. According to Leahy, ILS made several in-depth cost estimates of what it would take to bring upstate counties into compliance with national maximum caseload standards. Twenty million dollars over five years will bring counties close to the $105 million a year that is needed. Even so, Leahy acknowledges that amount is not enough. “Fifty-two counties are completely left out of any state assistance. They derive no direct benefit from the settlement,” he said. In order to “replicate what is already the norm in New York City,” Leahy is also requesting $4 million to ensure every defendant has counsel at arraignment. “It’s a drop in the bucket,” he said. So far, 25 counties have responded to a request for proposals from ILS for grant money to provide counsel at arraignment. All 25 either have received or will receive some money. “I have to emphasize that in most of those counties there is not enough funding to cover the entire county,” said Leahy. Additionally, Leahy is asking for another $4 million for counsel at arraignment to assist the 32 counties that did not participate in the initial RFP. Finally, there are other RFPs for which Leahy is requesting $3 million. The money would be allotted to shore-up assigned counsel; create two wrongful conviction prevention
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city & state — December 11, 2014
SUSAN ARBETTER
can administer the needs of a robust system is by state administration and state funding,” argued NYSDA Executive Director Jonathan Gradess after the settlement agreement. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs in Hurrell agrees. “The settlement was about five counties because we sued about five counties,” explained NYCLU’s Corey Stoughton. “But from a public policy perspective, it makes no sense for the state to be investing in necessary improvements in these counties and leaving the rest of them behind. I think everybody realizes that.”
STATE
Our Our Perspective Perspective Bittersweet Bittersweet Relief Relief for for Undocumented Undocumented Immigrants Immigrants By Stuart Appelbaum, President, By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Store Union, Retail, Wholesale and Department Retail, Wholesale RWDSU, UFCW and Department Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW n November, President Obama announced an n November, President Obama announced an executive action modifying immigration policy. executive immigration The actionaction meansmodifying that roughly 4 millionpolicy. The action means that roughly million undocumented immigrants in the 4U.S. with citizen undocumented theable U.S.towith citizen or legal residentimmigrants children willinbe apply for or legal resident Those children will bewill able to apply for documentation. eligible receive a reprieve documentation. Those eligible for willthree receive a reprieve years and from the threat of deportation from the threat of deportation for three years and work authorization. work It’s authorization. a belated and bittersweet moment for It’sand a belated andadvocates. bittersweetIt’s moment worker immigrant a relieffor for the worker andwho immigrant advocates. a relief for the millions of eligible immigrants can finally apply forIt’s documentation millions of have eligible immigrants who can applykeep for documentation and won’t to fear deportation, andfinally it will help countless and won’t have to But fearthere deportation, families together. are still and it will help keep countless families together. But there – are still 5 undocumented immigrants roughly With over 1,000 people undocumented immigrants – roughly to 6 million of them – who won’t see a5 With over 1,000daily, people being deported to 6 million of them who They won’tare seestill a change in their daily–lives. being deported daily, families will continue to They are stilla changeconstant in their daily under threatlives. of deportation, families will continue to be torn apart. under constant threat of deportation, a fact that can be used by unscrupulous be torn apart. fact that can used by silent unscrupulous employers to be keep them about employers to keep them silent abuses in the workplace. Theseabout threats are used by bosses to silence abuses in the workplace. These threatsor are usedout by bosses to silence workers when they attempt to organize speak about issues like workers when they and attempt to issues, organize or other speakworkplace out about injustices. issues like wage theft, health safety and wage theft, health and safety issues, other workplace injustices. With over 1,000 people beingand deported daily, families will to beover torn1,000 apart.people being deported daily, families will continueWith continue to be torn apart. It’s immoral that our broken It’s immoral that will our continue broken to allow immigration policy Permanent immigration immigration will continue these things policy to happen. We needtotoallow Permanent immigration reform will not just these things to happen. need to continue to strive towardWe a long-term, reform will not just empower undocumented continue strive toward a long-term, legislativetosolution that will outlive the empower undocumented immigrants, it will help legislative solution will outlive theIt’s effectiveness of an that executive action. immigrants, it will help all working people. effectiveness ofCongress an executive action. It’s imperative that finally tackles all working people. imperative that and Congress this issue once for all,finally and tackles issue once and for all, andmembers establishes a path to citizenship this for the millions of productive establishes a path to citizenship of productive members who are now forcedfor to the livemillions in the shadows. of our society who are now forcedreform to livewill in the of our society Permanent immigration notshadows. just empower Permanent immigration reform will not justpeople empower undocumented immigrants. It will help all working in the U.S. undocumented immigrants. It will help all working people the U.S. build strength. Newly documented workers may feel more in comfortable build strength. documented workers mayStronger feel moreunions comfortable speaking up forNewly their rights and joining unions. and speakingexploitation up for their of rights and joining unions. Stronger and reduced immigrant workers can help raiseunions working reduced exploitation of immigrant workers can help raise working standards for everyone. standards forRWDSU everyone. The stands with immigrant workers regardless of their with immigrant workers their The RWDSU documentation statusstands and will continue to work with regardless immigrant of activists documentation statusare andprotected. will continue to work immigrant activists to ensure their rights We will help with assist undocumented to ensureintheir rights are We will help assistunder undocumented workers the process of protected. applying for documentation the workers in the process of applying for documentation under the executive action, and we’ll keep fighting for comprehensive, legislative executive action, andItwe’ll keepmake fighting forus comprehensive, legislative immigration reform. will help all of immigration reform. It will help make all of us stronger. stronger.
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city & state — December 11, 2014
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For more information, visit For more information, visit
www.rwdsu.org www.rwdsu.org
centers; and pay for two upstate parent representation offices. Leahy’s total FY 2015–16 budget request is $35.5 million. THE CONCERNS Wesley Roe, Schuyler County’s public defender, is cautiously optimistic about the settlement. “A lot is going to depend on whether the state delivers—as in money. Everything has to do with money,” said Roe. NYSDA’s Jonathan Gradess echoed that sentiment. “Everything that drives quality in public defense is money.” Leanne Lapp, Ontario County’s public defender, sent a reporter a statement saying, “[I]n no event shall the five named counties be obligated to undertake any steps to implement the State’s obligations under said agreement until funds have been appropriated by the State.” In other words, Show me the money. Another concern among attorneys working in public defense is that the funding stream for the settlement has not been identified. “That’s the $64,000 question,” said Gradess. “I think it has to be out of the general fund and the governor’s budget.” Public defenders in counties not party to the settlement have their own worries. Jill Paperno, the second assistant public defender in Monroe County, wondered if the settlement might be
drawn from money “previously shared by indigent defense counsel in the state’s other 57 counties.” When asked about Paperno’s concerns, William Leahy replied, “I can reassure her … that no county’s funding from our office is going to diminish. We will maintain the level of funding. We will not siphon funding away.” Corey Stoughton of the NYCLU sees the funding issue in starker terms. “The right to counsel isn’t a right to a certain amount of money,” she argues. “We are focused on making sure the outcomes happen. And the state’s responsibility is to make sure the dollars are there to get the outcomes.” Leahy agrees with Stoughton and Gradess that the state must invest in all upstate counties, not just the five named in the settlement. “We are working hard to persuade the executive and legislative branches that all tides must rise,” he said. “It can’t just be an isolated county here or there that benefits from the settlement.” To what degree the Cuomo administration has been convinced will be seen in the soon-to-be-released executive budget.
Susan Arbetter (@sarbetter on Twitter) is the Emmy award-winning news director for WCNY Syracuse PBS/NPR, and producer/host of the Capitol Pressroom syndicated radio program. cit yandstateny.com
B U F FA LO
TOWERING OBSTACLE
WITH A 94 PERCENT VACANCY RATE, ONE SENECA TOWER STANDS ON SHAKY GROUND AMID AN ECONOMIC BOOM By CHRIS THOMPSON
I
cit yandstateny.com
11 HAUGH PHOTOGRAPHY
The Pegula’s development of HarborCenter has sparked talk of further development in downtown Buffalo including One Seneca Tower. When the lease expires, many expect that rather than leave town, the couple will try to build a new stadium on the waterfront, not far from the Sabres’ arena. This, combined with the Sabres, HarborCenter and the constellation of food pavilions, parks, and concert space being built around the Erie Canal, could turn this stretch of Buffalo waterfront into a new recreational destination spot. But One Seneca Tower still stands between connecting downtown and the waterfront. At 40 stories, it is the tallest privately owned building in New York State outside of New York City. The building is, frankly, a rather ugly example of modernist architecture, but it was for more than 40 years at least a functioning office complex. But in 2013 the tower’s two largest tenants— the financial company HSBC and the law firm Phillips Lytle—moved out of the building. This exodus, combined with the departure of Capital One
Financial and the Canadian Consulate, left One Seneca Tower with a 94 percent vacancy rate. The owner, Seneca One Realty LLC, lost a vast amount of revenue and still faces nearly $75 million in mortgage debt. In January their lenders foreclosed on the property. “The writing was kind of on the wall when both leases were set to expire,” said Pyramid Brokerage Senior Director Richard Schecter, who was appointed the receiver for the building. Despite the disappearance of more than 750,000 square feet worth of office tenants, many Buffalo boosters insist that the hollowing out of the district’s largest building has done nothing to spoil downtown’s economic momentum. “From where I sit, this is the most interesting time for downtown Buffalo,” said Mike Schmand, executive director of Buffalo Place, the organization that oversees downtown’s business improvement district. “Even
though the Seneca Tower is the biggest building downtown, take a look at all the smaller projects the private sector is investing in downtown Buffalo. … Other than the fact that we’ve lost 3,000 jobs, we haven’t felt a lot of impact on the other office spaces.” Adam Perry, a partner with the nearby law firm Hodgson Russ, agrees. “Buffalo is getting over its insecurity about things like the [One Seneca] Tower,” he said. “There’s a feeling here that things are going to work out. The right solution will come. Downtown Buffalo will develop.” Not everyone is so sanguine. According to a report published by the Urban Land Institute last year, the vacancies at One Seneca Tower are almost guaranteed to have a depressive effect on the downtown economy. “A potential of 740,000 square feet of vacant office space in the downtown Buffalo market would have dramatic effects on the market values, which are
city & state — December 11, 2014
n the last few years, downtown Buffalo has undergone a renaissance that no one could have expected 10 years ago—largely due to international trade with the Toronto metropolitan area, a burgeoning medical research district and, soon, the $5 billion clean energy project known as SolarCity. But so far, nobody has done more singlehandedly to revitalize downtown Buffalo than Kim and Terry Pegula, the hydrofracking magnates who have spent more than $1 billion as part of an effort to create a complex and integrated sports and entertainment campus near the terminus of the Erie Canal. For a city that has long been preoccupied with failure and disappointment, this is what you might call a godsend. The Pegulas unexpectedly arrived in Buffalo a few years ago and started investing at a pace that astonished local leaders. And now some of them entertain the hope that the couple will spend just a little bit more to reinvent the tallest building and biggest blight in downtown Buffalo: One Seneca Tower. It is hard to understate the effect the Pegulas have had on the city’s economy and sports identity. In 2011 the couple bought the Buffalo Sabres for $165 million, at a time when analysts worried that many hockey teams were losing money and looking for new investors. In 2013 the pair began construction of HarborCenter, a complex of restaurants and a Marriott Hotel, anchored by two ice rinks that will host games by the NCAA’s Canisius College Griffins and the Buffalo Jr. Sabres. On Oct. 31 the Griffins and the Ohio State Buckeyes opened HarborCenter with its first game. But the Pegulas’ largest investment in Buffalo came in September, when they bought the Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion. The Bills are locked into a lease that commits them to play at Ralph Wilson Stadium through 2023, although the Pegulas could buy their way out of the lease starting in 2020.
