EDDIE GIBBS

Q & A with Assembly Member-elect

By Jeff Coltin

Eddie Gibbs

You’re on the path to becoming an Assembly member. I believe you’d be the first state legislator who previously served time in prison. Is that right? Tell me about your story.

I will be. And it’s a lot of pressure, now that we’re so close to it, and you think about it actually happening. You think about the millions of ex-offenders who will probably hear what’s happening, and you can either inspire these guys to change their lives around. You can inspire these guys to want more and do more. So there’s a responsibility attached to this. It’s bigger than me. I spoke to (Assembly) Speaker (Carl) Heastie today. He said, are you sure you want to do this? And I laughed when he said it. And when I got off the phone, I was like, damn, that’s a good question. It’s a lot of pressure. But that’s what kept me straight for the past – you know, this happened 35-plus years ago. Let’s get this out the way: 17 years old, was hustling. This guy attacked me. I was defending myself. I turned myself in. I didn’t hide from the police. I walked to the precinct and I turned myself in. I gave a statement right then and there. I was given three years. A plea. I think because of the remorse I was showing and mitigating circumstances, I was given that lenient sentence. But until this day, I’m very apologetic and disappointed in my actions. I make no excuses for them. But I can promise you, and I can assure you, the 17-year-old boy who made those poor decisions 35-plus years ago, that’s not the man you’re talking to today. I’m tearing up as I talk to you, because (of) what I went through over the past 28 years trying not to get to this point, but trying to prove to people that I’m not that monster that the papers said I was. The murderer. I knew I defended myself. The courts knew I defended myself. I was hustling. I wasn’t making money. We couldn’t afford an attorney like a Murray Richman to represent me. So when the judge sends your Legal Aid attorney into your cell and says, “Hey, man, you’ve been here now 17 months, we’ve got some good news for you. The judge is offering you three years.” I was on Rikers Island for 17 months.

Do you hope to get involved in criminal justice and sentencing issues in the state Legislature? Or have you had enough of that in your life?

Criminal justice reform has got to be something I focus on. I want to be part of that discussion. I’m still studying the effects of bail reform. But criminal justice is definitely on my mind. I sent the email out to (Assembly Member) David Weprin. I know he’s the chairman of the prisons committee up here in Albany. I’m focusing on housing and seniors, but that committee, I want to put my emphasis on it. I don’t think anybody out there will have better insight than me. I’m the product of a fair criminal justice system. I’m that story of redemption. When I came home, I was trying to do everything to fit in. I did stand-up comedy for like, two years. Did a lot of shows. My stage name was Good Buddy. And this name was fitting because I am a good buddy. I didn’t want that stigma. When people come home from prison, especially with a manslaughter charge, or if you’ve been in prison five, 10 years, people form this opinion about you, that you’re tough and you’re rough and don’t bother them and they’re afraid of you. You’re intimidating. I didn’t want people to feel like that around me. I wanted to show people I was funny. I talked about prison. I talked about life. I talked about everything. Talked about becoming an ordained deacon. Because I wanted people to relax and laugh. I did that, I did acting. I did rapping. I was rapping with everybody. I’ve got to show you these videos. I did rapping with Jungle Brothers with, God bless the dead, Biggie Smalls. I rapped with Mase, I opened up for him.

You rapped with Biggie Smalls?

You said you’re still studying bail reform. What do you mean by that? Have you not made up your mind on whether the current law needs to be changed?

Yeah, yeah. I did. Me and, God bless the dead, Big L. Big L is a rapper from 139th Street. He didn’t get his break yet, but he had a good following. And he was killed at 139th and Lenox. Good friend of mine whose brother Leroy and I were locked up together for three years. And when we came home, we gravitated towards Big L, and we traveled with him. And he opened up for Biggie, and they let me do some freestyles at the show.

In the community where we’re from, we see a lot. There’s no fear of going to jail anymore. Back then, people were afraid to get caught. You’re not coming home. To look into those windows – like “bail reform! The bail is too high! This guy can’t afford it!” But you’ve got to look at some of the charges. I’m critical on everybody. Who said that – don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the time? Right is right, wrong is wrong. If you’re caught up and you’re wrong, you’ve got to learn. I’ve got a lot of friends who just can’t make that transition. They’d rather be out there hustling. And, to each his own. But there’s going to be a price you have to pay. I love East Harlem. Born and raised here, 54 years now. Minus the four I was gone in prison. I love El Barrio. I love the community. I love the neighbors. I love the people. And I understand why and how the Latinos would feel entitled. Prior to them gaining the seat, it was the Italians. But back then in East Harlem, it was Italians and Black. It wasn’t Latinos. I can tell you stories from my cousins and uncles who would fight Italians because – if we go across First Avenue, we’re out of territory. Italians held it down for a while, then Latinos moved in and they ran and gained the seat. Granted, I don’t think it’s a Puerto Rican seat. I just think it’s an East Harlem seat. You have a pocket of Latinos who felt the need to say that they are the old guard and the old ways said that no Black can occupy this seat. I don’t think most of the Latino community agreed with them.

I’M THE PRODUCT OF A FAIR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. I’M THAT STORY OF REDEMPTION.

This seat has been held by a Latino member for almost 50 years. You’re Black, so there’s some tension around that change. How does it feel to represent this plurality Hispanic neighborhood?

PAINFUL PANDEMIC LESSONS

Times Square featured a COVID-19 testing site this month.

PAINFUL PANDEMIC LESSONS

Even if the state is past the omicron peak, have we learned anything to prepare for what lies ahead?

By Sheryl Huggins Salomon

Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, center, warned of letting COVID-19 catch New York flat-footed again.