B U F FA LO
already barely sufficient to cover the costs of development,” the report’s authors wrote. “The potential exists for undermining the economic viability of other office projects and threatening the nascent downtown revitalization efforts.” In that same report, the ULI recommended a radical repurposing of One Seneca Tower. Using the building exclusively as an office complex is simply impossible, the authors concluded—the Buffalo office market is already glutted, and the building could never command sustainable office rents. Instead the ULI recommended repurposing the building into a mixed-use complex, with a combination of hotels, limited office space and luxury condominiums. This idea has caught on with many of Buffalo’s most important
business leaders. Howard Zemsky, the managing partner of Larkin Development, who rehabbed the old Larkin Soap factory into a similar mixed-use project, thinks it is a grand idea. “I can imagine that as a fabulous transit-oriented development,” Zemsky said. “I don’t think we could have imagined that 10 years ago, but in 2014 it’s hard not to imagine that. … The potential uses for that building [are] broader than at any time in recent history. When you think about the proximity to Canalside and Larkinville, the light rail running nearby and all the views. … The demand for residential downtown Buffalo is very high.” But then there is the project’s potential cost. Recently One Seneca Tower’s value was downgraded to a mere $22 million, far below the $89 million it was valued at a few years
back. Even so, Zemsky estimates that the cost of buying the building, repairing its aging, dilapidated infrastructure, and reconfiguring it for mixed-use purposes would come to roughly $100 million. Factoring in the public financial help that is like to come with the project, that is still a hefty chunk of change. That is where the Pegulas come in. Pegula Sports and Entertainment, the company created to oversee the family’s sports franchises and entertainment venues, is one of the last remaining tenants in One Seneca Tower. And in August, Buffalo Business First reporter James Fink reported on rumors within development circles that the Pegulas were interested in buying the building. According to James Sandoro, who operates the nearby Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum,
the couple could be interested in buying the building for the parking alone. One Seneca Tower is an easy walk to HarborCenter and the Sabres games, and the additional parking could be a windfall. “If I were the Pegulas, I would have to think that this would be something that would be interesting,” Sandoro said. “There are 1,400 spaces that could be used immediately.” But for now, this is mostly idle speculation, if not a bit of wishful thinking. According to Schecter, the foreclosure proceedings will drag on for months, and the building will be in limbo until the proceedings are complete. Kim and Terry Pegula have spent so much money in Buffalo that their names dazzle like magic runes. They have saved so many of Buffalo’s institutions. Could they come through one more time?
THE BIG DEVELOPERS IN TOWN By CHRIS THOMPSON
city & state — December 11, 2014
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ith so much economic dynamism in Buffalo’s downtown core, and with so many generous tax breaks provided to developers by the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, who could blame companies from outside the city for wanting to join the party? In early November, officials with the Ohio-based developer Miller Valentine Group announced they were interested in buying the old A&P Warehouse and convert it into 120 units of housing, as well as indoor parking. This is one of the first times an outside developer has hinted at competing with Buffalo’s long-established cadre of local developers, but it won’t be the last. Here’s a brief list of some of the most prominent developers active in Buffalo.
Although developer Carl Paladino manages roughly 1.5 million square feet in downtown office space, his focus has lately shifted to mixed-use projects. Ellicott has gone on something of a buying spree, purchasing old industrial buildings in the downtown area and converting the interiors into restaurant space on the ground floor, with a mix of offices and luxury loft apartments above. His current projects include rehabbing the old 8-story building that once housed the Fairmont Creamery Company, the site of a school for children with disabilities, and an old tobacco warehouse. He’s even bought a church.
The company branched out from its origins in manufacturing and warehouses to build roughly 30 office and industrial parks, most of which have been located in more suburban areas. But lately, Uniland has begun focusing back on downtown. In 2009, it opened the Avant, a mix of luxury condos, office space, and a hotel. Currently, Uniland is building a twelvestory office and hotel/convention center complex at 250 Delaware Avenue. The building will serve as the headquarters of the food and hospitality conglomerate Delaware North Companies and offer 80,000 square feet of additional office space — alarming many local critics who argue that downtown already suffers from a glut of office space and definitely doesn’t need another hotel.
These two brothers have created an interesting parnership together. Lou Ciminelli runs the construction and contracting side of their business at LP Ciminelli, where he has overseen some of Buffalo’s most lucrative government construction projects in recent years. LPCiminelli took the lead on the publiclyfunded $130 million project to upgrade the Buffalo Bills’s Ralph Wilson Stadium, for example, and is currently responsible for building SolarCity’s RiverBend manufacturing and research facilities. Meanwhile, Paul Ciminelli heads the developer side of their enterprise; as LP Ciminelli was contracted to build key facilities on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Paul Ciminelli’s Ciminelli Real Estate Corp. is building Conventus, a $100 million medical office complex where many of the campus’ administrative functions will be located.
that Buffalo’s rental market was so cold for so many years. Termini soon focused on painstakingly renovating landmark buildings that had succumbed to neglect during Buffalo’s hard times. His crowning achievement has been the restoration of the Lafayette Hotel, a seven-story Art Moderne hotel that at one point had been reduced to serving as a flophouse for the indigent.
Developer Howard Zemsky has been a leader in the push to convert Buffalo’s industrial buildings into mixed-use complexes, and other developers have followed his lead. His signature project is Larkinville, the site of the old Larkin Soap Company that had lain dormant and crumbling for decades. Zemsky modernized the office interior, but also created a concert and restaurant space on the grounds outside the building, sparking new public and social life on what used to be abandoned industrial land.
Signature CEO Rocco Termini realized the potential in converting moribund downtown warehouses and factories into housing, but was hamstrung by the fact
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BREAKING THROUGH:
KEYS TO EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY By GABE PONCE DE LÉON
“A
lot of folks tweeting on a subject can suddenly launch a revolution in parts of the world, but if you’re trying to change policy at the state and local level, it’s about more than just having a hashtag,” said Evan Stavisky, a partner at the Parkside Group, kicking off City & State’s “Art of Advocacy” event. In two panel discussions, leading media and non-profit strategists explained exactly how, in a digital age, such advocacy campaigns play out.
Doug Sauer from New York Council of Nonprofits
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“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Michael Woloz, a principal at Connelly, McLaughlin & Woloz, about new digital technologies that hold as much promise as peril and are as fast-moving as they are unforgiving. While in the past the media landscape was dominated by just a handful of outlets, Woloz told the audience that advocacy campaigns are now more exciting. “There are so many interesting, creative ways,” he said, “to get your message out through third parties.” Just as the panelists agreed that social media has become essential to advocacy, they repeatedly stressed the importance of assembling the right team to manage it. “People can blast this stuff out ad nauseam,” said Antonio Ortolani, director of Brunswick Group. “If you are going to say something, make sure it has impact.” It was noted several times throughout the discussion that digital platforms now provide hard data where users previously relied on guesswork. Strategists often analyze data to single out the wielders of real influence, but sometimes the key, Ortolani pointed out, is actually to zero in on that small fish whose ideas influence a big fish—and who is often far easier
for lawmakers in Albany, Duffy observed that the most successful non-profit advocates were “very in tune with the decision-maker they were sitting in front of, and came up with ways to personalize [their pitch] and get them invested.” The advocates made sure to ask questions like “How do you run that program in their district?” and “How do you service the constituents for that elected?” she recalled. Dr. William Weisberg, executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Children’s Aid Society, recounted early career setbacks in dealing with elected officials, when he would think: How could anyone not support after-school programs
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Walter Swett (left) and Margaret Kennedy (right) were among the hundreds in attendance.
Quintana O’Neill from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce
for children? As time passed, Weisberg came to understand the importance of establishing a feedback loop, realizing that it was essential to ask what was favorable for the officials, and what support they needed. According to Duffy, elected officials appreciate the role of non-profits, and genuinely want to help out. No matter how brilliant your strategy, she conceded, there is no guarantee of success. “This is politics,” Duffy said, “and unfortunately decisions are made as much on politics as they are on the merits of the issue. It’s unfortunate, but it’s reality.”
city & state — December 11, 2014
Advocacy experts discussed ways to stand out among decision-makers at the event sponsored by The Parkside Group, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and Connelly McLaughlin & Woloz.
to reach. In that way it is possible to get your “viewpoint rerouted through a third party,” he said. In other instances, however, data is better deployed to identify those general Internet users who are most engaged with a particular issue, Stavisky noted, to build a constituency that can be returned to again and again. The emphasis shifted from the power of digital data to that of the human touch in the event’s second panel, Power of Non-profits. “I am more a believer in back to the basics, no-frills campaigns,” said Taryn Duffy, director of public affairs at Empire City Casino and principal at TSD Strategies. During her 15 years working
BEHIND THE SNOW 14
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz (right) and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (center) oversaw the relief effort to counter Winter Storm Knife.
city & state — December 11, 2014
By CHRIS THOMPSON
B
y the third day of Winter Storm Knife, the worst blizzard Western New York had experienced since 1977, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz had cumulatively gotten some four hours of sleep since the first flake had fallen. As the storm grew progressively more fierce—seeing the weather pattern on a map, Poloncarz had remarked that
its shape resembled a “knife,” and the name caught on with television stations, which appreciated the evocative image—the county executive had been frantically trying to find a way to keep the main roads in the area clear enough to drive, even though hundreds of abandoned cars lined the streets, stuck in five feet of snow. At the same time, Poloncarz was balancing the responsibility of providing the public up-to-date information about the crisis with coordinating an army
of government employees and relief workers to provide food and medicine to the county’s most vulnerable residents. “I felt bad for the guy,” said Patrick Burke, a Democrat who represents in the Erie County Legislature the district that was most snowbound. “He looked terrible. But he kept working through it the whole way through. He was one of the electeds who really worked at it. Just doing the grunt work. There was no glamour in it. It was just an
exhausting process. … I think he was fantastic.” Exhausted and pushed to his limits, Poloncarz was wrung out when he got the news that the Buffalo Bills were intending to go forward with playing their scheduled home game against the New York Jets, and something inside him snapped. It seemed inconceivable: The Bills were essentially inciting their fans to violate the driving bans he and other civic leaders had put in place as a safety measure, by publicizing an offer cit yandstateny.com
On the third day of the storm, Gov. Cuomo flew to Erie County and stayed until the crisis had passed. the plaudits he received for his role in digging South Buffalo out from the snow. But according to on- and off-therecord interviews conducted by City & State with more than a dozen local leaders and public officials from both parties, it was Poloncarz who really deserves the most credit for holding Erie County together in the direst of circumstances. “It was remarkable, the government response,” said Erie County Legislator Kevin Hardwick, a Republican. “Especially the county. The executive struck the right tone. He was unambiguous.” How did Poloncarz pull off such a feat of emergency management? What lessons might other officials benefit from to deal with future catastrophes? City & State met with the executive in his office on the 16th floor of the Rath Building in downtown Buffalo,
More than anyone else, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz held the county together under the direst of circumstances. cit yandstateny.com
and asked him to share, moment by moment, the problems the storm hurled at him, and what he did to solve them.
CALM BEFORE THE STORM Growing up in the Erie County city of Lackawanna, and having spent most of his life in Buffalo, Poloncarz is no stranger to winter storms. Indeed, before Knife hit, the executive had already dug the county out of two blizzards that same year. So when, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 16, he got a warning from the National Weather Service that a storm was going to drop two or three feet of snow on the region the following day, he took the report in stride. He assembled all of his emergency staff in a meeting the next day at noon, opened an emergency operations center in the town of Cheektowaga, and sent out a fleet of 40 trucks to salt the main county roads. Meanwhile, the media began calling his office, nervously asking how bad the storm would be and how the county was preparing for it. Poloncarz arranged a press conference for 4 p.m., but just minutes before he was to address the media, he received a follow-up from the National Weather Service. “I know the exact time,” Poloncarz says: “At 3:53, we got a new warning
… that said the snow, which is going to start falling at 5 o’clock, could now be falling at up to three to five inches an hour, and we’re not exactly certain where it’s going to go.” Immediately Poloncarz understood he was about to be hit with a significantly bigger challenge than he had anticipated. After the press conference was over, he instructed all his staff to go home and make sure they got a good night’s sleep. Not following his own advice, he chose to remain behind at the office. The snow arrived right on time, quickly draping the county in white. By midnight, Poloncarz knew that the storm had hit with a vengeance. His office started getting reports of road closures and travel advisories. New York State shut down U.S. Route 219 and New York State Route 400. At 2:30 a.m., the Thruway was closed. Still, the situation was not quite a disaster—at least not yet. “Through 6, 6:30 in the morning, we had most of the major routes clear,” Poloncarz says. “By then there were driving bans in place. … Then people started driving to work. They couldn’t leave the areas where it was snowing, ’cause they were getting so much snow. … But the major routes got clogged up as people started driving into the area.” The heavy truck traffic became a particular mess. When state officials closed the Thruway, dozens of trucks
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to give $10 an hour and free tickets to the game to anyone who came down to Ralph Wilson Stadium to help shovel it out. Poloncarz, who said he has a “good relationship” with the team, suspected that the National Football League was responsible for pressuring the Bills to keep the game on, so he decided to do some blocking and tackling on his own. At a press conference early the next morning, he deviated from his usual admonitions—advice along the lines of “Check up on your senior citizen neighbors” and “Make sure your natural gas heater is not backing up carbon monoxide into your house”—to denounce the NFL in no uncertain terms. “The NFL is a business. It’s as simple as that, folks. … If the NFL is trying to push the Bills to hold a football game while we’re in the middle of an emergency, shame on the NFL. “We’ve had eight deaths,” Poloncarz continued. “We still might have people in their vehicles. We’ve had roofs collapsing. We were just touring a facility where there were a couple hundred patients at a nursing home where there was seven feet of snow, with another two feet potential, on a flat roof. … Shame on the NFL!” Later that day, facing additional pressure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had called the notion of going forward with the game “impractical,” the NFL quietly moved the game to Detroit. Much has been made of Gov. Cuomo’s hands-on approach to Winter Storm Knife, which riveted the nation with its seven-foot-high snowdrifts and extraordinary images of buildings and cars rendered practically unrecognizable by a gargantuan blanket of white, and by practically all accounts—other than his dustup with Al Roker and a host of meteorologists over how much warning the National Weather Service had provided about the storm’s severity—the governor handled the blizzard exemplarily. Mayor Byron Brown also earned
Duffy, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, declared the staff and equipment provided by DOT of historic scope. “Under the governor’s direction at the start of the lake effect storm, NYSDOT and other state agencies made an unprecedented commitment of equipment and manpower to Western New York specifically to help localities respond,” Duffy says. “The Department deployed all available resources from other regions of the state before the storm, and continued to aid localities and was in constant close contact with the localities throughout the entire process.”
THE SECOND BLAST
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Despite the closure of the Thruway, dozens of heavy trucks were stranded in the snow. driving up from Pennsylvania simply rerouted over to NY 5 and US 20 and kept trying to push on toward Buffalo. They promptly got stuck in the snow. Countless numbers of stranded semis began to clog a major road, blocking access even to the plows needed to free them. Similar scenes would play out across the area. Within one 24-hour period, roughly 1,000 vehicles were abandoned on roads all over the county. By the time the storm came to an end, Erie County officials had towed more than 800 vehicles. Poloncarz first saw the extent of the crisis with his own eyes from a car en route to the county’s emergency operations center. As he and a staffer drove south, they plunged into deeper and deeper snow. Calling ahead to the operations center for a status report, he was told not to bother coming: Abandoned cars were cutting off all the access roads to the center. A glum Poloncarz had no choice but
to turn around and head back to his office in Buffalo. Upon his return, Poloncarz formally declared a state of emergency for the impacted sections of the county. (Later that day Gov. Cuomo would declare a state of emergency for all of Western New York.) The declaration expanded Poloncarz’s executive powers, and he immediately used this new authority to order driving bans on all of the county roads affected by the storm. Consulting with his highway and public works commissioners, he learned that the county did not have enough trucks and plows to deal with a blizzard of such magnitude, so he used his emergency powers to contract with a legion of private tow truck and snowplow companies to provide reinforcements—a decision he would not normally have been able to make without the approval of the county Legislature. “At that point, we knew we were in over our heads,” Poloncarz recalled,
“so I called the governor and requested that he mobilize the National Guard. I said, ‘Governor, I wouldn’t ask for it unless I need[ed] it.’” Poloncarz had another request for Gov. Cuomo. The county executive had already asked the state Department of Transportation for as much help as it could spare to battle the blizzard, but the DOT had not been particularly responsive. “Sometimes dealing with state agencies isn’t easy,” Poloncarz noted. “I told [the governor] on Wednesday night that we were having a problem getting the resources we need from the Department of Transportation. I know they need to work on their roads. But you’re bringing in hundreds of additional pieces of equipment. We could use some of that elsewhere. And the governor said, ‘I’ll fix this.’ ” Swiftly thereafter, according to Poloncarz, the governor made good on his word. Presented with the executive’s account of what transpired, Beau
By the end of Tuesday, the situation had started to turn around. A road to the operations center had been cleared, and Poloncarz and some of his staff were finally able to drive to the center and centralize emergency efforts. But a new question had arisen: where to put all the snow that was being removed? Poloncarz worked the phones, signing short-term leases with major businesses to let the county unload the snow in their parking lots. He even dumped piles of snow in the old Seneca mall. On Wednesday Erie County caught a bit of a break. The storm had moved north, giving the hard-hit southern part of the county, which now lay buried underneath as much as four feet of snow, a respite of about eight hours. The cities were still essentially paralyzed, of course. According to Mike Schmand, the executive director of the not-for-profit business improvement organization Buffalo Place, downtown Buffalo was virtually empty. Many of the corporate businesses in the area were not particularly hard hit because their employees could work from home, but for the sandwich shops, the restaurants and the parking lots that depend upon that clientele, the losses were profound. Their situation was made all the worse by the fact that many of the lower-income people who work in those establishments live in the Southtowns, a suburb of Buffalo so ravaged by the storm that many of its residents were shut in at their homes. And then Poloncarz got the news: Gov. Cuomo was flying in to Buffalo to personally take stock of the situation. Upon arriving, the governor asked Poloncarz if he could tour the areas hardest hit by the storm. Poloncarz explained that there was no way to safely access them; Cuomo would have cit yandstateny.com
to settle for visiting the operations center and reviewing whether the state and county agencies were working together effectively. The first reports of deaths started trickling in. A man trapped in his car had died of exposure. Most of the other fatalities were seniors who had suffered heart attacks from the exertion of trying to dig their way out of their homes. Poloncarz was so alarmed that he called his 71-year-old father, who still lives in Lackawanna, and cautioned him to stay far away from his snow shovel. Initially Poloncarz was told the governor would fly back to Albany at the end of the day. When Cuomo saw the full extent of the damage, however, he decided to remain in Buffalo to personally ensure the disaster was dealt with properly. (Poloncarz says a rumor that Cuomo secretly flew back to Albany every night is false; the governor stayed at the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel.) Meanwhile, the National Guard started arriving. Eventually 400 guardsmen would be on the scene—bringing with them 40 pieces of snow equipment. That night, the storm returned to the Southtowns and pummeled the area with another two feet of snow. Still, the road crews had been able to clear a good number of the main thoroughfares before the second round of the storm, so the next morning Poloncarz, who had been operating on a few hours of sleep a night, finally got a chance to tour the hardest hit areas. “It was bad. It really was bad,” he recalled. “Seven feet of snow. Where you were moving the snow it was seven feet on top of five or six feet where they were pushing it, so you had 12 feet of snow. … We took a tour of the Thruway and saw dozens and dozens of abandoned tractor-trailers and vehicles. You wouldn’t recognize there was a vehicle there. It just looked like a big snowdrift.” Once more officials had to triage, prioritizing which roads they had to clear all over again. The state went to work on US 219, Interstate 90, and the cit yandstateny.com
Thruway, while the county focused on roads around medical centers before moving on to the main local roads, and finally the residential streets. Beginning on Wednesday, a number of panicked leaders of southern Erie County municipalities began to call Poloncarz, begging for assistance. Where was the county when they needed it? they asked, claiming they did not have the resources to deal with the crisis. These grievances got Poloncarz’s back up: In fact, the county did have a system in place to help small towns and villages. Known as the Disaster Local Access Network (DLAN), the system is an Internet communication network designed to help local official inform the county about what they need and where they need help the most. Yet according to Poloncarz, many town leaders never signed up for the network— or never used it during the storm despite Poloncarz’s previous public recommendations that they learn how
Poloncarz kept a panicky public up-to-date with two press conferences every day.
did not return repeated requests for comment for this story but a number of Southtowns’ highway superintendents have told The Buffalo News that the DLAN system does not work very well, and that the county was simply too slow in getting around to helping them. In addition, Walters and Ballowe are reportedly considering the possibility of setting up their own system to coordinate snowplowing resources in the future.
WEAK LINK? While all this squabbling was going on, the basic, plodding work of clearing the roads continued. Eventually state and county officials worked out an efficient strategy for tackling the complex problems posed by snowdrifts taller than basketball players and roadways littered with abandoned vehicles. First, workers pushed the abandoned vehicles as far from the center of the blockaded roads as they could. That effort opened up an empty expanse in the middle of the roads, which was then plowed, creating a single working lane. Next, tow trucks would drive in and haul off the abandoned cars to holding areas, enabling snowplows to come in and deal with the rest of the snow. It was monotonous, repetitive work that went on and on. But it worked. Over the next few days, all the driving bans
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city & state — December 11, 2014
“You wouldn’t recognize there was a vehicle there. It just looked like a big snowdrift.”
to do so. “Town supervisors on Wednesday, village mayors, city mayors, were like, ‘We don’t know what to do! We can’t handle this!’ ” Poloncarz recounted. “I said, ‘Have you hired contractors? Are you using our countywide DLAN system to report what you need? Are you participating in our conference calls?’ And some were and others were not. … The town of Boston [and] the town of Hamburg never used our DLAN disaster system once during the storm. The town of Orchard Park didn’t at first, but then it did, and they started getting equipment.” David Rood, the acting mayor of Orchard Park since John Wilson’s sudden death on Nov. 5; Steven Walters, supervisor of the town of Hamburg; and Martin Ballowe, the town of Boston’s supervisor, are all Republicans. But Poloncarz also criticized his fellow Democrat Geoffrey Szymanski, the mayor of Lackawanna, for his response to the storm. “We didn’t hear anything from [Lackawanna] for the first 24 hours or so. They weren’t using the DLAN system. I finally called … Szymanski, and said, ‘Who’s your emergency manager running the show there other than yourself?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, my emergency manager retired a month ago.’ ‘Have you appointed a new emergency manager?’ He says, ‘No, I haven’t.’ ” Szymanski, Walters and Ballowe
city & state — December 11, 2014
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in Erie County were lifted. New York City residents who endured the Bloomberg administration’s botched response to a December 2010 blizzard that paralyzed outer borough streets for days after the storm understand only too well that the rapid, thorough and tireless response to Winter Storm Knife pulled off by Erie County in conjunction with the state was not a given. At the time the storm first really blasted into Western New York around midnight on Nov. 18, Poloncarz’s emergency management team consisted of eight people, all of whom were trapped in the county’s emergency operations center by a wall of snow. Four days later hundreds of National Guardsmen were on the streets. Hundreds more county workers and state DOT employees were working the snowplows. The Niagara County sheriff dispatched his team to the storm-ravaged areas to hand-deliver food and medicine to shut-ins. Over at Poloncarz’s ops center, senior state transportation officials swarmed about, coordinating with their county counterparts, while the governor stood watch in a corner of the room. Only one relevant official never seemed to be present or particularly engaged in addressing the crisis, Poloncarz notes: Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard, a Republican with whom Poloncarz has butted heads in the past. While careful to single out Howard’s undersheriff, Mark Wipperman, for praise, Poloncarz made clear in his remarks about Howard how he felt the sheriff himself had handled the storm. Howard had been snowed in for the first two days of the storm, Poloncarz acknowledged, carefully noting that he had seen the sheriff once or twice during the crisis. Asked directly if he was disappointed in Howard’s performance, however, Poloncarz answered pointedly. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen this. But the sheriff and I get along. I just wish he was there more often.” Responding to Poloncarz’s comments, Howard spokesman Scott Zylka said, “The sheriff was snowed in Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and the undersheriff assumed command for emergency management. The sheriff himself did come to the sheriff’s office Wednesday and Thursday to handle the jail management division. We have about 1,200 inmates. We had some of
By the end of the storm, Poloncarz had 400 National Guardsmen assisting the county.
the same problems that other people had: getting food to the inmates. Somebody still had to conduct the day-to-day operations of the sheriff’s office. And when the sheriff did have some spare time, he went out of his way to deliver food to Meals on Wheels clients. We just didn’t make a press release out of that.”
THE AFTERMATH Once the snow had finally stopped, and the roads were clear enough for life in southern Erie County to largely return to normal, there was one last crisis with which to grapple, and it arose in the space of 24 hours: flooding. The weather in the region in November is generally too warm for a mountain of snow to melt gradually, and sure enough, the weekend forecast predicted that the temperature would spike to above 50 degrees. All that snow was going melt, and the resulting water would have to go somewhere. After the blizzard in January of this year, Erie County had experienced severe flooding along Buffalo and Cazenovia creeks, so officials had a strong sense of where to refocus their response. The extraordinary arsenal of equipment marshaled to battle the blizzard would be of no use in taking on a deluge of water. According to Poloncarz, Gov. Cuomo turned on a dime to mobilize an entirely new genus of emergency equipment: generators, pumps, boats and 100,000 sandbags. Prisoners from the nearby Wende Correctional Facility were brought in to fill the sandbags. County sewer workers
dismantled their own pumps and raced in to have them at the ready. The only thing left to do was wait for the snow to melt. All through Saturday and Sunday, a legion of workers waited at the ready. While hundreds of prisoners and county employees sat on the banks of the creeks, the historic volume of snow, plus six inches of rain that fell over the weekend, gushed harmlessly down into the storm drains. Just like that, the worst blizzard in 37 years washed away without further incident. It was all over except the accounting. Thirteen people had died. Erie County had spent roughly $7.5 million fighting the storm, much of it in hiring private tow truck and snowplow companies. Hundreds of abandoned vehicles crowded impromptu impound lots, and the county had to process ownership claims for all of them. The storm had done more than disrupt the lives of thousands of Erie County residents. It had also done damage to many people’s personal finances. Most workers do not get paid if they cannot show up for work. Homes were damaged, and negotiating insurance claims will not be pleasant. Price gougers at gas stations and grocery stores dug deep into panicked residents’ pockets. To address some of these issues, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently announced a comprehensive consumer protection plan. His office sent a letter to local utilities, banks and other creditors, calling on them to temporarily suspend late fees for people caught in the storm.
The AG’s Buffalo regional office has set up an “escalations unit” to advise people on consumer matters, such as which general contractors can be trusted to reputably perform repairs. Schneiderman has also set up a unit to investigate local businesses accused of price gouging. Now that Erie County has put the worst of the storm behind them, officials across the political spectrum marvel at how much more severe the crisis could have been— particularly if Mark Poloncarz had not been in charge. “I thought he did an awesome job,” said Buffalo developer Carl Paladino, the GOP’s 2010 gubernatorial nominee. “He showed great leadership, he was incisive, he kept his head, and I commend him for it. … With Mark, you felt confident that the thing was being solved, and I commend him for it.” Joel Giambra, a Republican who served as Erie County Executive from 2000 to 2007 and led the county’s response to many storms, said that when a crisis of this magnitude hits, you find out pretty quickly whether your leaders are incompetent hacks or solid material. For Giambra there is no question where Poloncarz stands on the spectrum. “I think he handled it admirably,” Giambra said. “He showed leadership, he showed poise under pressure—and believe me, there are a lot of things going on. Being in that command center, being in that epicenter, you either rise to the occasion or you don’t. Mark did.” cit yandstateny.com
CRISIS MANAGEMENT By JON LENTZ
W
henever natural disasters strike or potential crises loom, Gov. Andrew Cuomo plants himself on the front lines, portraying himself as a man in control of the situation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes he goes too far. In the wake of the recent blizzard in Buffalo, here is a rundown of his responses to other high profile emergencies.
HURRICANE IRENE Aug. 28, 2011 Although it was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it made landfall in New York, Hurricane Irene was still the worst storm to strike parts of the state in a generation. New York City dodged the worst of the crisis, while high winds knocked out power on Long Island and heavy rains flooded swaths of upstate New York. Relying on his experience with hurricane recovery as HUD secretary, Cuomo took swift action: declaring a state of emergency three days before the storm, activating hundreds of National Guard troops and dispatching top staff to help local officials on the ground. He cleared his own calendar and traveled to the areas hardest hit, including stops with then-U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
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SUPERSTORM SANDY Superstorm Sandy, which was downgraded from a hurricane before it hammered New York and New Jersey, caused massive flooding and billions of dollars in damage, knocked out power for thousands of New Yorkers and shut down parts of the state for days. Cuomo declared a state of emergency a few days before the storm, on Oct. 26, and announced that he was coordinating statewide preparations and coordinating with federal authorities. Later he shut down the subways in New York City and ordered an evacuation of low-lying areas prone to flooding. After the storm, he viewed the devastation firsthand, and worked with President Barack Obama and the state’s congressional delegation to secure disaster relief. The governor also bashed the state’s power utilities for their haphazard response, although critics argued that he bore some responsibility for the failures of the Long Island Power Authority, which had a number of vacancies he had neglected to fill.
cit yandstateny.com
city & state — December 11, 2014
Oct. 29, 2012
EBOLA
Oct. 23, 2014 Dr. Craig Spencer, who returned to the U.S. after treating Ebola patients in Africa, became the first person to test positive for the virus in New York City. As the city retraced his tracks and began monitoring those with whom Spencer had been in contact, the governor joined Mayor Bill de Blasio at a press conference and reassured residents that New York was prepared to contain the threat of an outbreak. In another press conference, this one with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Cuomo announced that medical workers like Spencer who had been overseas treating Ebola patients would face a mandatory quarantine—but the move brought sharp criticism from the Obama administration, and Cuomo backed down.
city & state — December 11, 2014
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TROPICAL STORM LEE Sept. 7, 2011
Arriving just over a week after Irene, Tropical Storm Lee again flooded upstate with a deluge of rainfall. Cuomo directed state workers during the emergency response effort and traveled to Binghamton, one of the cities hardest hit during the storm.
cit yandstateny.com
SETTING THE AGENDA
SETTING THE AGENDA
GET A HEAD START ON THE 2015 STATE LEGISLATIVE SESSION
cit yandstateny.com
city & state — December 11, 2014
A
s Miguel de Cervantes once said, “To be prepared is half the victory.” For many organizations, advocates and interest groups, by the time the focus shifts to the next year’s legislative agenda in Albany, the top players have already set the priorities and the battle lines have been drawn. So it is with Cervantes’ maxim in mind that City & State presents part 2 of our annual Setting the Agenda special section, an in-depth analysis of the most pressing issues that will be debated in Albany during the 2015 legislative session. Now that the dust has settled from the 2014 elections and the balance of power in the Capitol is becoming clearer, we launch this substantive conversation with legislators well before the policy debates are overshadowed by political posturing and spin, the rush to pass a state budget and a flurry of last-minute deal-making. We have also reviewed the notable achievements and failures of the past session, and invited leading advocates to stake out their ground for next year’s legislative showdowns. In this issue and our previous one, we profile a number of the top policy areas that state lawmakers and the Cuomo administration will be grappling with in 2015. This second installment covers infrastructure, organized labor, insurance and good government. We delve into timely questions—from the ways that the state might spend its multi-billion-dollar surplus to how progressive legislation like the Women’s Equality Act, the DREAM Act and a minimum wage hike will fare in the face of a resurgent Republican majority in the state Senate. The 2015 session will be here before you know it. Get ready.
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SETTING THE AGENDA
TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE BY ASHLEY HUPFL
WHAT GOT DONE IN 2014
WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA
• State taking over downstate airport projects • Construction on new Tappan Zee Bridge continues
• Spending bank settlement funds on infrastructure • Funding the MTA capital plan • Renewal of design-build legislation
O
city & state — December 11, 2014
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ne of Albany’s top priorities every year is securing sufficient funding to help fix the state’s crumbling roads, bridges and tunnels. But there will be a new wrinkle in the scramble for capital during the 2015 legislative session. As Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers mull how best to spend the state’s $5 billion windfall from bank settlements, perhaps the loudest call has been to invest the money in the state’s infrastructure and transportation systems. “New York, very much like the majority of the Northeast, has a lot of roads, bridges and, really, a good transportation system, but it is aging and very much in need of resources,” state Sen. Joseph Robach, the chair of the state Senate Transportation Committee, said. “So, certainly as transportation chairman, but even prior to that, trying to get adequate resources in place is always a priority.” Robach said his goals for the 2015 legislative session are to increase the federal government’s funding for roadway and bridge maintenance and negotiate more reliable funding for the future. “The money they have historically given back to the state needs to get re-upped and that’s been diminishing for a good reason: because it’s based on the amount of fuel used, [known as] “fuel tax,” which is going down because of more fuel-efficient cars, car conservation and efforts to promote mass transit, [all of which] have reduced the carbon footprint,” Robach said. He said he would like to negotiate
a different mechanism of funding with the federal government. Several state lawmakers have said the one-time settlement money should be invested to help boost long-term projects. Robach believes investing the settlement money smartly could fix infrastructure issues for 10 to 30 years and provide construction jobs at the same time. Cuomo has also suggested using the settlement money to help improve the state’s infrastructure, with the money to be distributed through a new infrastructure bank.
Despite growing support for investing the funds in state infrastructure, state Sen. Carl Marcellino urged caution. “[The settlement money] cannot be treated like ongoing revenue,” said Marcellino, chair of the state Senate Committee on Infrastructure and Capital Investment. “[Fixing the state’s infrastructure] is a big job, and the cost is going to be a lot. I don’t want to estimate the cost because there’s no way to do that right now, but that $5 billion is a drop in the bucket. So when people start to say, ‘Well, we need a billion too’—well, yeah, we all need a billion, and cutting up that pie has to be looked at carefully.” Marcellino believes some of the settlement money should help pay for the $3.9 billion project to replace the aging Tappan Zee Bridge. The Cuomo administration has been mum on how the state will pay for the reconstruction
of the bridge, and it is still unclear if commuters will face a large toll increase to help pay for the cost. New Yorkers could also face higher tolls and fares from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $15 billion funding gap in its five-year capital plan. Robach and Marcellino both noted the funding gap as a major issue facing the MTA, which is headed by Tom Prendergast. “That’s something we have to look at and work with Mr. Prendergast [to address] and make sure he’s done everything he can do to generate as much money as they can generate,” Marcellino said. “They own a lot of property. We have to make sure the buildings and structures that they own are being utilized and have a future.” As Infrastructure and Capital Investment chair, Marcellino also oversees the airports in downstate New York. During his 2014 State of the
A major concern during the 2015 legislative session will be the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $15 billion funding gap in its fiveyear capital plan, which some lawmakers believe will lead to higher fares and tolls. cit yandstateny.com
city & state — November 04, 2014
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cit yandstateny.com
SETTING THE AGENDA
WHO WE ARE Louis J. Coletti President & CEO
• The Building Trades Employers’ Association represents 28 union contractor trade associations made up of 2,000 union construction managers, general contractors and specialty trade contractors doing business in the city, employing 100,000 skilled Building & Construction Trade Council members.
State address, the governor announced he would wrest control of the thenstalled renovation projects at JFK and LaGuardia airports from the Port Authority and place them under the command of the his administration. In October Cuomo announced a design competition to upgrade both airports. The state will also need to continue to oversee the bidding process for the plans and construction work, Marcellino said. “It’s a big project, and we’ve got a lot of priorities. We have to prioritize so you get the most egregious things done first. But everything will have to
get done eventually.” Another issue up for debate will be the renewal of design-build legislation, which allows a single contractor to bid for both the design and construction of an infrastructure project. With the legislation set to expire at the end of December, officials worry they will lose a valuable cost-saving tool for road and bridge projects across New York. “I think it has been a real benefit to the department, a real benefit for the state, and I think it would be a disgrace if it doesn’t get passed,” state Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald said this fall.
The BTEA’s 2015 Legislative Agenda aims to expand economic growth and build opportunity for all New Yorkers by working with New York State policy makers to: • Reform the Scaffold Law 240 to lower costs for school construction and affordable housing projects • Amend current M/WBE Programs to grow opportunities • Increase Infrastructure & Transportation Financing by prioritizing the use of capital project funds
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TOLL REFORM CAN FIX NEW YORK’S TRANSPORTATION WOES ALEX MATTHIESSEN (LEFT), PRESIDENT OF BLUE MARBLE PROJECT, AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTING FIRM, AND DIRECTOR OF THE MOVE NY CAMPAIGN JOHN CORLETT (RIGHT), AAA-NY’S LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR
city & state — December 11, 2014
THE BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATION: BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL NEW YORKERS
Building Trades Employers’ Association | 1430 Broadway | Suite 1106 New York, NY 10018 | 212.704.9745 | www.bteany.com
Our transportation infrastructure is in serious trouble. City streets and state highways are riven with potholes and many of our bridges are crumbling. Subways, buses and trains are crowded and often delayed. Too many of us live in parts of the city underserved by rapid transit. Fares and tolls keep going up, but New Yorkers aren’t getting much in return. The MTA and city and state DOT are economizing, but belt-tightening can only do so much. Further raising taxes on sales, payroll or gas can only get you so far such strategies are regressive, unpopular and can’t generate the needed funding. Forget borrowing, too, as it just means higher tolls and fares for those already paying too much of both. Politically expedient, shortterm fixes in the form of one or two-year capital plans just guarantee deteriorating roads and more second-rate transit. What to do? One idea gaining traction is the Move NY Fair Plan. By simply balancing New
York’s tolling system, we can unleash trapped revenue and revamp our outdated transportation infrastructure. The Move NY Plan slashes tolls on the seven MTA bridges while restoring (electronic) tolls on the four, once-tolled, “East River bridges” as well as across 60th Street in Manhattan. This “toll swap” generates enough revenue to plug the gap in the MTA’s capital plan and finance aggressive upkeep and improvement of city roads and bridges. As a bonus, the Move NY Fair Plan brings long-overdue toll equity to the region’s drivers while curbing gridlock and creating over 30,000 new, recurring jobs. A recent poll suggests strong support for the plan. Let’s stop shortchanging our vital transportation infrastructure and punishing New Yorkers with more fareand toll-backed debt. Toll reform can bring sanity, fairness and a measure of greatness back to New York’s transportation system. Let’s have a debate about what is best for New York. The public deserves nothing less. cit yandstateny.com
NEW STANDARD OF CONSTRUCTION
WDF Inc. is one of the nation’s leading plumbing, HVAC contracting, and specialty general contracting companies; proudly servicing New York State for more than 80 years. Our diversity initiative is at the forefront of our corporate mission. We have built a state-of-the-art compliance program and a strong and passionate team of professionals to execute our plan. As an equal opportunity employer, our staff reflects the value we place on connections with people and businesses from all backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. Our commitment to inclusion is mirrored in our never-ending pursuit to provide opportunities for minority-owned, women-owned, local, and disadvantaged businesses in our procurement of goods and services on all of our projects. If you are an M/W/L/DBE interested in doing work with us, please contact our M/W/L/DBE & EEO Officer, J. Naomi Glean,at (914) 776-8000 or NGlean@wdfinc.net.
30 North MacQuesten Parkway • Mount Vernon, New York 10550 Tel: 914.776.8000 • Fax: 914.668.5602 • Email: Info@wdfinc.net • www.wdfinc.net
SETTING THE AGENDA
Help Wanted:
Building a World-Class Labor Market By Johnny Cavaliero
The expectation that each generation will be better off than the last is at the heart of the “American Dream.” Yet recent research by Accenture suggests that the opposite may now be true. Based on analysis of demographic, workforce participation and productivity data, the national standard of living is set to decline by 9 percent by 2030. Here in New York, we’re poised for a 7.9-percent drop. What’s driving the decline? It comes down to three factors: demographics, workforce participation and productivity. With the population “graying”—and everyone who will be of working age in 2030 already alive today—workforce size is fixed. We need to focus instead on workforce participation (getting more people to work by incenting work and making it easier to find jobs) and productivity (ensuring that people have in-demand skills and are able to secure jobs that fully utilize those talents). As part of our global research, Accenture surveyed citizens, job seekers, employers and public employment services officials in New York. Among citizens, 67 percent lack trust in government and 69 percent lack confidence that government can act fast enough to meet future jobs and skills challenges. And while 87 percent of New York job seekers do not think they need new skills, just 17 percent of employers feel they have sufficient access to skilled candidates.
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Accenture has identified four strategies and tools to help New York build a worldclass labor market: 1.
Real-time insights on talent demand and supply. Historical data is an unreliable predictor of future demand or supply. States need dynamic, localized and up-to-date information to set strategy and direct investment. Real-time information and analytic insights also help expand the range of opportunities for people with particular skills, create a competitive edge in economic development, and align education with employer needs.
2.
Talent supply pipelines. Applying tenets of supply chain management, these pipelines help employers source, recruit, train, place and retain talent—and will be a key ingredient of every successful workforce system (especially those serving small and midsized businesses).
3.
Roadmaps showing pathways to jobs. Every job seeker needs a personalized roadmap showing ways to put his or her talents to work. Roadmaps offer job seekers real-time information on how to navigate the marketplace and maximize existing competencies—and how to obtain skills needed to secure the job they want. They also help employers in matching talent to jobs.
4.
Unified talent agenda. Today workforce systems are managed by multiple agencies through multiple programs with multiple funding streams. The federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is giving governors the authority and flexibility to unify the workforce agenda at the state level—coordinating strategic planning and establishing incentives that drive alignment between education and the workforce, all with a focus on improving standard of living.
city & state — December 11, 2014
Without change, New York’s standard of living is at risk. The time to act is now. Population data is based on the civilian non-institutional population, which includes immigrants. Participation rate is based on employment data from official sources.
TIME IS NOW FOR INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT, HOWEVER IT IS DONE
EXPANDING ECONOMIC GROWTH AND OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL NEW YORKERS
LAWRENCE P. ROMAN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER OF WDF SERVICES
LOUIS J. COLETTI, PRESIDENT & CEO, BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATION
Infrastructure improvements are one of those rare items that enjoy bipartisan support. It should be considered an investment that not only creates wellpaying middle class jobs but also helps to maintain New York City and New York State as a world-class destination. There has been some debate as to how to pay for it. Many innovative ideas such as public-private partnerships, allowing U.S. companies with overseas funds to repatriate money only if they buy infrastructure bonds dedicated solely to that purpose, or increasing the tax on gasoline now at a time when gas prices have dropped precipitously have been discussed. Whatever path our decision-making leaders decide to come up with, the time is now to make this much needed investment. Without it, our global competitors will be the ones to start getting the huge throng of visitors who have been such a huge boon to the New York economy. We have seen a huge surge in the value of U.S. currency. Although we all like a strong dollar, this undeniably makes traveling in other countries less costly than here. Travelers will find the added costs of coming to New York not worth it unless we maintain and improve our infrastructure. History tells us to prepare now for this potential shift in travelers’ sentiments. We are a world-class city. We need world-class bridges, tunnels, highways and subways.
Reform 240 Scaffold Law. Reform legislation must include the preservation of the rights of all injured workers to file a lawsuit for their injuries on a construction site, and it must maintain safe working conditions on construction sites. It must also change the current strict/absolute liability standard to a comparative liability standard that will give all parties the right to present evidence that affects the case to a jury. Without this reform, New York City will build 5,000 fewer classroom seats and thousands fewer affordable housing units. Due to higher insurance rates, at least 10 percent less of taxpayer money will be spent on public capital construction projects needed for creating new good jobs and expanding the state’s economy. Reform the M/WBE Program. Despite the best intentions of all involved, the M/WBE program has fallen short of expectations for public officials, M/ WBE and prime contractors. With New York State undertaking a new disparity study, more financial resources need to be allocated for purposes such as the certification and pre-qualification of M/ WBE companies, providing financial and bonding assistance to M/WBE firms and technical training tied to contract opportunities for M/WBE firms. Transportation and Infrastructure Financing. The more than $5 billion from the banking settlements New York State has received from the financial community should be spent on capital projects that provide the foundation for economic growth. Projects deserving of priority funding include the Tappan Zee Bridge, Moynihan Rail Station, Penn Station renovation and funding for the MTA Capital Program. Legislation authorizing the use of design/build that includes provisions to ensure fair labor standards is also critical in 2015.
cit yandstateny.com
SETTING THE AGENDA
BY JON LENTZ
WHAT GOT DONE IN 2014
WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA
• Incremental minimum wage hike went into effect • Signing of truck misclassification legislation
• State minimum wage increase • Workers’ compensation reform • Protecting construction workers
I
n early 2014, Gov. Andrew Cuomo shot down the idea of letting local governments set their own minimum wage. By June he had changed his tune, calling for raising the statewide minimum hourly wage to $10.10, with municipalities allowed to increase it an additional 30 percent. Now, with the start of the 2015 legislative session less than a month away, it is unclear whether the wage hike measures will actually garner enough support to pass—especially with Republicans having seized an outright majority in the state Senate in the fall elections. Republicans, who already agreed to a phased-in increase to a $9-an-hour wage by the end of next year, have clearly expressed their opposition to any further hikes. Cuomo, meanwhile, only committed to the legislative proposals, among other measures, as part of a deal to win the backing and the ballot line of the Working Families Party in his successful bid for re-election. “As you know, we have two incremental increases coming, one at the end of this month, one at the end of next year,” said state Sen. Diane Savino, the chair of the Senate Labor Committee, who did not bring up a minimum wage hike as a top priority for 2015. “But that’s a bigger discussion that’s going to take place at the governor’s level with the legislative leaders, whether we need to do more on the minimum wage.” Assemblyman Carl Heastie, who chairs the Labor Committee in the Assembly, said a minimum wage hike is a top priority in the lower house, but declined to predict whether the bill would secure enough votes to pass in the upcoming session. “I can just say that the Assembly cit yandstateny.com
majority is very in favor of raising the minimum wage,” Heastie said. “I can’t answer for what the governor is going to do or not. You know, we’ve raised the minimum wage with the Senate Republicans before.” Heastie said he would also be focusing on issues tied to unemployment, including underemployment, which remains an issue for many New Yorkers even as the unemployment rate has been on the decline in the state. Both committee chairs also pledged to address the state’s workers’ compensation system, which has been in place since then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed legislation to reform it in 2007. Savino said the changes at the time were aimed at reducing premiums for
employers and improving access to treatment for workers, but that there is evidence today that the reforms have failed to fully live up to their billing. “Depending on who you’re talking to, it has not lived up to the stated goals, and in fact workers are actually waiting longer now for access to treatment, they’re getting tied up in red tape, doctors are leaving the system because reimbursements are either stagnant or reduced, and the paperwork has exploded exponentially,” said Savino, who anticipates drafting legislation only after more study and possible hearings on the issue. “If workers give up their right to sue, in exchange, they should be entitled to have access to treatment quickly so they can recover and get back to work. That’s what workers’ comp is supposed to be about.” Another perennial issue is the state’s Scaffold Law, which holds contractors or project developers liable for “gravity-related” injuries suffered by construction workers. Supporters say it is necessary to protect workers, while building owners and contractors
say that the “absolute liability” standard they face is unfair and does not take into account risky behavior or negligence by workers. Savino said the state should also look at ways to ensure that localities are doing their part to protect construction workers on job sites, especially with small contractors that hire undocumented immigrants. “I don’t know what role the state can play, but I’m going to be looking at it,” she said. Other areas that lawmakers will be looking at are how effectively the state is carrying out the Wage Theft Protection Act, which took effect in 2011 and requires employers to give their employees written notice of their wage rates, as well as a new law protecting commercial truck drivers against being misclassified as independent contractors—legislation that could serve as a model in other sectors, Savino said. “I did the misclassification in the trucking industry, and we’re seeing how that’s rolling out—literally,” she said.
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city & state — December 11, 2014
LABOR
Greater NY LECET is actively working with our elected leaders to craft policy that will contribute to our strong and growing NY economy.
• Modernize our Infrastructure • Responsibly Invest in Affordable Housing • Enforcement of Wage Laws • Invest NY Funds Back Into New York’s Economy
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city & state — November 04, 2014
Through our continued cooperation, labor, management and our elected officials will produce results that drive our economy to continue to raise our quality of life here in New York.
This message brought to you Greater New York Laborers and Employers Cooperation and Education Trust. Laborers and Management working together for a Strong New York Economy.
266 WEST 37TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10018 212. 452. 9300 GNYLECET @AOL.COM cit yandstateny.com PAT PURCELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
EBOLA, SNOWSTORMS OFFER ESSENTIAL TRUTHS ABOUT BUDGET PRIORITIES, VALUING THE PUBLIC SECTOR WORKFORCE DANNY DONOHUE, PRESIDENT OF CSEA
A new year and the start of new political terms provide an opportunity for new beginnings. Two recent sets of circumstances offer essential truths about budget priorities and valuing the public sector workforce. The recent Ebola concerns caught
SETTING THE AGENDA
some unprepared. As a result, some chaos ensued until cooler heads prevailed through good information and responsible action. Much of that good information and responsible action was the result of dedicated and professional public health workers and others doing their jobs and stepping up to defuse the crisis. The public health is a serious matter that should never be taken for granted— particularly as this world gets smaller and more dangerous. Protecting people from disease and crisis comes down to being prepared. Whether it is Ebola, AIDS, SARS, H1N1/swine flu, hepatitis C or other deadly diseases, public health workers are on the front lines helping to educate and protect people every day. In a similar way, it was capable public workers—especially from the New York State Department of Transportation and local government highway crews—who braved the unprecedented elements last month to clear roads and bring Western New York back to some normalcy following historic storms. Many traveled from across the state to lend a hand because
that’s what good people and strong communities do—we help each other in difficult times. But none of this just happens. There must be adequate planning, training, equipment and personnel in place before a crisis. In our political world, those things are hardly a given in recent years at the state or local government levels. In both cases, things could have turned out very differently if the people and resources weren’t there. It’s a lesson that New Yorkers can only hope was not lost on their elected officials.
NEW YORK NEEDS GOOD MIDDLE CLASS JOBS PATRICK PURCELL JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GNY LECET
A careful analysis of the polling data collected after the most recent federal and state elections shows once again that the two most vital issues to New York are jobs and the economy. In fact, these two issues have consistently ranked at the top of New Yorkers priorities for the last several election cycles. New Yorkers understand that job creation fuels a strong economy, and a strong economy is the best way to raise (continues on next page)
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The Governor is proposing a
Bforlueprint Disaster!
Design-Build projects will privatize the state workforce, cost taxpayers more money and could put all of us at a higher degree of risk.
wARNING:
WHAT IS DESIGN-BUILD: • A Design-Build project is one in which one contractor is hired to design, construct AND inspect the entire project. This method of construction is more costly and results, among other things, in the loss of checks and balances and the continued erosion of professional public employees. SLOW DOWN: • An independent study of Design-Build effectiveness is needed. BAD PUBLIC POLICY: • Several of the Governor’s mega-donors are companies that benefit from Design-Build.
HIGHER COSTS: • Federal and state studies have shown that contracting out engineering and inspection work is more costly in 85 percent of cases. HURTS LOCAL ECONOMIES: • Larger, bundled Design-Build projects make it impossible for smaller local companies to bid, and contracts often go to larger, out-of-state firms.
NEW YORKERS — STAY INFORMED — BE ACTIVE — GO cit yandstateny.com
Want more FACTS? Go to www.pef.org Search engine keyword: Design-Build
PUTS PUBLIC AT RISK: • Design-Build bypasses competitive bidding laws, labor protections, and other safeguards that ensure transparency, fairness, and impartial oversight.
The union that cares for the community
PEF.org
New York State Public Employees Federation, AFL- CIO
Representing 54,000 professional, scientific and technical employees Susan M. Kent, President
Carlos J. Garcia, Secretary-Treasurer
TO WWW.PEF.ORG TO FIND OUT MORE!
city & state — December 11, 2014
Design-Build is set to expire on December 31, 2014, but Gov. Cuomo wants to expand and extend it to all NYS state agencies!
SETTING THE AGENDA
living standards for all New Yorkers. However, New Yorkers also now understand the importance of creating not just jobs but good middle class jobs. Creating low wage, no benefit jobs not only does not help the economy, it can actually harm it even further. Additionally, the public has grown tired of large companies receiving millions in taxpayer-funded subsidies and tax breaks, and not delivering the good jobs they were guaranteed. That is why the Greater New York Laborers and Management Education Trust (GNY LECET) will be pushing for an aggressive legislative agenda that will include: • Rebuilding an aging infrastructure • Responsible investment in workforce housing • Aggressive enforcement of wage laws • Ensuring only responsible contractors benefit from subsidies and tax breaks • Invest New York dollars back into New York’s economy Only by working together can labor, management and our elected officials produce the fuel that will drive a strong economy that will bring all New Yorkers the long-term quality of life they work so hard to achieve.
York State Buy American Act, which would create a strong preference for Americanmade iron and steel in procurement. Never was the need made clearer than when the MTA outsourced $34 million worth of steel to China for repairs to the Verrazano. Since 2000 New York has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs; we shouldn’t be furthering that decline by sourcing infrastructure from foreign countries. Second, we must bring long overdue reform to economic development
programs, such as Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) and Local Development Corporations (LDCs), which too often forgo local tax dollars in exchange for jobs that never materialize. All transactions should be transparent, companies that receive benefits but fail to meet job goals should be held accountable, and there should be standards to ensure that the jobs created—construction and permanent— allow New Yorkers to thrive. And finally, we must ensure that
we keep the public in public services. Privatization of our schools, including the proliferation of charters, and the outsourcing of state and local government services, cause diminished quality for the taxpayer and an erosion of our local economies by substituting low-wage work for good jobs. The goal must be providing New Yorkers with the quality services they rely on, not creating corporate profits. This is an agenda we should all be able to agree on.
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IT ALL COMES DOWN TO GOOD JOBS
city & state — December 11, 2014
MARIO CILENTO. PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK STATE AFL-CIO
The priority, as it has been for several years, is creating good, long-term jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits. Although unemployment has declined, it only tells a very small part of the story. The statistics do not speak to New Yorkers who have left the workforce or those who are underemployed, working part-time or at less than their qualifications. There are a number of ways New York can address this issue. First, our state should enact the New
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SETTING THE AGENDA
INSURANCE BY JON LENTZ
WHAT GOT DONE IN 2014
WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA
• Improved coverage for substance abuse • Required licensing of title insurance agents • Replenished Life Insurance Guaranty Corporation of New York
• Reviewing the Affordable Care Act • Auto insurance fraud reforms • Address car-sharing and ride-sharing
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city & state — December 11, 2014
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he Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform law, is shaping up to be a top political target in Washington next year, with another major challenge heading to the Supreme Court and the new Republican majority in the U.S. Senate uniting both houses of Congress in opposition to the law. The potential for repeal, severe funding cuts or other repercussions has state lawmakers in New York already watching closely to monitor the impact on health insurance coverage in the state. “It’s not a question of my priorities but what will be forced upon us as priorities, and certainly that’s the issue about the Affordable Care Act implementation and whether this new Republican Congress, which is antagonistic toward the Affordable Care Act, will create hurdles,” said Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, a Democrat who chairs the Assembly Insurance Committee. “And not just Congress but the courts have been causing some concern for all of us as we watch what they’re doing in terms of the implementation of the Act.” New York opted to set up its own health insurance exchange to comply with the law, while a number of other states left it to the federal government to run their exchanges. If the latest Supreme Court challenge is successful, the federally run exchanges could be shut down—and that could further erode support for the law, threatening its future even in New York. In the meantime, lawmakers are reviewing other aspects of the Affordable Care Act. State Sen. James Seward, the
Republican chairing the Senate Insurance Committee, questioned the benefits for middle class residents and small business owners, but said there were some steps the state could take to improve the law’s effectiveness. He noted that in 2016, the federal definition of a small business will rise to the level of 100 employees, up from 50 or fewer employees today. State law only allows small businesses with up to 50 employees to purchase stop-loss coverage for larger claims, however. “Unless we make a change here, they can no longer self-insure, because they’ll be prohibited from having stop-loss provisions as part of their coverage,” Seward said. “That’s fine for 50 or fewer employees, because they’re too small to self-insure. When it goes up to 100 because of Obamacare, we need to do something to maintain coverage for those businesses that are 51 to 100 employees.” Cahill said he also wants to assess the first year of the state’s exchange, NY State of Health, including affinity group plans, the implementation of out-of-network reforms and the challenges posed by the essential benefits cap, which makes it difficult to update coverage based on pharmacological developments or other changes. The cap “says that if it wasn’t covered in 2012, you can’t make an insurance company cover it unless you’re prepared to use state resources to pay for the increased cost of that benefit,” Cahill said. “And it freezes healthcare into 2012. … There are recognitions, such as what we did last year in recognizing substance abuse as its own disease state, that we’re not
equipped to operate because of the essential benefits cap.” Medical malpractice is another insurance-related issue that comes up every year in Albany. “One of the new issues are those matters surrounding the legalization of medical marijuana and how that’s impacted by insurance, not just in terms of coverage but exclusions and so on and so forth,” Cahill said. One of Seward’s top priorities will be to address insurance coverage gaps created by the rapid rise of ride-sharing companies Lyft and Uber, as well as car-sharing services like RelayRides and Getaround. When car owners rent out their cars or offer rides for a fee, a personal auto insurance policy is insufficient, he said, and failing to address the issue could raise rates for others. “This cries out for some legislation,” Seward said. “I think it’s important that there is a very clear distinction, and boundaries set up between someone’s personal auto policy and the coverage [that] may either be secured by the car-sharing or ride-sharing company. Right now it’s a very blurred situation. It’s a way for car owners to make some additional income, and it seems to be popular from a consumer point of view, but we need to address these insurance [issues] without damaging the future of the business model, because it seems to be popular.”
Auto insurance coverage will remain a focus in 2015 as well, particularly no-fault coverage, which pays for damages regardless of who is at fault. Seward said that fraudulent behavior taking advantage of the state’s no-fault system is a key reason why auto insurance premiums are so high in New York. Life insurance will also be a focus in 2015. One target for reform is Regulation 60, which requires consumers to obtain an analysis of an existing life insurance policy when switching to a new one. “This Reg 60 has long been considered one of the most burdensome New York regulations that life insurers must comply with, and it’s become an impediment for consumers who wish to make a replacement of their policies in a timely manner,” Seward said. Among the other top priorities are preparing for the state’s next natural disaster, including the creation of a public consumer insurance advocate. “There does not necessarily appear to be a level playing field for consumers when it comes to insurance regulation,” Cahill said. “That’s not to disparage in any way the Department of Financial Services; it’s just to say that the coalescing of resources on behalf of consumers doesn’t have a means of getting before the department right now, and we’re hoping to change that.”
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SETTING THE AGENDA
THE WOMEN’S EQUALITY ACT ASHLEY HUPFL
D
uring his gubernatorial campaign Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised to pass the DREAM Act, raise the minimum wage and reform campaign finance laws. He also created a Women’s Equality Party based on the premise that he would pass a 10-point Women’s Equality Act. First introduced by Cuomo in 2013, the Women’s Equality Act (WEA) is a package of 10 bills, including measures that would combat domestic
abuse, human trafficking and gender discrimination. But one controversial part of it would codify Roe v. Wade and align state law with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. (The measure would expand access to late-term abortion, but would not change who is qualified to perform an abortion or legalize so-called “partial-birth” abortions.) The full legislative package has the support of Cuomo, and has passed the
34 OF NEW YORKERS SUPPORT A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE.
city & state — December 11, 2014
OUR STATE IS UNITED. OUR LEGISLATURE SHOULD BE, TOO.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled his Women’s Equality Act during the State of the State address in 2013, but an abortion measure has held up the package. Democratic-led Assembly two years in a row, but it has failed to pass in the Republican-led state Senate because of the abortion plank. During the 2014 legislative session, Senate Republicans passed nine of the 10 bills and blamed the Senate Democrats for choosing politics over women by presenting an “all or nothing” approach to passing the package of bills. “Abortion is [already] safe [and] legal in New York State. It’s not going to be changed,” Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos told reporters in 2013. “And what I see is the expansion of ‘partial-birth’ abortion, in from the radical left. It’s an extreme measure, and I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.” The state Senate GOP did not respond to requests for comment.
In the upcoming 2015 legislative session, supporters of the WEA face the same obstacles as in previous years: a Republican-led state Senate and growing impatience from fellow Democrats advocating for breaking up the package. “We know the configuration of the Senate. We know what they were prepared to do in the past,” Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, sponsor of one of the bills in the WEA, said. “I still believe … the other bills in the package are all worthwhile for women. All are important and essential for women and I do not believe they should be held hostage to one bill. I hope we go forward and we pass the individual bills that we can.” State Sen. Andrea StewartCousins, the leader of the mainline cit yandstateny.com
Party exceeded the 50,000 votes needed to secure its place on the ballot in future elections. Exit polls showed Cuomo receiving two-thirds of the female vote in the gubernatorial election. With the state Legislature’s balance of power was largely unchanged, the fate of the WEA may depend on Cuomo’s ability to broker a deal between Senate Republicans and Democrats. In his first term, Cuomo was both praised and criticized for his ability to deal with Senate Republicans. “[Cuomo] is the one who put the 10 points together, and he’s the one that created a party about the whole 10 points, so I have to believe he’s interested in seeing the 10 points moved,” Stewart-Cousins said. “I expect him to be as assertive about that as he has [been] in the past few months.”
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SETTING THE AGENDA
Senate Democrats, has pushed during the last two years for all 10 bills to be passed, and said that Democrats would not back down. “New Yorkers want it to be a package, so at this point there is no conversation about breaking it up,” Stewart-Cousins said. “The vast majority of New Yorkers, and those who have been advocates for the full 10-point plan, continue to be in the forefront of making sure New York continues to be a progressive leader in regard to women and women’s issues.” While the fate of the legislation is up in the air in Albany, it resonated on the campaign trail. Cuomo painted his Republican challenger, Rob Astorino, as an ultra-conservative who would wage a war against women’s rights, and the governor’s Women’s Equality
November 17, 2014
HIGH STAKES
Albany leaders. Tenant groups. Landlord lobbyist s. And an ironclad deadline for key housing laws. By JARRETT MURPHY
CIT YANDSTATENY.COM
@CIT YANDSTATENY
THE PUBLIC OFFICIALS Q&A FOR THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING SECTION:
(Public Officials pending confirmation)
STATE SEN. CATHARINE YOUNG Chair, Senate Housing Committee
VICKI BEEN
Commissioner, NYC HPD
ASSEMBLY MEMBER KEITH WRIGHT Chair, Assembly Housing Committee
SHOLA OLATOYE
ANDREA MILLER, PRESIDENT, NARAL PRO-CHOICE NEW YORK
Three-quarters of New York voters support the abortion rights guaranteed under Roe v. Wade and want our state laws to support these protections. It’s hard to find three-quarters support for anything, let alone an issue that opponents paint as controversial. But a vocal legislative minority has sidestepped and outright lied about the scope of the Women’s Equality Act, despite it being a settled matter among experts. As Ashley Hupfl noted Sept. 30 in City & State, “The bill would indeed align state law with Roe v. Wade.” As the 2015 legislative session approaches, it’s time for abortion opponents to stop deceiving as cover for extremist opinions wildly out of sync with their constituents. NARAL Pro-Choice New York’s main priority is protecting reproductive rights for New York women. State laws that ensure access to the full range of reproductive health care are, naturally, a
cit yandstateny.com
primary goal. But a woman’s right to plan her family has implications far beyond her health. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said in 1992, “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” New Yorkers are clear that we want our state to chart the course for a different, positive direction. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s commitment to the right to choose was a distinguishing factor in his campaign, a fact that was not lost on women, who voted for the governor 61–33 percent. His platform embraced women’s equality and recognized the need for a holistic approach to women’s health, safety and equal opportunity. This is what constituents want— especially women, who decide elections. Legislators must now work together to deliver on the expectations of the constituents who are sending them to Albany.
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COUNCIL MEMBER JUMAANE WILLIAMS Chair, Committee on Housing and Buildings
MICHAEL SEAMAN
Chair, Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority
FEATURED EDITORIAL COVERAGE: AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOCATIONS:
City & State provides an overview of the first locations in New York City to be targeted by the de Blasio administration for affordable housing development: East New York in Brooklyn, Flushing West in Queens and Cromwell-Jerome in the Bronx. What are the defining characteristics that led the administration to choose these areas and what are the implications of building affordable housing there?
SESSION DECISIONS:
With the state Legislature preparing to reconsider rent regulations and other housing laws in the upcoming session, City & State looks at the possible implications for current and future affordable housing efforts around New York.
HOUSING SCORECARD
Key Stats & Numbers | Major Issues at Stake | A Rundown of the Key Players City & State magazine is distributed via direct mail to the homes and offices of NYC and NYS legislators and officials, hand delivery into 250 Broadway, New York City Hall, the Legislative Office Building, the State Capitol building, and dozens of newsboxes in downtown Albany, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Buffalo.
city & state — December 11, 2014
CONSTITUENTS WANT WOMEN’S EQUALITY ACT
35
BY JON LENTZ
T
he DREAM Act has been a top priority for Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates in New York for several years, but it has repeatedly failed to gain traction. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who professes his support, has not expended the political capital needed to pass it. Republicans in the state Senate oppose the legislation, and the fact that they just secured an outright majority poses an even bigger hurdle to its passage in the 2015 session. But backers still insist that the DREAM Act is more than a pipe dream. Supporters of the bill, which would allow some young undocumented immigrants to qualify for financial aid
Assemblyman Francisco Moya, at a press conference in 2014, is a lead sponsor of the DREAM Act.
to attend college in New York, are once again pushing for Cuomo to include it in his executive budget proposal, which could ease its passage. “The Dream Act is very, very important for us—one of many topics we really need to move forward and press the governor and ensure that this is a top priority for us and happens this year,” Democratic Assemblyman Francisco Moya, a lead sponsor of the measure, said during a City & State TV interview in November. “It’s a matter of having the governor, who’s campaigned very, very hard on this issue, to say, ‘Look, if you really want to see this done, we should now be having the discussion of how
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city & state — December 11, 2014
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JON LENTZ
SETTING THE AGENDA
THE DREAM ACT
“The conversation is about getting the $25 million in the budget.” To qualify, students would have to have earned a high school diploma or a GED in the past five years and apply for legal residency as soon as they are eligible. It would build on a 2002 state law granting in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants
all the undocumented undergraduates at the City University of New York and the State University of New York were allowed to get financial aid. Last year, despite pledging his support, Cuomo declined to include the DREAM Act in his budget
Print. Mail. Win.
proposal. Excluding it from the budget and keeping it as a stand-alone measure this year could again spell its demise. The bill has strong support in the Assembly but has stalled in the state Senate, where it was narrowly defeated on a 30–29 vote this past March, just short of the 32 votes needed for passage. Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos said recently that his conference is “not doing the DREAM Act,” and with even more Republicans in the chamber this year, it is unclear where the votes would come from to pass it. The party in the past signaled its openness to a “Dream Fund” that would rely on private funding for financial aid instead of taxpayer dollars, but Democrats have dismissed that as too limited as a stand-alone measure. State Sen. Jose Peralta, the lead Senate sponsor, said that despite the Democratic losses at the polls this fall, there are still at least 30 senators who support the DREAM Act, with the election of Jesse Hamilton to a vacant seat in Brooklyn and Marc Panepinto’s defeat of Republican state Sen. Mark
Grisanti canceling out the losses by Democratic state Sens. Cecilia Tkaczyk and Terry Gipson. (State Sen. Ted O’Brien, a third incumbent Democrat who lost his seat, voted against the bill.) If at least two Republican senators— such as Phil Boyle and Kemp Hannon, who conspicuously missed the 2014 vote—were to cross the aisle, there would be enough support to get to the 32 votes needed. “We were counting on a couple of Republican votes last year that didn’t materialize,” Peralta said. “But then again, this is an off-election year, and Republicans are going to probably look at this as an opportunity, if this were to come to the floor.” And of course, there’s always a chance that the DREAM Act could slip through in a flurry of late-session deal-making, but it is unclear what Democrats could offer in a trade. For now, the top priority for supporters is getting it in the governor’s budget proposal. “The conversation is not about convincing the senators,” Moya said. “The conversation is about getting the $25 million in the budget.”
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SETTING THE AGENDA
by making them newly eligible for funding from the state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP). A 2013 report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli estimated that 8,300 undocumented undergraduate students were enrolled in public colleges or universities in the state. According to the report, passage of the legislation would add $20 million in additional TAP costs if
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city & state — December 11, 2014
much money you’re going to put in the executive budget, and do it as an executive budget item as opposed to a legislative item.’ ” Moya and other supporters argue that the costs are relatively small— an estimated $25 million a year—and that the investment in a college education for more young New Yorkers would help the state’s economy in the long run.
SETTING THE AGENDA
GOOD GOVERNMENT BY JON LENTZ
WHAT GOT DONE IN 2014
WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA
• Stiffer penalties for bribery and public corruption • New Board of Elections enforcement unit • Public financing for the state comptroller race
• Restricting personal use of campaign funds • Reducing campaign contribution limits • Closing the LLC loophole
T
city & state — December 11, 2014
38
he push for public financing of campaigns in New York took a tiny step forward this past session as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers approved a pilot program to provide matching funds for candidates in the state comptroller’s race. But some say that the pilot program was actually a step backward. It quickly drew criticism on both sides of the aisle, and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli opted not to participate, while his Republican challenger, Robert Antonacci, failed to receive enough campaign contributions to quality for matching funds. Now, with Republicans having won a majority of seats in the state Senate in the fall elections, the chances of expanding public financing to all statewide and state legislative races looks increasingly dim. “I know that the Republicans are not going to touch public financing, they’ve made it very clear,” said state Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat. “But you know, there’s a whole bunch of other critical issues that don’t seem to violate their rules of the road that I believe they should, as the majority in the Senate, take the lead with Democrats to get done.” Among the campaign finance reforms that Krueger and other Democrats and good-government groups would still like to take up are tightening restrictions on personal use of campaign funds, closing the so-called LLC loophole and reducing individual campaign contribution limits. New York has remarkably high contribution limits, with an individual
allowed to give $41,100 to a statewide candidate in a general election, far higher than the limit for federal candidates. The Cuomo administration has also called for similar reforms. In a December 2013 report, the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption cited the dominance of large donors and the use of multiple LLCs by companies to bypass contribution limits. The Commission’s investigations also turned up potential misuse of campaign funds by state Sens. George Maziarz and Greg Ball, and both lawmakers declined to seek re-election. (They deny any connection between the reported findings and their decision not to run again.)
One more limited reform that has found some bipartisan support is banning the use of campaign funds for legal costs. Lawmakers have often dipped into their campaign war chests to cover legal fees, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who faces a lawsuit over his handling of sexual harassment allegations against former assemblyman Vito Lopez, and state Sen. Tom Libous, who is under indictment on a charge of lying to the FBI. Some Republicans who won key seats this year called for banning the practice, including Sue Serino, who knocked out state Sen. Terry Gipson in a key pickup for the party. “We now have any number of colleagues who say, ‘Yes, you shouldn’t be able to use your campaign account for your criminal legal representation after you get caught doing something wrong,’ ” Krueger said. “That’s not the law yet, but that seems to be supported.” Lawmakers did agree to a scaled back package of reforms this past session, including stiffer penalties for bribery or public corruption, a new enforcement unit and public financing for the state comptroller election,
paving the way for Cuomo to disband his Moreland Commission. But questions also arose about Cuomo’s involvement in the work of the Commission, which he had initially pledged would be independent, since it reportedly pulled back on probes of groups with close ties to the governor. The reports of meddling also prompted calls for the creation of a new investigative body that would be immune from political influence. The state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics has also drawn criticism from goodgovernment groups as being too weak. “We need an independent entity of some sort that actually can go after the governor and the Legislature,” Krueger said. “Clearly the Moreland Commission model didn’t really work, with the whole thing pulled back and collapsed and done away with when it seemed to be going down roads it wasn’t supposed to. New York State is entitled to have an independent system for investigating criminal activity or following through on accusations of inappropriate activity by the Legislature, the governor and the agencies, and we don’t have that.”
The behavior of former Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who was accused of sexual harassment, and outgoing state Sen. George Maziarz, who is under investigation for campaign finance irregularities, have prompted calls for reform. cit yandstateny.com
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PERSPEC TIVES
A NEW DEAL FOR NEW YORK
JEFFREY D. KLEIN
I
city & state — December 11, 2014
40
n the 1930s, in the immediate wake of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt set the country on a bold and ambitious course known as the New Deal. The programs enacted under the New Deal not only provided relief and recovery for millions of Americans but created a foundation that served to reform the American financial system and put this country on solid ground for generations to come. While the New Deal spanned multiple years and involved an array of government programs, its overarching principle was simple: a belief that the people of this country are its greatest resource, and that investing in the worker builds a more robust and truly sustainable economy. In recent years we have had to navigate the choppy waters left in the wake of a modern-day recession. In the past four years, under the leadership of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, we have put New York back on a smart fiscal track and been able to get the state working again. As part of those efforts, this year New York has received $5 billion in restitution monies from financial institutions that committed various financial crimes against the hardworking people of this state. Make no mistake, these settlement funds are taxpayer money, and as such should be reinvested in the very people and pockets they came from. Under that guiding principle, the Independent Democratic Conference is offering a New Deal for New York. Modeled on the spirit of FDR’s New Deal, our New Deal has two key parts:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, one of the cornerstones of the New Deal, on Aug. 14, 1935. first, a program aimed at creating jobs through large infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, rail, transit, water and sewer and parks projects; and second, a program aimed at reconnecting marginalized workers with good-paying jobs. The purpose of the first part, the Empire Public Works (EPW) Program, is to build, repair and upgrade New York’s infrastructure to a 21st century standard. The EPW would finance projects through a bidding process to private contractors and thus create private sector jobs in construction. All projects financed through the EPW will fall under existing public contracting laws and regulations, including prevailing wage statutes. A number of current projects would be eligible for financing through EPW,
including the Tappan Zee Bridge and MTA projects. In addition, as with federal contracting rules, there will be a “buy American” provision that will allow for slightly more expensive bids as long as the bidders demonstrate they are using all American-made steel and iron products. By investing $3.5 billion into this revolving loan fund, we could potentially create up to 97,000 jobs. The second program, the Community Jobs Program (CJP), seeks to reinvigorate our workforce by offering a bridge to those who have been demoralized and discouraged by job loss and lack of employment in recent years. Similar to the newfound hope and dignity that FDR’s WPA brought to our grandparents’ generation, CJP is aimed at providing individuals
in communities not only good jobs but also job training. CJP would be a shot in the arm for local communities through smaller work projects such as parks, libraries, community arts facilities, town halls and small business developments, and have a long-lasting impact by guiding and developing an untapped resource of workers. Any projects financed through CJP that are not covered by prevailing wage will be set regionally by a wage board that will determine what wages would be appropriate locally, though these wages wouldn’t fall below a $15-an-hour minimum. The bottom line is that if taxpayer dollars are used to finance the cost of these projects, New Yorkers working on these projects should get a good wage. With an allocation of $1.5 billion, we’ve estimated that more than 40,000 jobs can be created. More than 80 years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt made clear that the New Deal was a “call to arms.” How New York State chooses to invest this $5 billion settlement money presents us with the same charge. These settlement funds offer us an extraordinary opportunity to make significant and lasting change in the fiscal health and future stability of New York State, and the Independent Democratic Conference believes that the best way to do this is through job creation. By reinvesting the money to rebuild New York, we will be building up New Yorkers. State Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein is the Independent Democratic Conference leader.
cit yandstateny.com
PERSPEC TIVES
LIBRARIES OF THE FUTURE
DESIGN TEAMS REIMAGINE HOW NEW YORK CITY’S LIBRARIES CAN BECOME STATE-OF-THE-ART COMMUNITY HUBS
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As a part of the Re-Envisioning New York’s Branch Libraries project, MASS Design Group has reimagined the Sheepshead Bay branch with a stage at its center.
in their communities. The dynamic suite of strategies developed by UNION, an interdisciplinary team of communication designers and architects, addressed libraries’ PR problem. They outlined a more effective identity system (including a clearer library icon and signage), a library card that can unlock services far beyond libraries, “librarians-at-large” who meet community members on the streets, a marketing campaign that draws on the libraries’ fleet of delivery trucks, and architectural strategies that leverage needed investments in roof and facade repairs to create more distinctive, open and flexible facilities. L+, an interdisciplinary team led by Situ Studio, created a “kit-ofparts” for dramatically improving the libraries’ ability to put on a broad range of educational and community programming. CUF has documented a huge increase in demand for these types of programs as well as a dearth of facilities and equipment that can accommodate them. L+ created a highly flexible and affordable solution that can be manufactured offsite and implemented in a range of contexts, including the community rooms in existing branches, retail spaces, and transit hubs. Finally, designs from Andrew Berman Architect tackled the need to connect the library’s typically indoor activities beyond its walls so that they reverberate throughout the community. Activating building facades creates outdoor spaces to gather and quieter reading nooks around the library, and ATM-vestibule-like rooms are visually open to passersby and remain accessible 24 hours a day, offering basic services like a book drop, seating and electrical outlets without overburdening operating budgets. Jonathan Bowles is executive director and Jeanette Estima research associate at the Center for an Urban Future, which recently published Re-Envisioning New York’s Branch Libraries.
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city & state — December 11, 2014
W
ith roots in nearly every community across the five boroughs, New York City’s 207 public library branches are uniquely positioned to help address several economic, demographic and social challenges that will impact New York in the decades ahead, from the rapid aging of the city’s population— libraries are a go-to resource for seniors—and the continued growth in the number of foreign-born—libraries are the most trusted institution for immigrants—to the rise of the freelance economy—libraries are the original co-working spaces. But city policymakers have not thought strategically about these assets in decades. Although libraries have stepped in to fill community needs in a variety of ways, the vast majority of the city’s branch libraries are struggling to meet the demands of their communities. As the Center for an Urban Future (CUF) detailed in a recent report, the average branch library in New York is 61 years old, and 59 branches have at least $5 million in maintenance needs. Meanwhile, too many branches are poorly configured for the ways New Yorkers are using libraries today. Many don’t have enough space to accommodate the growing demand for literacy and afterschool programs, computers and quiet spaces to work. At a time when more people are using libraries than ever before, and
The planning tool showed that 74 branches are within flood zones, and another 75 are within a half-mile walk of a flood zone. Layering growth patterns, current population density and development potential onto their environmental resiliency and library data, the team identified several sites where a new, environmentally sustainable library could be built with affordable housing, such as the Brighton Beach branch, which needs about $5 million to repair its boiler, windows and the building’s exterior. The Marble Fairbanks team noted that many of the city’s aging library buildings sit on properties that could be developed for affordable housing— thus allowing the city to rebuild an aging library at no cost to the city while also creating affordable housing, a key priority for Mayor Bill de Blasio. They considered the development potential of six different library sites across the city, and proposed modest zoning changes that could maximize the impact of a mixed-use development with a community facility such as a library. These included: permitting higher use on split lots, extending adjacent higher-density districts, increasing FAR (the floor area ratio) for community facilities and providing a resilience bonus. Other design teams focused on new ideas and strategies for maximizing the impact of libraries
REIMAGINE
JONATHAN BOWLES AND JEANETTE ESTIMA
technology has revolutionized how we learn, communicate and socialize, how can New York tap the full potential of the city’s 207 branches? What would an Andrew Carnegie-scale reinvestment in our libraries look like today? On Dec. 4 six interdisciplinary design teams came together to present their answers to these questions at a dynamic symposium convened by CUF, the Architectural League and the Charles H. Revson Foundation. One of the design teams—Marble Fairbanks with James Lima Planning + Development, Leah Meisterlin and Special Project Office—suggested that branch libraries could be better integrated into the city’s housing, community development and resiliency goals. The team developed an innovative planning tool that combines extensive demographic, geographic, zoning and library use data to inform the development of new library spaces so they are grounded in community needs. For instance, it showed that the Grand Concourse branch in the Bronx has a high concentration of young people in the immediate vicinity, whereas the Rego Park branch in Queens has a diversity of age groups. This might suggest that Grand Concourse could maximize its impact by investing in resources for young people, while Rego Park has work to do to appeal to seniors, families, professionals and teens.
BEYOND BORDERS S
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andra
Fuentes-Berain was appointed the consul general of Mexico in New York last year by President Enrique Peña Nieto. A career diplomat, Fuentes-Berain had previously served as Mexico’s head of mission to the European Union, and as ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, Canada, France and the Netherlands. She also participated in the negotiations of both the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Free Trade Agreement with the EU. The recipient of numerous prestigious decorations from governments around the world, in recognition of her service to her nation, Fuentes-Berain was named a lifetime ambassador emeritus in 2012 by then-President Felipe Calderón, making her the first woman to receive this distinction. City & State Editor Morgan Pehme spoke with Fuentes-Berain about the present and future priorities and concerns of New York’s rapidly burgeoning Mexican population, which by the 2020s is projected to become the largest Latino group in New York City at its current rate of growth.
city & state — December 11, 2014
The following is an edited transcript. City & State: What are you foremost priorities as consul general? Sandra Fuentes-Berain: We have perhaps the largest network of consulates that any country has in another [nation]. We have 50 consulates in the United States, and a priority for all of the consular officers is the protection of Mexicans in the United States; the protection of their rights, the protection of their safety, the protection of their families, and of course to advance their inclusion in the social tissue of this country that they have decided to adopt as theirs. C&S: What has been the country of Mexico’s response to President Obama’s recent executive order, and how it is affecting your work as
SFB: Definitely—but as long as you get your own ID, and everybody gets an ID—all New Yorkers. The ID has to say “I am a New Yorker,” not “I am an undocumented person living in New York.” I think the city is doing very well in getting discounts, getting free entrances to museums and parks, etc., and I hope the result is that it will be attractive to New Yorkers in general, so that it is not a scarlet letter for the undocumented workers that take it out and immediately people will know that they have no other document.
A Q&A WITH
SANDRA FUENTES-BERAIN consul general? SFB: Within the political atmosphere that exists in Washington today, the fact that President Obama did what he did is very courageous. We welcome it, and we’re going to work very, very hard in order to get as many Mexicans to benefit from the executive action, but of course we would like to have seen something that encompasses the 11 million undocumented people that live in the United States, out of which a vast majority is Mexican. C&S: Do you have a sense of how many Mexicans in New York the executive order will affect? SFB: It is difficult to say, but the [U.S.] government has stated that out of the 5 million people that will benefit from this executive action, about 3.8 million will be Mexicans, so even in New York
City the majority will be Mexicans. I must say something that is important: [American] cities are going forward. Cities are not waiting for Washington to do the immigration revamp that is needed, because the cities need the labor. When I called on former Mayor Bloomberg, he told me, “Ambassador, we need you. That is why we treat you very well.” I thank him for that. And I must say that Mayor de Blasio has been wonderful in convening Democratic mayors from other big cities that also depend heavily on immigration, and they are advancing the cause. I think this is something that we have to be very thankful for. C&S: One initiative New York is about to undertake on this front is the introduction of municipal IDs. Do you think this is a positive step?
C&S: In November of 2013, New York City elected our first-ever Mexican-American elected official, Carlos Menchaca. What is the significance of that milestone for you? SFB: Of course I am very proud. New York City needs Mexican-Americans doing public policy for the Mexicans that live here. Carlos is not born and educated in New York; he was born in El Paso and educated in California. But the committee he heads at the City Council is very, very important—the immigration committee. We do work very closely with him, and of course his district is also a district where the majority of inhabitants are Mexicans: Sunset Park and Red Hook, in Brooklyn. I want to see more Mexicans in local politics, both in the city and in the tri-state area. They are just coming of age now. We are very new to the city and to the area. I think the first Mexicans ever arrived here in the ’70s, so the children are now getting to be interested in entering politics and I am very much looking forward to helping them learn how to become leaders in order to lobby [and] do advocacy. We are the largest [immigrant] population in the United States. We have to have better representation both locally and nationally.
To watch this interview in its entirety go to cityandstateny.com.
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