THERE ARE PROMISING signs that New York is past the peak of the omicron wave of COVID-19 cases. The state had more than 30,000 new cases on Jan. 19, down from a peak of more than 90,000 cases on Jan. 8. Deaths, which have lagged behind cases, were over 250 per day in mid-January, still well below the April 2020 peak of about 1,000 deaths per day.

State Health Department Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said she has seen “convincing data” of a downturn in hospitalizations downstate, and that she sees the trend heading toward a plateau elsewhere. “But it’s still going up in some areas upstate, so we have to keep an eye on that,” she told City & State.

Earlier in the week Gov. Kathy Hochul echoed this caution, saying, “We are not out of the woods yet with this winter surge.”

And that is what worries many state leaders and health officials: If New York is still in the woods, then what lurks in the shadows? And is the state prepared for the next phase of the pandemic?

Those concerns are not without merit. Leaders are facing low staffing levels at hospitals, poor morale among medical front-line workers, limited availability of COVID-19 tests, continued opposition to wearing masks and getting the vaccine by some, and uncertainty over whether and how the virus might mutate again.

Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have vowed to keep the government, businesses and schools open . They have said they will develop plans to deal with any future surge in COVID-19 cases while seeking a way for New Yorkers to live with the virus.

“The lessons of this current pandemic are many and some of them are painful,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said. “It’s pretty clear that we hollowed out public health in this country and really paid a price for it over the last two years. It’s also clear that the history of deep inequality and access to medical care has led to horrific impact on communities of color in this crisis. We have much more work to do to protect ourselves from either another wave of COVID or another pandemic.”

Levine’s sentiments appear to be shared by Hochul. In her 2022-2023 budget announced on Jan. 18, she included a $10 billion plan to grow New York’s health workforce by 20% over the next five years, calling it the largest investment in health care in state history. It includes $4 billion to supplement health care and mental health worker wages and bonuses, of which $1.2 billion would be allocated for retention bonuses; $500 million for cost-of-living adjustments for human services workers; and $2.4 billion for infrastructure improvements to hospitals, nursing homes and clinics, as well as funding to increase testing capacity. Hochul had already asked the federal government for an additional 800 military medical personnel to help handle COVID-19 cases in New York City and state.

“One hard lesson we learned about what happens when there’s a lack of investment is how our health care system crumbled under the stress of the pandemic, and that’s why we’re making up for lost time,” she said.

In New York City earlier this month, Adams announced that he will target the omicron variant by committing $145 million in resources to support public hospitals as well as independent hospitals and medical facilities that provide services to the uninsured and those on Medicaid. Of that funding, $111 million will go to boost staffing at New York City Health + Hospitals and the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. About $33 million will be added to the COVID-19 Hospital Loan Fund, which in partnership with Goldman Sachs, provides unsecured loans to independent safety net hospitals serving the uninsured and those on Medicaid.

The funding will help shore up hospitals beyond the omicron surge, said Eboné Carrington, the former Harlem Hospital Center CEO who served on Adams’ transition committee. “It’s to help them get through the next couple of waves,” Carrington said.

The announcements were welcome news to people like Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, who said funding increases would be a welcome departure from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s approach to health care spending. “In recent budgets under Gov. Cuomo, there were repeated efforts to cut that funding, and the Legislature had to work to try to find funding to restore those cuts,” said Gottfried, chair of the Assembly Health Committee. Last year, Cuomo’s original budget proposal had included $600 million in cuts to hospitals. He had also proposed cutting Medicaid costs by limiting reimbursements for prescription drugs bought by community-based health centers.

“Medicaid reimbursement rates need to be improved and we need to pay hospitals more to cover the cost of people who don’t have health coverage,” Gottfried said. “We have state funding that is designed to reimburse hospitals for what is called indigent care, but that funding is inadequate and a disproportionate share of it goes to hospitals that don’t provide a lot of indigent care.”

In addition to the health care funding allocated in the proposed state budget, Bassett said, “My interest is in achieving structural solutions that will keep us from having the recurrent need for cash subsidies to struggling hospitals.” Though she’s just at the beginning of working out how to do that.

But it is not just Medicaid funding and indigent care that concerns state and local health officials. Testing is also a concern. The demand for COVID-19 test-

“One hard lesson we learned about what happens when there’s a lack of investment is how our health care system crumbled under the stress of the pandemic.”

– Gov. Kathy Hochul

ing far outstripped the supply as schools, businesses and communities attempted to stay open safely. In late December, state and local elected leaders in Queens complained about the lack of tests. “New Yorkers should not have to wait in lines for hours, travel far, or worry their results will not be provided to them promptly,” Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas said. Bassett said the state has ordered 64 million COVID-19 tests with 16 million being delivered so far.

Levine, along with other elected leaders and public health experts, warned that years of disinvestment and neglect of our public health system must be addressed for those efforts to succeed.

“The level of payment reform that’s required for the Medicaid program and for underinsured or uninsured individuals is really at the heart of this conversation,” Carrington said.

Gottfried said passing his long-standing single-payer health care bill, the New York Health Act, would help. As City & State previously reported, getting consensus on it in this session will be an uphill battle, despite significant support in both chambers. Public sector unions are among the opponents, concerned about the impact on members’ health benefits. “There are obviously interest groups that are opposed to the bill and we’re working to try to meet their concerns and overcome their opposition,” Gottfried said.

Beyond bolstering the public health care system, it will take planning and cooperation between all sectors of New York life to avoid getting caught flat-footed once again by COVID-19 or another health threat. “Not only can we do more to prevent these events, but we should be better prepared to respond to them and also to recover from these threats,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr of