City & State New York 041320

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THE WHY

HE ART OF THE STORM

April 13, 2020

NEW YORKERS:

STAY HOME TO STOP THE SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS New Yorkers working together and staying home can slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) in New York City. When you go out for essential needs, work or to get fresh air, keep distance between yourself and others and take the following precautions.

PROTECT YOURSELF AND OTHERS • Keep at least 6 feet between yourself and others.

• Wash your hands with soap and water often.

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue or sleeve when sneezing or coughing.

• Do not touch your face with unwashed hands.

• Monitor your health more closely than usual for cold or flu symptoms.

IF YOU ARE SICK • Stay home.

• If you have a cough, shortness of breath, fever, sore throat and do not feel better after 3-4 days, consult with your doctor.

• If you need help getting medical care, call 311.

• NYC will provide care regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.

PROTECT THE MOST VULNERABLE • Stay home if you have lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer or a weakened immune system.

• Stay home and call, video chat or text with family or friends who have one of these conditions.

Text COVID to 692-692 for real-time updates or visit nyc.gov/coronavirus.

Call 311 to report harassment or discrimination. Call 888-NYC-WELL, text "WELL" to 65173 or chat online at nyc.gov/nycwell to connect with a counselor. *Messages and data rates may apply. Check your wireless provider plan for details.

REDUCE OVERCROWDING • Stay home.

• Telecommute if possible.

If you do go out: • Stagger work hours away from peak travel times.

• Walk or bike.

• Do not gather in crowds.

Bill de Blasio Mayor Oxiris Barbot, MD Commissioner

April 13, 2020

City & State New York

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EDITOR’S NOTE

JON LENTZ Editor-in-chief

ON MARCH 1, NEW YORK’S first coronavirus case was confirmed. Two weeks later, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was closing the city’s public schools. Five days after that, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered the closure of nonessential businesses and banned all social gatherings.

Were those limits put in place fast enough?

Apparently not. For weeks, de Blasio has been criticized for resisting shutting down the city. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has won praise for briefing the public each day on the spread of the deadly virus, how New York is responding and what more needs to be done, but he’s now under scrutiny for not acting sooner. Had restrictions been imposed a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been reduced by half or more, according to Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who also served as New York City’s health commissioner.

New York’s delays in enforcing social distancing “likely allowed the virus to arrive here sooner than in other parts of the country and spread more quickly,” Frieden told City & State this week. “Earlier action would likely have prevented the worst of this epidemic peak.”

In this week’s magazine, we take a closer look at why New York was hit so hard – and what could have been done differently.

CONTENTS

WHY NEW YORK? … 8 Density alone doesn’t explain the crisis.

THE PLAN … 12

Cuomo followed a pandemic playbook.

THE RICH … 16

Why the wealthy get COVID tests

ASK THE EXPERTS … 19 Playing the blame game

CELESTE SLOMAN; TETIANA.PHOTOGRAPHER/SHUTTERSTOCK

SESSION … 20 Is it over?

WINNERS & LOSERS … 26 Who was up and who was down last week

CityAndStateNY.com

COVID-19 CASES SLOWING

Weeks after the state effectively shut down, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had a little bit of good news to deliver: It appears that the number of new coronavirus hospitalizations is decreasing, a sign that New York is approaching

April 13, 2020

the apex of cases, the point at which hospitals will be hardest hit. However, deaths continue to rise throughout the state, with New York recently hitting a record number of deaths in a single day. Cuomo said that people will continue dying at high rates even as the new cases begin to level out because those

deaths represent people who were infected days or even weeks ago.

The governor added that while there is reason for tentative optimism given the new data, it’s imperative that New Yorkers not ease up on social distancing.

He ordered nonessential businesses and schools remain closed until at least April 29 and extended the ban on social gatherings.

Cuomo said that easing up too soon would lead to a new surge in cases and would risk eliminating the progress the state has made so far. When Broadway theaters said they would reopen on June 7, the governor seemed to indicate that even that date would still be too soon for nonessential businesses to reopen en masse.

STATE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY IN QUESTION WITH SANDERS’ EXIT

“I wouldn’t use what Broadway thinks as a barometer of anything unless they’re in the public health business and have better models.”

– Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on when nonessential businesses may reopen and rejecting Broadway theater operators’ new plans to open back up on June 7, via the New York Post

THROUGH THE ROOF When it comes to comparing metropolises across the country, New York City typically towers above the rest. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, it’s standing out for all the wrong reasons.

On The New York Times’ striking front page on Wednesday, a nationwide map of fatalities illustrates just how badly the New York metro area has suffered, with over 4,700 deaths, bursting through the Gray Lady’s nameplate.

“I think mail-in voting is horrible.

It’s corrupt.”

– President Donald Trump, who added that he voted by mail last month “because I’m allowed to,” via New York magazine

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders announced that he is suspending his presidential campaign, leaving former Vice President Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

Sanders’ announcement gives the state Board of Elections the power to remove him from the ballot, along with every other Democratic candidate who has dropped out. With just Biden on the ballot in New York, the state could cancel the Democratic primary, currently scheduled for June 23 after Cuomo postponed it from April 28. However, Sanders said that he plans to remain on the ballot for future primaries so he could keep amassing delegates in order to gain more influence at the Democratic National Convention, where the party determines its platform. That may impact the state Board of Elections’ decision to remove him from the ballot. The same day Sanders announced his campaign suspension, Cuomo also said he would allow all New Yorkers to vote via absentee ballot for the June 23 election. Aside from the presidential primary, voters will be casting their ballots for

MICHAEL APPLETON/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE; HANS PENNINK, JSTONE, LAURYN ALLEN/SHUTTERSTOCK

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April 13, 2020

all state legislative and congressional primaries as well as a handful of special elections.

NEW YORK CITY ANNOUNCES BUDGET CUTS

In anticipation of lost tax revenues and new costs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced $1.3 billion in budget cuts. They include $46 million from the Fair Fares program – which provides half-priced MetroCards to low-income New Yorkers – as well as $124 million from a summer jobs program. The amount of money needed for both was expected to be lower this year due to fewer people using the subways and the possibility that the pandemic would affect the feasibility

COVID-19 VIBE CHECK

City & State New York

of young people getting summer jobs. Additionally, the city has proposed $221 million education cuts that includes less money for the city’s pre-K program for 3-year-olds.

FORMER ASSEMBLYMAN DIES OF COVID-19

Former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky died of a suspected case of the coronavirus at age 73.

Brodsky served in the state Legislature for nearly three decades and was known for brash and bombastic style.

Colleagues remembered him as a lawmaker never afraid to speak his mind, and someone who was incredibly intelligent and had a great sense of humor.

He was one of the most important advocates for the state Legislature.

So you watch all of the governor’s press briefings and think you’re up to date, huh? Well the polling firm Elucd has been surveying New Yorkers about their changing attitudes, and the results aren’t covered in Cuomo’s presentations.

Here are our takeaways.

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Data confirms minorities were hit hardest in NYC, too Responding to pressure from state lawmakers, New York City and New York state announced that moving forward they will be releasing racial data on COVID-19 patients.

Preliminary data released by New York City on Wednesday revealed that Latino and black New Yorkers are dying from the new coronavirus at higher rates than non-Latino whites and Asian Americans. Latinos account for 34% of all fatalities and African Americans account for 28%, whereas Latinos and blacks are 29% and 22% of the city’s residents, respectively.

“The kind of health disparities that we’ve known for too long are clearly evidenced now in this crisis,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during an appearance on Fox 5.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has been an especially fierce critic of the city’s lack of data regarding the racial breakdown of its COVID-19 patients. On April 2, Williams wrote a letter addressed to de Blasio and city Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot asking that racial data be shared with the public. “Knowing which communities are most heavily impacted by COVID-19 is challenging when there is no data available for which racial demographics are testing positive, needing hospitalization, recovering from COVID-19, and dying as a result of COVID-19,” Williams wrote.

“Tracking and publishing this data is critical to facilitating the allocation and distribution of resources to the areas most in need.”

The city’s data had already revealed that people in lower-income neighborhoods are more likely to contract and die from COVID-19 than others.

MEN ABOUT TOWN As of Wednesday, women were isolating at a slightly higher rate than men in New York. Of the female respondents, roughly 91% said they were isolating nearly all of the time. 87% of men said they were doing the same.

The neighborhoods with the highest infection rates are immigrant-heavy working-class neighborhoods in Queens, and residents of the Bronx have the highest mortality rate.

De Blasio explained during a press conference on Tuesday that collecting racial data hasn’t been a priority as the city is racing to provide patients with care. “In a crisis atmosphere where health care is being provided rapidly to everyone that can be reached, that’s been less of a focus to get the ethnicity data,” he said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, who was also at the briefing, added that hospitals don’t typically report “race information directly to the state,” which requires the state to do its own research. “So what we end up doing on the back end is calling the coroners’ offices around the state, after the death has been reported, so there has been a lag,” DeRosa said. “We understand people want that information. We want that information, too.”

New research has indicated that African Americans in other states are getting infected and dying from COVID-19 at a much higher rate than most. That data has piqued interest in the racial breakdown of virus cases locally – as well as in the rest of the country. “Communities of color have always been excluded, exploited, and vulnerable to attack in America, so it was inevitable that the coronavirus would come for us,” journalist Barrett Holmes Pitner writes for The Daily Beast. “Tragically, our society still needs data to prove the possibility of the inevitable, and now the data is pouring in.”

SPREAD LOVE & VENTILATORS Cuomo’s order to redistribute ventilators downstate may have elicited outrage from upstate lawmakers, but 64% of respondents said they support it.

- Amanda Luz Henning Santiago

YOUNG SKEPTICS Maybe millennials know a thing or two about the job market in a recession, but the youth are doubtful of the economy’s short-term recovery. Only 9% of 18to 34-year-olds think the economy will recover in the next six months.

ANSWERING THE CALL 6

CityAndStateNY.com

April 13, 2020

PEOPLE IN POLITICS DROP WHAT THEY’RE DOING AND JOIN THE BATTLE.

BY JEFF COLTIN

NEW YORK IS the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, and it’s all hands on deck when it comes to battling the bug. Tens of thousands of people have joined the state’s reserve force of medical workers, including retirees and

REP. MAX ROSE

The Democratic congressman got elected in New York City’s most conservative district thanks in part to his record of military service. He’s still a member of the New York Army National Guard, and he’s been called up to serve, working as an operations officer setting up field hospitals in his district on Staten Island.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN KARINES REYES

The Bronx lawmaker was an oncology nurse before getting elected in 2018, and once the coronavirus hit the city, she started picking up shifts again at her old hospital, Montefiore’s Einstein Campus in the East Bronx. She took a break to vote on the state budget in April, then went right back to nursing.

even a licensed nurse who was recently touring as a musician with the Blue Man Group.

New Yorkers in the political sphere are stepping up, too, putting their day jobs on pause to respond to the crisis. Here are just a few examples.

ASSEMBLYMAN COLIN SCHMITT

The Hudson Valley Republican is a corporal in the New York Army National Guard and joined his unit, the 1569th Transportation Company, at the armory in New Windsor, where they’re preparing military and rented civilian trucks to distribute critical health supplies.

JAMES O’NEILL

The former NYPD commissioner left the city just months ago to take a job leading global security for Visa.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called him back home and named him senior adviser for COVID-19, but he’ll keep working for the credit card company at the same time.

TEAM CUOMO

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s getting the band back together, with half a dozen old staffers coming back to government service.

That includes his former Secretary Bill Mulrow, below top, former Secretary Steven M. Cohen, and former chief of staff Josh Vlasto.

Also back in town are former Director of State Operations Jim Malatras, who’s now president of SUNY Empire State College, but never really left the capital, and Rich Bamberger, Cuomo’s former communications director, below bottom.

April 13, 2020

City & State New York

A Q&A with Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President

MAX ROSE; KARINES REYES; ASSEMBLY; ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE; KEVIN P. COUGHLIN/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR; RICH BAMBERGER; COBA

ELIAS HUSAMUDEEN What’s the biggest issue facing correction officers right now?

Well, the biggest issue that we’re facing right now is our fight to get a testing site put on Rikers Island to test correction officers for the virus. And then the second biggest thing for us right now is forcing (New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann) to create a task force to deal specifically with all things COVID-19, which she should have done, because we have been demanding and requesting and saying to her to do this for almost almost a month now. The other problem is that, you know, my members are

not being provided enough PPEs (personal protective equipment) – the gloves, the masks, the hand sanitizers. The union had to go out and secure gloves and masks and hand sanitizers to give to my members, which shouldn’t be done when you have the epicenter of the epicenter on Rikers Island.

Are your members having to work longer hours now?

Well, it depends. I’ve got more than 10 facilities.

There’s certain facilities where, yes, they’re being forced to work overtime.

And there are other facilities where it’s not happening. But it all has to do with management.

City Hall is reducing New York City’s jail population, letting some 900 medically vulnerable inmates walk free. Is that a good idea?

I’ve never supported that plan. I’m never going to support that plan. When you start talking about trying to solve a health crisis by creating a public safety crisis, that’s just a problem. When you’ve decided that you’re going to let murderers, rapists, assault people, robbery people, when you decide that you’re going to let them out of jail, and

An advocacy campaign including City & State First Read provides a targeted way to reach decision makers in New York government and politics.

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You have the epicenter of the epicenter on Rikers Island.

that’s your solution to solving a health crisis, I think there’s something wrong with that thought pattern.

The state budget changed the law to make more offenses eligible for bail, which will probably result in a higher jail population.

How do you feel about the law that passed last year?

Look, here’s the reality: We’re correction officers.

We don’t arrest people.

We don’t decide who’s going to go to jail. That’s

something that’s decided by the police, by the district attorney, by the courts. So whoever they send us is who we will provide care, custody and control for.

Whoever they decide to put on the street, that’s an issue of public safety. Now, as a resident and a citizen, I’m concerned about that.

Like I said, no one gives a shit about the victims of these crimes. And we keep saying that they’re victimless crimes or that they’re nonviolent crimes.

Well if I walk up to you and I take your iPhone – and I could take your iPhone without putting my hands on you, or without physically assaulting you – is that a victimless crime?

WHY NY? 8

CityAndStateNY.com

April 13, 2020

New York was always going to get hit hard by COVID-19, but political decisions made things worse.

by Z A C H W I L L I A M S and J E F F C O L T I N the next 10 most-affected states combined.

“9/11 was supposed to be the darkest day in New York for a generation,” Cuomo told reporters on April 9. “We’ve lost over 7,000 lives to this crisis. That is so shocking and painful and breathtaking. I don’t even have the words for it.”

Why is New York getting hit so hard?

Public health experts say a combination of factors have contributed to the virus’s outsized spread in New York, including a politically charged federal response, urban density, racial and economic disparities, and the city’s role as a hub of global commerce and transportation.

But New York fared much worse than other diverse, globally connected cities that were among the first to identify cases of COVID-19, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. One difference between New York and its counterparts in California was the less aggressive early responses by Cuomo and de Blasio – especially in delaying the implementation of social distancing – compared to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

“All of this likely allowed the virus to arrive here sooner than in other parts of the country and spread more quickly,” Tom Frieden, a former head of the Centers for

Density alone doesn’t explain why New York is seeing so many cases.

Disease Control and Prevention, told City & State, referring to the city’s density and global prominence – but also being slower to adapt. “Earlier action would likely have prevented the worst of this epidemic peak.”

Comparisons with other places that developed early cases support that analysis.

Seoul is a huge, densely packed hub, but the entire country of South Korea only has 204 deaths – fewer than Staten Island alone. The first known cluster of cases in the United States occurred near Seattle, but Washington state has seen much slower growth in its cases. Face masks have been credited with limiting the spread of the virus in some places, and the South Korean

JOE TABACCA/SHUTTERSTOCK

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EW YORK ALWAYS has a claim at the top. It’s got the nation’s biggest city, tallest buildings, best pizza and the baseball team with the most World Series rings.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic is defining the Empire State as first in the country in a much grimmer way. With more than 170,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of April 10, the state has by far the most cases in the United States, with more than a third of the national total.

Its size and global importance effectively guaranteed that the pandemic would hit New York City, but the downstate area as a whole has suffered much more than those factors alone would necessarily suggest.

With more than 19 million residents, New York state is a little bit smaller than Florida, but has about 10 times more reported cases. California has about double New York’s population, but far fewer coronavirus deaths. Both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have said New York City faces a challenge unlike any other in the past century – a struggle they have likened to war and the Great Depression. As of April 10, New York’s death toll of 7,844 is more than the number of people who have died from COVID-19 in

April 13, 2020

government committed early to providing masks to all of its residents. Cuomo publicly questioned the effectiveness of wearing face masks, even as the CDC has shifted toward encouraging their use.

Viral infections are easily transmitted in dense environments such as apartment buildings and subway cars, a factor that has been widely cited by New York’s fans and detractors alike. But while New York City is the nation’s densest city and metro region, San Francisco is the second-densest city and it has fared much better. Meanwhile, the number of cases per capita has actually been higher in many of New York City’s relatively sprawling suburbs and the

City & State New York

outer boroughs than it is in Manhattan.

A closer look at the nature of New York City’s population reveals that it is uniquely dense compared to other American regions. While the New York City region’s average density is not much higher than San Francisco’s or LA’s, the New York City area is three times more tightly packed when viewed through the prism of population-weighted density, which factors in metrics like New York’s high concentration of jobs in the urban core.

New York City is also a global economic, cultural and tourist hub that attracts people from abroad like few other places in the world. New York’s first confirmed case

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of the disease, for example, was a woman who had traveled to Iran, which saw an outbreak earlier than the U.S. “It is likely that there were multiple patient zeros at the same time but undetected,” said Melody Goodman, the associate dean for research at the New York University School of Global Public Health. While New York and its West Coast counterparts are similarly connected to Asia through direct flights, new research from the NYU and Mount Sinai medical schools shows that New York’s early exposure to the new coronavirus came mainly from Europe.

While density and global economic ties increase risk, superdense city-states such

CityAndStateNY.com

as Hong Kong and Singapore have controlled COVID-19 much more effectively than New York. They have had the advantage, however, of controlling their own fate, while New York is under the thumb of a president criticized as incompetent and detached from reality.

The federal response, or lack thereof, has hamstrung every state’s ability to respond, but it has been especially problematic for the hardest-hit places. The Trump administration withheld crucial medical supplies, key approvals on expanding testing and political support for states’ efforts. “The initial federal response was terrible,” said Matthew Lamb, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Co-

April 13, 2020

lumbia University Medical Center. “The U.S. federal government had two months to set up surveillance through population testing or targeting points of entry and chose not to. Consequently, the infections introduced here could not be isolated and the virus has spread.”

Trump, density and size explain some of the reasons why the pandemic has hit New York City so disproportionately – but key decisions by Cuomo played a big role as well. New York seemed to lag in limiting residents’ public contact. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee began restricting public gatherings in his state on March 11. While the initial outbreak was growing quickly in New York, Cuomo didn’t order the closure

of public schools in New York City and its neighboring counties until March 15 – four days after Seattle did the same. Some urban areas of California imposed stayat-home orders by March 17. New York’s order began five days later – with deadly consequences.

If such actions had been taken just four days earlier, the pandemic might have been reduced by as much as 80%, according to Frieden. “If New York had moved to shelter in place two days later, cases and deaths would have doubled,” said Frieden, who heads an initiative called Resolve to Save Lives that aims to combat epidemics. Cuomo waited until other states led the way, including ones that had relative-

PHOTO SPIRIT/SHUTTERSTOCK

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April 13, 2020

City & State New York

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“IF NEW YORK HAD MOVED TO SHELTER IN PLACE TWO DAYS LATER, CASES AND DEATHS WOULD HAVE DOUBLED.”

– TOM FRIEDEN, A FORMER HEAD OF THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

The streets are deserted.

Experts say it didn’t happen fast enough.

ly minor outbreaks. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine made Ohio the first state to close public schools on March 12. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer began mobilizing her state’s emergency response in February.

Given New York’s particular risk factors, the state had no time to waste, said Nirav Shah, a senior scholar at the Clinical Excellence Research Center at Stanford University and the former commissioner of the New York state Health Department from 2011 to 2014. “If you have one person coming into a city with COVID, that’s different than five people.

It’s an exponential disease,” he explained.

“One versus five means you’re at very different starting points.”

These disadvantages were foreseen, but often insufficiently prepared for, by past city and state officials. Both the city and the state had made plans in the past two decades to deal with such a threat. Yet, stockpiles of critical supplies like ventilators were eventually squandered. By the end of January, both de Blasio and Cuomo were on notice that the coronavirus was coming to the U.S. “The next pandemic is coming. We’re not prepared for it,” read the headline of a Jan. 30 op-ed in The Washington Post written by Frieden, the former CDC director. Yet, both leaders waited until early March to take dramatic actions against the virus. The Cuomo and de Blasio administrations did not respond to requests for comment.

Another X-factor that could help explain the prevalence of the coronavirus in New York City is economic inequality. The city and the state regularly rank highly on lists of the healthiest places in the country, but health outcomes, like money, aren’t evenly distributed in one of the most unequal cities and states. Underlying health conditions such as obesity, liver disease and asthma put people at a higher risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19, and those same conditions correlate with poverty and race. And while New York has some of the finest hospitals in the country, many of which are concentrated in Manhattan, it also has scores of poorly ranked medical centers that have been struggling to keep up with their patient loads in the outer boroughs.

Black and Latino New Yorkers – who make up about half of the city’s population but nearly two-thirds of the COVID-19 deaths – are twice as likely to die from the virus as their white and Asian American counterparts. The Bronx, which is the city’s poorest borough and has the highest percentage of people of color, also has the city’s highest rate of infection. “I’m not surprised at all by these statistics and facts,” said Maya Clark-Cutaia, an expert on risk morbidity and an assistant professor of nursing at the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. “What I am disappointed in is finding that the resources haven’t reached these communities despite knowing that these disparities exist.”

De Blasio addressed the racial disparities of the disease’s effects at a press conference on April 8, noting that the city’s

high population of immigrants could have also contributed to the disease’s spread.

New Yorkers who speak little or no English may not be receiving critical public health guidance. And fear of the government in the Trump era has kept some immigrants from managing their health problems, both before and during this current crisis. Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, de Blasio said, has “driven them away from a lot of the places they would have turned for support and health care.”

Cuomo does deserve some credit for his approach – which was largely based on state plans developed years ago – to the pandemic. He took command in early March, mobilized state government and rallied the Legislature to give him emergency powers (with some controversy) to deal with the mounting crisis. And, unlike Trump, he takes responsibility. “If you’re going to be mad at anybody, be mad at me,” the governor said in mid-March. His much-praised daily press briefings have provided a detailed statistical overview of the state’s growing needs for medical supplies and personnel, and how the state government is doing everything in its power to buy or borrow to meet those needs. He even has managed to gradually extract more federal aid from Trump, while de Blasio and some liberal elected officials in other states have struggled to work with the hypersensitive president. While the governor has been a steady hand during the crisis, some of his counterparts in other states arguably deserve national recognition as much as he does.

Would the governor do anything differently in retrospect? “No, no, I think New York was early,” Cuomo told reporters on April 8. “I think the actions we took were more dramatic than most and were frankly criticized as premature.” In fact, public health experts and a growing chorus of elected officials in the city were calling for the shutdown of nonessential businesses in the days before Cuomo made that move.

Density, global connections and a disorganized federal response made a big difference in placing New York at the epicenter of the pandemic. But political decisions mattered too. That is a lesson that other city, county and state leaders might want to keep in mind because, while things are bad in New York now, the virus is expected to spread quickly in other states and cities soon.

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CityAndStateNY.com

April 13, 2020

THE PLAN THAT DIDN’T WORK

by R E B E C C A C . L E W I S

W

ELL BEFORE “CORONAVIRUS” had entered the lexicon of every New Yorker, the state was preparing for the eventuality of a pandemic, whether it was a relatively mild one like the 2009 H1N1 flu or a worstcase scenario like the current COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been

widely praised for his response to the crisis in New York, while also receiving some criticism from nurses about an apparent lack of equipment. Some argue Cuomo only appears to be doing well compared to President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, both of whom were slow to respond and failed to lead by example.

The reality of an exploding number of cases – and the strain it’s already putting on downstate hospitals – suggests that

despite Cuomo’s therapeutic press conferences, he was caught off-guard. But the state actually had plans in place to respond to a pandemic – it just may not have been enough for the worst-case scenario New York is facing.

By and large, Cuomo has been following the guidance of previous pandemic plans. The state laid out the basics of its pandemic response plan in a 2006 state Health Department document called the Pandemic Influenza Plan, which received

STEVE SANCHEZ PHOTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK

Gov. Andrew Cuomo followed the pandemic playbook.

It wasn’t enough.

April 13, 2020

City & State New York

The plan dictated finding places like the Javits Center to set up hospitals.

an update in 2014. City & State could only find the original version, and a request for the 2014 update went unanswered by the state. The guidance, like most pandemic response plans, worked off the assumption that a new virus that can reach pandemic status would most likely be a strain of the flu, unlike the new coronavirus spreading now, but the plans still apply to pandemics in general. In addition to the response plan, the state also has a March 2020 Pandemic Annex to

its Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, put out by the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, which offers further preparedness plans for interagency coordination.

It included the same general time frame for state action as the 2006 Pandemic Influenza Plan.

Cuomo declared a state of emergency in New York on March 7, when the state had only 76 confirmed cases and disease investigators were still attempting to

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keep track of individuals who had been exposed to the virus. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus to be a global pandemic.

Four days later, Cuomo announced that schools in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island would close for at least two weeks to help slow the spread of the virus. At the time, the state had a little over 700 confirmed cases, a large number of which were in the city of New Rochelle in Westchester County. A day later, the governor closed all bars, restaurants and theaters and asked businesses to reduce their in-person workforce by 50%. The number of cases in New York increased rapidly, thanks in part to expansive testing, and on the evening of March 22, after a series of progressively more restrictive policies, the state effectively locked down, as all nonessential businesses closed and all social gatherings were banned.

Although journalist Ross Barkan in a recent Columbia Journalism Review article questioned why it took Cuomo 22 days after the state’s first confirmed coronavirus case to take this drastic but necessary step, the governor’s timing seemed to follow the state’s Pandemic Influenza Plan, which is more of a guide based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations than a step-by-step instruction book on how to deal with a pandemic.

For example, the plan states that “community-based containment” methods should be enacted – such as closing schools and canceling public gatherings – when there is “moderate to extensive disease transmission in the area,” or “many cases cannot be traced to contact with an earlier case.”

Cuomo generally followed that guidance with more restrictive measures as the degree of community spread became more apparent. While critics like Barkan point out that the state could have started planning well in advance, the governor has largely kept with best practices that state and federal health officials laid out in planning documents.

California had its first confirmed case on Jan. 26, but Gov. Gavin Newsom did not declare a statewide shelter-in-place order until March 19. Washington state, another hot spot, declared a stay-at-home order on March 23. While the outbreaks in both states officially began well before New York’s, both still have significantly fewer cases.

The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention split a pandemic into a series of phases, previous versions of which are detailed in the state’s 2006 response plan, the final stage being a pandemic declared. Those six phases have been updated, according to the 2020 Pandemic

CityAndStateNY.com

Annex, but the updates don’t substantially change the points at which various interventions are recommended based on the virus’s spread. Around the time the pandemic announcement came, the world was in the third phase – comparable to the fifth phase in the old guidelines – a point when governments should begin implementing quarantining and social distancing rules, and preparing for more drastic measures. The next phase is when the most dramatic measures should be taken.

Those phases were playing out on a smaller scale in New York and in the United States, as Cuomo followed the guidelines to attempt to contain the virus through a more targeted quarantine and isolation program. When many of the state’s cases were concentrated in the Westchester city of New Rochelle, for example, Cuomo announced a “containment zone” on March 10 within a 1-mile radius of a synagogue believed to be at the center of the local spread of the virus. In that zone, schools were closed and large gatherings were banned. Those steps aligned with a recommendation in the updated 2020 Pandemic Annex, which said that “schools and public gatherings in the area of concern may be cancelled or closed” prior to the most extreme measures when statewide spread is apparent. Arguably, Cuomo could have instituted similar interventions sooner in New York City, which was increasingly becoming an “area of concern.”

The most extreme measures detailed in both plans include community quarantine and social distancing measures statewide, which have been enacted, and setting up triage and treatment centers at nontraditional sites, which the state has done at the Javits Center in Manhattan and at other locations.

As COVID-19 spread, Cuomo continually adjusted the restrictiveness of his mandates in ways that seemed aligned with the state response plan, particularly given the speed of new infections and the unprecedented nature of the coronavirus outbreak. “As soon as you have an event happening, your plan needs to change and be flexible to respond,” Dr. Gus Birkhead, an epidemiologist and former state Department of Health official involved with emergency planning, said.

“You can’t plan for every eventuality.”

One aspect of this crisis that may not have been considered was the scope of the equipment that would be needed. Cuomo has received criticism from nurses on the ground about a lack of personal protective equipment and from Trump about not having enough ventilators. Trump said the state had the ability to buy 16,000 ventilators years ago, referring to a 2015

April 13, 2020

task force report issuing guidelines if ventilator triage was necessary. That report said that with the current stockpile, the state would not be prepared for a pandemic outbreak comparable to the infamous 1918 flu. But that represented a worst-case scenario, which one might say the state should have prepared for, but no other state had prepared for it either. “I’d say we’re as prepared as anyone else was,” Stu Sherman, a New York City Council candidate and bioethicist who was the executive

great plans that have been developed and refined with each new pandemic event … but we depend on the federal government when response overwhelms local capabilities – which is what is happening now,” Dr. Robyn Gershon, a clinical professor of epidemiology at New York University, wrote in an email to City & State.

“The problem is that the federal response was poorly managed.”

Where Cuomo perhaps did not follow the best guidelines was in the prepara-

Both Cuomo and de Blasio were criticized as schools stayed open.

director of the task force that released that report, told City & State. “But it’s always difficult prior to the occurrence of a crisis to get attention and resources and preparation for that.” Birkhead said that New York had a fairly large stockpile of ventilators before this current outbreak – Cuomo said the state had about 1,800 ventilators in the state stockpile before the crisis – but it’s uncommon for states to spend large amounts of money on the off chance that the worst possibility will come to pass. “At the national level, that stockpile is not prepared for the worst-case scenario either,” Birkhead said. The Strategic National Stockpile only has 16,600 ventilators, a number that pales in comparison to the nearly 750,000 ventilators health experts say the country might need if the COVID-19 pandemic is as bad as the 1918 Spanish flu.

With that in mind, Trump’s response, which has been criticized by public health experts, has made it harder on state and local governments, particularly when it comes to equipment shortages. “We have

tions leading up to certain mandates, such as school closures. Americans have known since January that COVID-19 was ravaging China and that health experts expected it to spread internationally. This was a period when the state’s pandemic response plan said the state should be coordinating with localities to plan for the likely closing of public schools. When Cuomo announced that schools would shut down, he gave New York City and neighboring counties just days to prepare a plan for providing necessary services like child care and food distribution. Both Cuomo and de Blasio received criticism for not taking quicker, more decisive action to close schools.

Cuomo originally wanted to leave the decision to the counties.

De Blasio attributed his reluctance in part to the essential role that schools play in feeding children, and the uncertainty about how to continue this service, a problem that in theory should have been discussed weeks earlier. The pattern could be seen in other mandates as well – the or-

DON POLLARD/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

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City & State New York

ders came at the same time as the demand for plans, when that planning should have already taken place. The governor’s office and the state Department of Health did not respond to inquiries for this story about the state’s adherence to previously established pandemic plans.

This apparent lack of preparedness could be partly attributed to the severity of the outbreak and its quick spread in the state. The pandemic response plan for the state offers no time frames for when such steps might be necessary, as it’s impossible to know how a new virus might act. Gershon also pointed out that potential shortcomings with the state response would not fall squarely on Cuomo, as localities must also work closely with the state and adhere to best practices themselves when it comes to planning and training.

But given New York’s status as the U.S. epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, it would seem that even if Cuomo largely followed established planning, it was

Despite Cuomo’s past assurances that the state has enough personal protective equipment for front-line workers, including N95 respirators and plastic face guards, reports from the ground suggested otherwise. Nurses at Mount Sinai West in Manhattan posted pictures of themselves decked out in garbage bags because the hospital ran out of protective gowns. One nurse has already died there, which coworkers attributed to a lack of supplies. Elsewhere, doctors reported that they have been forced to reuse masks. Such practices have since become commonplace as hospitals follow CDC guidelines on reusing personal protective equipment.

In late March, at the same time that the Cuomo administration said it had not begun sending out ventilators it received from the federal government, The New York Times reported that NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City had already begun hooking up two patients to the same ventilator, a controversial deci-

still not enough to curb the virus’s spread.

With an expected apex rapidly approaching that could push hospitals well past capacity, Cuomo has followed recommended guidance of mandating hospitals increase capacity while searching for more bed space at other health care facilities as well as at hotels and college dormitories. The Javits Center in Manhattan was transformed into a makeshift hospital by the Army Corps of Engineers and the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, was sent to the city to ease the stress on hospitals.

sion. Since then, Cuomo announced an executive order permitting the National Guard to take ventilators from upstate hospitals to help meet the need downstate. He also said that the state received 1,000 ventilators from China and 140 from Oregon to supplement the state’s supply, which has been dwindling as more ventilators get sent to areas of need like New York City and Long Island.

Cuomo had said at one point that the state was failing to flatten the curve of the outbreak, meaning that the spread

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has not been slowed sufficiently to ease the expected burden on the health care system. This all reflects poorly on New York’s response and preparedness, even if Cuomo attempted to follow established plans. However, about two weeks later, Cuomo said that the rate of new hospitalizations was beginning to slow and suggested that the state was at the start of its apex – the point when the number of cases and hospitalizations peak.

One area in which the state was well-prepared was its capacity to conduct tests for COVID-19. New York was uniquely prepared to ramp up testing capacity when public and private labs in the state, including the public Wadsworth Center in Albany, received federal approval to perform tests. “The Wadsworth (Center) at the Health Department is probably the premiere public health laboratory in the country outside the CDC,” Birkhead said. “They were prepared to begin testing when the CDC distributed the test kits that were faulty.”

Those faulty kits were shipped out at the beginning of February. Wadsworth immediately began developing its own test kits once the faults in the federal kits were discovered. The state kits received Food and Drug Administration approval on Feb. 29 and were sent to other labs across the state. A day later, the state confirmed its first case through a test done at the Wadsworth Center. Since then, New York has performed more tests than any other state in the country. California, another hot spot with a population of nearly 40 million, had performed only 117,431 tests as of April 7. New York state, which has a population of roughly 19.5 million, has performed more than 320,000 tests.

On the national level, the federal government continues struggling to increase testing capacity as well.

Disparity in testing numbers and in the testing information each state releases can lead to confusion among health experts about where hot spots are actually located, and could contribute to New York’s disproportionately high number of positive cases. But for New York as a state, the high volume of testing it has managed to perform has provided the state with valuable data to help inform decision-making. Recently, as the state prepares for the surge of patients that could overwhelm hospital capacity, Cuomo provided updated estimates on necessary hospital beds and ventilators based on that data as the rate of new cases increased.

As the situation grows more dire, perhaps that flexibility that Birkhead spoke of should have come earlier, with Cuomo choosing to impose stricter mandates than existing plans may have suggested.

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April 13, 2020

A TALE OF TWO COVIDS As the wealthy and politically connected are all getting coronavirus tests, the crisis is deepening New York’s disparity between rich and poor.

by A M A N D A L U Z H E N N I N G S A N T I A G O

O

N MARCH 31, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo revealed he tested positive for COVID-19 in a statement shared on Twitter. “I have been exposed to people in recent days who have subsequently tested positive and I had fever, chills and shortness of breath,” he wrote.

Thousands responded to Cuomo’s tweet and wished him a speedy recovery. Even his older brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, took to Twitter to tell him to “stay strong.”

The governor has since used his younger brother’s diagnosis to suggest that COVID-19 is a “great equalizer” and a sign that no one is immune to the virus. Ironically, Chris Cuomo’s case actually illuminates the state’s class divide when it comes to medical care. While many less affluent remain unable to get a test – even when hospitalized – the state’s wealthy elite seem to have no problem getting tested at the first sign of symptoms.

On March 24, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that hospitalized individuals and symptomatic health workers should receive top priority when it comes to receiving a COVID-19 test. In New York City, most patients will not be given a COVID-19 test unless they’ve been hospitalized.

So how did Cuomo, who continued reporting from his finished basement, man-

age to get tested? The answer is unclear.

Meanwhile, research suggests that those in “lower economic strata are likelier to catch the disease,” according to The New York Times. In New York City, those most affected by COVID-19 reside in Queens’ Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst neighborhoods, where many are essential workers like janitors, food service and child care workers. Those families also tend to live in tighter quarters, due to financial constraints, making them more susceptible to catching the virus.

“We know that in Queens, many families – because of poverty – live together in very close quarters,” New York City Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz told nonprofit news website The City. “So that while we are practicing, as a city, social distancing, you may have multiple families living in a very small apartment. And so it’s easy to understand why there’s a lot of transmission of COVID occurring.”

Residents of the Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough, are also twice as likely to die of COVID-19 than anywhere else in the city, due in part to jampacked living quarters and a greater prevalence of preexisting conditions like asthma and diabetes. “We need to recognize that there are these inequalities and then pump resources where they’re needed,”

Most New Yorkers can’t get a test.

Chris Cuomo had no such problem.

state Sen. Gustavo Rivera told City & State during its “Legislative Perspective On Coronavirus Pandemic” webinar on Tuesday. “I mean, we are asking the government to actually expand testing abilities in the Bronx and to think about a larger field hospital in the Bronx.”

New data from Michigan has shown that African Americans are also dying from COVID-19 at a disproportionately high rate, suggesting that those more likely to suffer from inequality and racism are hurting the most right now. “COVID is just unmasking the deep disinvestment in our communities, the historical injustices and the impact of residential segregation,” Dr. Camara Jones, a family doctor and epidemiologist who worked at the CDC for 13 years, told ProPublica, addressing racial bias in medicine. “This is the time to name racism as the cause of all of those things. The overrepresentation of people of color in poverty and white people in wealth is not just a happenstance. … It’s because we’re not valued.”

Chris Cuomo is hardly the first notable New Yorker with mild COVID-19 symptoms who was able to obtain a test. Rick Cotton, the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, also tested positive for the virus in early March after taking a test because he might have come into contact with an infected person

MIKE GROLL/OFFICE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO; RON ADAR/SHUTTERSTOCK

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April 13, 2020

at one of the transportation hubs he oversees. In mid-March, it was reported that four members of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, including Kevin Durant, tested positive for COVID-19. Many, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, were confused as to how the basketball team – as well as other NBA teams – were able to procure tests while others were not.

The Nets obtained their tests from a pri-

City & State New York

vate company. But many basketball teams that were able to quickly get tested for COVID-19 are sponsored by and have corporate deals with hospitals, which gives them much easier access to medical care, ESPN reported.

The city’s more affluent residents similarly have more direct access to medical care by way of concierge medicine programs – which provide immediate access

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to health care for a premium – that offer an alternative to state-run testing centers or waiting in emergency rooms to receive a COVID-19 test. On March 20, Reuters reported that some elite New Yorkers were turning to Sollis Health, a medical concierge service, to get tested for COVID-19, despite other hospitals and clinics rationing their testing supplies. The annual cost to be a Sollis Health member? A cool $5,000.

Sollis Health confirmed to City & State over the phone that it is still conducting COVID-19 tests for its clientele.

“In a public health emergency, I agree that it shouldn’t be business as usual,” Barron Lerner, a professor of medicine and population health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told City & State over the phone. “But what they’re (concierge medicine clinics) doing is business as usual.

They’re like, ‘You pay a premium, then you get whatever you want and we make sure you get it.’ I think it’s a disservice to the larger public health effort to be doing unnecessary testing for people just because they want it.”

After Sollis Health received several requests for COVID-19 tests in late February, it contacted the New York Health Department. The department provided the clinic with several tests but the availability of the tests was limited. On March 6, Enzo Biochem Inc., a private diagnostic testing company that works with Sollis Health, agreed to begin testing Sollis patients for the virus.

It may surprise some to learn that COVID-19 tests are not centrally controlled by the government to apportion them to the people who need them the most, as that would be the best way to track the virus’s spread. While the state government is trying to ensure that hospitals and labs have the materials required to test for the virus, private companies are still manufacturing tests of their own and selling them to the highest bidder, instead of giving them to the government to distribute.

Private hospitals also are often willing to expedite wait times or provide the wealthy with preferential treatment. “Many hospitals will fast-track a wealthy donor,” Dr. Arthur Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told The Atlantic. “They’re not going to sit in the ER waiting, or isolation room.

You get to go quickly.”

The U.S. health care system has always catered to the more affluent, but that becomes even clearer in the midst of a public health crisis. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, data found that those living in Chicago’s underprivileged neighborhoods were much more likely to die from the virus than the wealthy.

Even middle-class New Yorkers who

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April 13, 2020

don’t enjoy any special treatment are still better positioned than lower-income households, whether they’re driving to another part of the state for a COVID-19 test, working from home – maybe even escaping to their summer house or an Airbnb in a less hard-hit region – and having access to decent employer-based health insurance.

“People with connections and means have better access in medicine all the time,” Lerner said. “So the ethical question then becomes should it be any different in a time of limited resources and crisis? And I would say yes. I think that we should be making particular efforts to use all available resources in as effective a way as possible. So that the testing should not be done, nor treatment by the way or anything else surrounding COVID-19, in a way that’s unfair, in a way that gives precedence to people of means and connection.”

The Medical Board of California is currently examining concierge doctors within the state who charged symptomless patients $250 for take-home COVID-19 tests. There is no public record of a similar effort currently underway to investigate those practices in New York.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, the chamber’s longtime Health Committee chairman, appears interested in potentially doing something to better regulate the state’s resources during a public health crisis. “Certainly for scarce and important resources like testing in an epidemic, that ought to be regulated in the public interest and not available just because you pay extra to be part of some particular clinic,” Gottfried told City & State during its webinar on Tuesday.

“If a doctor is charging you extra for the privilege of being a patient and you want to pay it, that’s one thing. But if we’re talking about access to scarce, important resources, that’s an area where we need much more of a public role.”

Inequality in general is also linked to worsening the virus’s spread, as those unable to work from home continue to risk infection by commuting and working in jobs in which they come into contact with other people. And those with restricted access to adequate health care are unable to get the treatment they need to combat the illness. “I don’t know if we will ever achieve a society in which wealth and power doesn’t get you privilege,” Gottfried said. “What we do need to be able to do is to make sure that people who don’t have wealth and power are able to get, whether it’s health care or education or anything else, what they really need. And that goes for testing like a lot of other things.”

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WHO’S HAD IT

The political figures with coronavirus Here are the prominent political New Yorkers who say they’ve had the coronavirus.

Some have officially tested positive, others have not.

Rick Cotton & Betsy Smith: On March 9, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that Rick Cotton, the Port Authority executive director, had contracted the coronavirus. On March 26, Cotton announced that he and his wife, Central Park Conservancy President and CEO Betsy Smith, who also tested positive, had recovered.

Charles Barron & Inez Barron: On March 14, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie tweeted that Brooklyn Assemblyman Charles Barron had tested positive for the coronavirus. A week later, Barron’s wife, New York City Councilwoman Inez Barron announced that she too had contracted the virus. While the 69-year-old assemblyman had to be hospitalized, he has since been released.

Helene Weinstein: When Heastie tweeted the news about Charles Barron, he said that Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman Helene Weinstein had also tested positive for the virus.

Ritchie Torres: After experiencing symptoms for several days and learning that a senior staff member had tested positive, New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres tweeted that he had tested positive for the coronavirus on March 16. The first member of the City Council to test positive, he is now asymptomatic, though he said in early April that he is still anxious about leaving his Bronx apartment, where he has been self-isolating.

Kimberly Jean-Pierre: On March 19, Assemblywoman Kimberly Jean-Pierre became the third state lawmaker to test positive for the coronavirus, but she assured her constituents that she was doing well and that she would continue to work remotely from home.

Brian Miller: On March 20, two days after being in the state Capitol to vote on a paid sick leave bill, Assemblyman Brian Miller, a Republican representing the Catskills, became the fourth

Ritchie Torres was the first member of the City Council with COVID-19.

state lawmaker to test positive for the coronavirus.

The assemblyman was hospitalized in St. Luke’s Hospital in Utica following his diagnosis.

Melinda Katz: Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz tested positive after learning on March 21 that she had been exposed to someone who had the coronavirus. After a few days of a low-grade fever, the former Queens borough president said she is no longer experiencing any symptoms.

Mark Levine: On March 23, New York City Council Health Committee Chairman Mark Levine tweeted that he was experiencing coronavirus symptoms, namely a fever and a dry

cough. Levine has emerged as a staunch advocate for preserving test kits for those most in need, saying that he would not be seeking a test for himself and would stay at home.

Nydia Velázquez: On March 30, Rep. Nydia Velázquez was diagnosed with a presumed coronavirus infection only a few days after sharing a podium and microphone with other members of Congress. She said in a statement that her symptoms are mild and that she is self-isolating.

James Seward: State Sen. James Seward and his wife tested positive for the coronavirus on March 30. It was originally reported that Seward, who also has bladder cancer, had a mild case of the virus and was expected to leave the hospital shortly.

But, according to Seward’s wife, his condition rapidly deteriorated and he was put in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator. He has since improved and was moved out of intensive care.

Paul Vallone: On April 1, New York City Councilman Paul Vallone posted on Facebook that he had tested positive for the coronavirus after experiencing mild symptoms. He said that he’s on the “road to recovery.”

Barry Grodenchik: On April 2, New York City Councilman Barry Grodenchik said he tested positive for the coronavirus.

He said in a tweet that he has been self-isolating since March 14.

– Jana Cholakovska

JOHN MCCARTEN/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

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April 13, 2020

City & State New York

WHO BLEW IT?

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Gottfried and Rivera shared their thoughts in a City & State webinar.

State health committee chairmen say Trump and Cuomo both fell short in the crisis.

by A M I N A F R A S S L and J A N A C H O L A K O V S K A

A

S NEW YORK approaches the peak of the coronavirus epidemic, there has been growing scrutiny of the public health response.

Last week, City & State conducted a live video interview with the chairmen of the state Legislature’s health committees – state Sen. Gustavo Rivera and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried – who are paying close attention to the actions of President Donald Trump and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

GUSTAVO RIVERA

ALI GARBER

Chairman, state Senate Health Committee Can you assess the government response?

In comparison to the federal government, which has been an absolute disaster, we certainly have been doing better.

We did not do early decisive action quickly enough, but I think that some of it has been taking hold. We do have to have conversations about what our health infrastructure is, and what is going to happen after the crisis subsides and what

this governor, who has ably led us as an executive, at the same time has chosen to do things to the public health system, which is going to have an immense negative impact, and we need to make sure that we do not ignore the callous actions of this governor during this budget just because he is far more effective than the sociopath in the White House.

Can you explain why the governor cut Medicaid in the middle of a pandemic?

No! I can’t explain that. You’re asking me to go into the governor’s mind. That’s not a place I want to go. Just because we have somebody who is effective at being an executive and has demonstrated, in comparison to the White House, that they know what a crisis is and they know how to deal with it, we cannot ignore that the same guy who is sitting at that table with the press every day and saying, “We can’t put a price tag on people’s lives,” which is right, then goes into a back room with the Legislature and says, “We have to put a price tag on people’s lives.” The same guy who sits at that table and says that the public health system is going to be the one that’s going to be hardest hit by this crisis, and he’s right,

then goes into negotiations with the Legislature and says: “I’m going to cut that exact same system that I know is going to get hit worst.” I do not understand why you would cut Medicaid under the best of circumstances.

different is that, on an ordinary day, we are about as socially undistanced as a community can be. People come here and come and go from all over the world.

That’s part of what makes New York City great. It also makes us vulnerable.

RICHARD GOTTFRIED

You’re a sponsor of the New York Health Act. What difference would having a single-payer health care system have made?

Part of the economics of the New York Health Act is that every year we spend tens of billions of dollars on insurance companies, administrative costs, on the administrative costs of doctors and hospitals and others to fight with insurance companies. This is money that ought to be back in people’s pockets or being spent to make people healthy. If you lose your job because your company had to let go of you because of COVID-19, you lose your health coverage in most cases, which means if you do go to the hospital, who’s going to pay for all the care they’re going to give you? Under the New York Health Act, you wouldn’t be losing your coverage. Your doctor, your hospital would be getting paid in full. And we’d have a system that treats people as if they matter.

Chairman, Assembly Health Committee Was there a grave governmental oversight?

I think anybody who isn’t living under a rock knows our national government blew this from the start and continues to. And even before the start, when in 2017 the Trump administration shut down the national pandemic preparedness office in the White House. I mean, how dumb can you get? I guess we know. Pretty much from the time that it was clear that there was something big going on in China, it was clear that there was certainly a major chance that it would hit us like a tidal wave. Things that could become pandemics don’t always. SARS and swine flu and a couple of other things were very minor factors in America and most other countries than COVID-19 has turned out to be.

Part of what makes New York

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April 13, 2020

WILL ALBANY GO VIRTUAL? State lawmakers have authorized remote voting, but they don’t seem eager to actually use it.

by A N N I E M C D O N O U G H advocacy groups argue that setting up a system to allow lawmakers to vote remotely or electronically is crucial to ensuring that they continue to legislate throughout the pandemic. “I don’t think it’s an ‘either-or,’ I think the system has to be set up,” Susan Lerner, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause New York, told City & State when asked whether the Legislature should move to remote voting for the rest of the session. “We are paying them to be legislators, so it behooves them to utilize the technology that exists and do their jobs remotely, just as we are all doing our jobs remotely – those of use who are still employed.”

Both the state Senate and Assembly have taken the first steps to allowing that to happen by passing resolutions that authorize remote voting. The Senate’s resolution indicated that the leadership may allow senators to attend and participate in any proceeding remotely, including by video conferencing or teleconferencing. The Assembly resolution was similar, allowing lawmakers to vote against a bill electronically.

In some sense, voting in the Senate and the Assembly already happens mostly by default. Because of existing rules in both

You could almost see the tumbleweed as the budget drew to a close.

houses, lawmakers largely do not have to show up on the Senate or Assembly floors to register their votes – systems which worked to their advantage in the age of social distancing. The Assembly uses a system referred to as party voting, in which floor leaders for each party vote for their colleagues as a bloc, and anyone from that party who wants to vote against the party line had to show up on the floor to register their vote. In the Senate, a similar system of effectively voting by default is used, in which senators’ votes are automatically recorded as a “yea” on bills on the noncon-

NY SENATE MEDIA SERVICES

T

HE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC has thrown the world off its axis, and in Albany – the center of New York’s political world – that fact became clear as lawmakers deliberated, debated and passed a state budget, all in the eerily quiet state Capitol.

With the state on virtual lockdown and some legislators even battling the virus themselves, convening in the state Senate or Assembly chambers to pass the budget seemed like an obvious danger to be avoided, if at all possible. That’s why both houses adopted resolutions in late March, just before the April 1 budget deadline, allowing remote voting during a declared state or national emergency.

While remote voting has been authorized, voting on the budget bills was almost entirely analog. Both the Senate and Assembly largely relied on default voting practices, which allowed members to attend the session via a livestream and only show up on the floor if they wanted to vote against a bill or against their party. Most of the time, it was just the Senate and Assembly leadership and clerks who had to be physically present to run the proceedings.

Now, with the budget process over, some

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troversial calendar, and they only have to take action if they want to vote against the bill. To do that, senators either show up on the floor to speak against the bill, or submit their “nay” vote via what’s referred to as a Rule 9 form.

That’s what state Sen. Julia Salazar said she did in order to vote against each of the Article VII budget bills. The Rule 9 form is not unlike an absentee ballot for regular elections, but is typically reserved for senators who can’t be present for a committee meeting because of extenuating circumstances. As the budget was being finalized,

City & State New York

however, senators who didn’t want to show up to the floor to vote against a bill were able to use the form to register their vote. But even that system of voting – while technically remote – requires a physical piece of paper to be signed and returned to the Senate floor counsel in person or over email.

While voting on the budget wasn’t any more high-tech than usual, lawmakers were able to attend sessions virtually, watching livestreams to monitor what was happening on the floor, some of them from their offices in Albany. In order to be marked present, senators at times checked

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in with the Senate clerk through the video conferencing app Zoom.

But Lerner said that while the capabilities for remote voting are widely available – in different forms through companies like Zoom or the government software company Granicus – the state Legislature hasn’t actually developed a system for doing it in New York. Representatives for the Assembly Democrats did not respond to a request for comment about whether any remote voting system was currently in place. And while a Senate Democratic spokesman referred to having the option and capacity for

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remote voting, he did not provide details on what technology would be used.

Lerner and other proponents of remote voting said there were a range of systems that could allow lawmakers to participate in the rest of the legislative session from their districts and attend meetings, debate bills and register votes on legislation electronically. Zoom, for example, might be used by lawmakers to debate and speak on bills. Lerner said lawmakers could vote on bills with the software’s poll function, or by just raising their hands or voicing their votes. Possible hurdles to this would be figuring out how to make video conference proceedings available to the public in order to comply with the state’s open meetings law as well as ensuring that all lawmakers have access to the technology.

There are also services specifically tailored to government, like the company

April 13, 2020

ings during the budget proceedings and haven’t reported any technical failures.

In fact, both state Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Clyde Vanel said that Zoom calls were sometimes more productive than regular meetings with their conferences, as mute features cut down on lawmakers talking over each other.

But while Zoom has become a daily constant for many people working from home, it has also attracted widespread scrutiny for its questionable privacy and security practices – not only from cybersecurity experts but from multiple state attorneys general, including state Attorney General Letitia James. The company has addressed some of these flaws – including fixing code that sent information about users’ devices directly to Facebook. One of the larger remaining issues is a practice called “Zoom bombing,” in which hackers

ple have been working and going to school from home – Cappos said that the company’s flaws may run deep. He compared it to buying a house, then finding out that the roof is leaky or the walls start to lean.

Those problems, he said, can be patched up easily enough. “But if the way you’ve architected your system is poorly done, it’s not just a matter of patching the holes that people have found,” he said. “If your architecture is flawed, it’s really hard to have a system that is going to be secure.”

Zoom, for its part, has said it is shifting its engineering resources to focus on safety and privacy. “We are deeply upset to hear about the incidents involving this type of attack and we strongly condemn such behavior,” a Zoom spokesperson said in an emailed statement, referring to Zoom bombing. “Starting on March 20th, we have been actively educating users on how they can protect their meetings and help prevent incidents of harassment through features like waiting rooms, passwords, muting controls and limiting screen sharing.”

Zoom’s issues aside, that doesn’t mean that remote legislating will inherently be insecure. Cappos said that there are other systems available, and that if the state Legislature deto transition to fully re– SUSAN LERNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COMMON CAUSE NEW YORK cided mote voting, it would just have to prioritize security and privaGranicus, which offers options for lives- or trolls infiltrate a Zoom meeting. They cy on whatever system it used.

Describing the ways attendance and vottreaming public meetings and instant dig- might do it to disrupt a meeting or to shout ital voting. Andrew Hoppin, the former racist insults or even share sexually explic- ing were handled for passage of the state budget, multiple lawmakers told City & chief information officer for the state Sen- it images.

While Hoylman said the Senate Demo- State that they were satisfied with how it ate, has been advocating for adopting remote voting in the state Legislature, along crats’ Zoom meetings haven’t had any such all played out but were interested in explorwith good-government groups like Com- “bombings,” he was a part of a recent Zoom ing options for technology that would allow mon Cause New York and Citizens Union, meeting for the advocacy group New York them to actually debate and vote remotely. and special interest groups like the Drug Indivisible that was hacked. “It was crashed “We have to worry about a number of difPolicy Alliance and Tenants PAC. Hop- by what seemed to be fascists or neo-Na- ferent things when it comes to these kinds pin said that the information technology zis or some group with an agenda,” he said. of technologies, but we’re not afraid to get resources of the Legislature are more than “It was hard to understand.” While Zoom 213 people to be able to use different tools equipped to handle a transition to remote hackers may not have targeted the state Leg- to continue the people’s business,” Vanel legislating. “The New York Legislature islature’s conference meetings yet, Hoyl- said. “This is a changing time and a new maintains more sophisticated and well-re- man said he’s aware of that threat. “That’s a time, and I’m excited that we’re using these sourced technology organizations than concern, that somebody could hack in – ei- different technologies.”

It remains unclear whether the Legismost states, and I’m confident that they ther for political espionage purposes or just lature will reconvene in Albany after the could readily add affordable off-the-shelf to disrupt the meeting,” he said.

While these security and privacy is- post-budget two-week recess. At least a software applications where needed to support these elected bodies in being fully op- sues remain, some caution against adopt- few lawmakers may not be especially eager erational while working remotely during ing Zoom for wider legislative use. “They to return, even if technology-based alterthis time,” Hoppin said in a statement. As haven’t shown that they really have had an natives are available. After having a taste others have pointed out, one remaining appropriate security posture, and that they of attending the session via livestream, Ashurdle for remote legislating is the require- really have set up a system that’s secure semblyman Angelo Santabarbara said that ment in the state constitution that the Leg- enough to be used for the types of things like lawmakers might not want to go back to the islature print out physical copies of its bills. voting in the state Legislature,” said Justin state Capitol after the budget was passed.

One possible advantage of Zoom is that Cappos, a computer science professor at the “It’s like we rediscovered technology,” he told City & State. “Things are not going to because of the coronavirus outbreak, most NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

With a swell of security issues coming to be the same.” lawmakers are already familiar with it.

The Assembly and Senate Democrats used light for Zoom in the past few weeks – as Zoom for their private conference meet- its users have surged because so many peo- With reporting by Zach Williams

“WE ARE PAYING THEM TO BE LEGISLATORS, SO IT BEHOOVES THEM TO DO THEIR JOBS REMOTELY, JUST AS WE ARE ALL DOING OUR JOBS REMOTELY.”

■

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

April 13, 2020

April 13, 2020 For more info.

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legalnotices@cityandstateny.com Notice of Formation of 1345 EASE AOA PROMOTE LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/30/20. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 299 Park Ave., 42nd Fl., NY, NY 10171. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Attn: General Counsel at the princ. office of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Well Nourished NYC LLC filed with SSNY on December 30, 2019. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 535 East 81st Street, 4C, NY, NY 10028. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of GRAMERCY PROSTHODONTICS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/07/19. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 131 MacDougal St., NY, NY 10012. Purpose: Dentistry.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of THE BOARDWALK NH LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/27/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/25/20. Princ. office of LLC: 152 W. 57th St., 60th Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Lloyd Literary Services LLC files with SSNY on March 10, 2020. Office: Kings County SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to 457 Clinton Ave. Apt. 3B, New York, NY 11238. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting, LLC filed with SSNY on March 17, 2017. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 244 5th Avenue, Suite #R254, New York, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of Rising Oaks LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/6/20.

Office location: NY County. LLC organized in NV on 9/3/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Rising Oaks LLC, 302 W. 12th St., Apt. 16G, NY, NY 10014, principal business address.

NV address of LLC: 4745 Caughlin Ranch Pkwy., Ste. 100, Reno, NV 89511.

Cert. of Org. filed with NV Sec. of State, 101 N. Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Rising Oaks LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/6/20.

Office location: NY County. LLC organized in NV on 9/3/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Rising Oaks LLC, 302 W. 12th St., Apt. 16G, NY, NY 10014, principal business address.

NV address of LLC: 4745 Caughlin Ranch Pkwy., Ste. 100, Reno, NV 89511.

Cert. of Org. filed with NV Sec. of State, 101 N. Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of GETAWAY NY 3, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/24/20. Office location: Kings County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/20/20.

Princ. office of LLC: 147 Prince St., Brooklyn, NY 11201. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

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ACCOUNTING PROCEEDING FILE NO. 2017-4086/A CITATION THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK TO: Unknown Distributees Attorney General of the State of New York William Yarsiah Con Edison NYC Fire Department NYC Fire Department EMS c/o New York City Health and Hospitals Verizon To the heirs at law, next of kin and distributees of Nathaniel K. Gulah, if living and if any of them be dead, to their heirs at law, next of kin, distributees, legatees, executors, administrators, assignees and successors in interest whose names and places of residence are unknown and cannot after diligent inquiry, be ascertained by the petitioner herein; being the persons interested as creditors, legatees, devisees, beneficiaries, distributees, or otherwise in the estate of Nathaniel K. Gulah, deceased, who at the time of his death was a resident of 56 West 119th Street, New York, New York 10026.

A petition having been duly filed by the Public Administrator of the County of New York, who maintains an office at 31 Chambers Street, Room 311, New York, New York 10007.

YOU ARE HEREBY CITED TO SHOW CAUSE before the New York County Surrogate’s Court at 31 Chambers Street, New York, New York, on April 14, 2020 at 9:30 A.M. in Room 503, why the following relief stated in the account of proceedings, a copy of the summary statement thereof being attached hereto, of the Public Administrator of the County of New York as administrator of the goods, chattels and credits of said deceased, should not be granted; (i) that her account be judicially settled; (ii) that a hearing be held to determine the identity of the distributees at which time proof pursuant to SCPA §2225 may be presented, or in the alternative, that the balance of the funds be deposited with the Commissioner of Finance of the City of New York for the benefit of the decedent’s unknown distributees; (iii) that the Surrogate approve the reasonable amount of compensation as reported in Schedules C and C-1 of the account of proceedings to the attorney for the petitioner for legal services rendered to the petitioner herein; (iv) that the claims of Con Edison in the amount of $ 364.05, NYC Fire Department in the amount of $ 15.00, NYC Fire Department EMS in the amount of $ 704.00 and Verizon in the amount of $ 133.93, as set forth in Schedule D of the account, be rejected; (v) that the persons above mentioned and all necessary and proper persons be cited to show cause why such relief should not be granted; (vi) that an order be granted pursuant to SCPA §307 where required or directed; and (vii) for such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.

Dated, Attested and Sealed. March 10, 2020 (Seal) Hon. Rita Mella, Surrogate.

Diana Sanabria, Chief Clerk.

Schram Graber & Opell P.C. Counsel to the Public Administrator, New York County 11 Park Place, Suite 1008 New York, New York 10007 (212) 896-3310 Note: This citation is served upon you as required by law. You are not required to appear. If you fail to appear it will be assumed that you do not object to the relief requested. You have the right to have an attorney-at-law appear for you and you or your attorney may request a copy of the full account from the petitioner or petitioner’s attorney.

POEMIA LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 2/14/2020. Office: New York County. Bohea Choi designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Bohea Choi at 7 West 21st St., apt 7H, New York, NY, 10010. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

ELIE G. AOUN, PSYCHIATRY, PLLC, a Prof. LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 02/26/2020.

Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 90 Broad St., Ste 314, NY, NY 10004. Purpose: To Practice The Profession Of Medicine.

LEGALNOTICES@CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of AI Eye LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 2/14/20. Office location: Westchester County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Avner Ingerman, 7 Corell Rd, Scarsdale, New York 10583 Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

24

CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

PROBATE CITATION FILE NO. 2020-176 SURROGATE’S COURT, NEW YORK COUNTY CITATION THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, By the Grace of God Free and Independent TO: the heirs at law, next of kin, and distributees of Laurence J. Iacueo a/k/a Laurence Iacueo, deceased, if living, and if any of them be dead to their heirs at law, next of kin, distributees, legatees, executors, administrators, assignees and successors in interest whose names are unknown and cannot be ascertained after due diligence.

Priscilla Weick, Leonard H. Jordan, Raymond J. Pardon, Anthony D. Nicastri, Francesca Denman, Thomas Giallorenzi, Albert F. Giallorenzi, Clarice Curry, Andrea Spica, Catherine Spica, John B. Marino III, Karen I. DiJulio, Public Administrator of New York County A petition having been duly filed by Raffaele F. Maietta who is domiciled at 65 Glenwood Drive, Hauppauge, NY 11788 YOU ARE HEREBY CITED TO SHOW CAUSE before the Surrogate’s Court, New York County, at 31 Chambers Street, Room 509, New York, New York, on March 31, 2020 at 9:30 o’clock in the fore noon of that day, why a decree should not be made in the estate of Laurence J. Iacueo, a/k/a Laurence Iacueo, lately domiciled at 372 Central Park West, Apt. 17J, New York, New York 10025, United States admitting to probate a Will dated January 30, 2018 (a Codicil(s), if any, dated _________) a copy of which is attached, as the Will of Laurence J. Iacueo, a/k/a Laurence Iacueo, deceased, relating to real and personal property, and directing that: [x]

Letters Testamentary issue to: Raffaele F. Maietta [ ] Letters of Trusteeship issue to: ______________________________ [ ] Letters of Administration c.t.a. issue to: ______________________________ (State any further relief requested) Dated, Attested and Sealed February 7, 2020 HON. Rita Mella, Surrogate Diana Sanabria, Chief Clerk Gina Raio Bitsimis/ Davidow, Davidow, Siegel & Stern, LLP, Attorneys for Petitioner 1050 Old Nichols Road, Suite 100, Islandia, New York 11749 (631) 234-3030 grbitsimis@davidowlaw.com [NOTE: This citation is served upon you as required by law. You are not required to appear. If you fail to appear it will be assumed you do not object to the relief requested. You have a right to have an attorney appear for you.]

PROFF OF SERVICE MUST BE FILED TWO DAYS PRIOR TO THE RETURN DATE Court Rule 207.7(c) Notice of Formation of JB Capstone Enterprises, LLC, filed with SSNY on 2/4/14. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 12 East 37th St, 2nd Floor, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 5hndred Autohaus, LLC filed with SSNY on March 3, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 615 Manor rd, Staten Island, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of IEX EVENT STREAM LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/20/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/06/17. Princ. office of LLC: 3 World Trade Center, 58th Fl., NY, NY 10007. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Operation of a business which provides data analytics products.

Notice of formation of Lilo Consulting LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 01/30/2020.

Office location: Westchester County. SSNY is designated for services of process. SSNY shall mail a copy of any process served against the LLC to 2804 Gateway Oaks Dr #100 Sacramento, CA 95833. Purpose: any lawful purpose NOTICE OF FORMATION of JEDIZ Wyckoff LLC. Art. of Org. filed with the Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/25/2020. Off. Loc.: NY County. SSNY has been desig. as agent upon whom process against it may be served.

The address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy to is: 28 Liberty, New York, NY 10005. Reg. Agent: National Registered Agents, Inc., 28 Liberty, New York, NY 10005. Purpose: Any lawful act Notice of Formation of 416 8th Rest Op LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/24/20. Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 560 5th Ave., NY, NY 10036, principal business address. Purpose: any lawful activity.

April 13, 2020

Notice of Formation of THE BRONX BREWERY EAST VILLAGE, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/28/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Damian Brown, c/o The Bronx Brewery, LLC, 856 E. 136th St., Bronx, NY 10454. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of LGK General Partner VI, LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/26/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 2/20/20. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o LSV Advisors, LLC, 540 Madison Ave., 33rd Fl., NY, NY 10022. DE address of LLC: Cogency Global Inc., 850 New Burton Rd., Ste. 201, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, PO Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1327056 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 755 DEAN ST. BKLYN, NY 11238 KINGS COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. GREEN CANOE HOSPITALITY LLC Notice of Formation of Cayuga LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 3/9/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 445 Park Ave., Ste. 700, NY, NY 10022. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Cogency Global Inc., 122 E. 42nd St., 18th Fl., NY, NY 10168. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Notice of Formation of COMPANY CULINARY MARKET LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/03/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 335 Madison Ave., 24th Fl., NY, NY 10017. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Watchung Capital LP. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 3/5/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 412 W. 15th St., 16th Fl., NY, NY 10011. LP formed in DE on 1/10/20.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Cogency Global Inc. (CGI), 122 E. 42nd St., 18th Fl., NY, NY 10168. DE addr. of LP: c/o CGI, 850 New Burton Rd., Ste. 201, Dover, DE 19904. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Notice of Formation of AR Practice Management Firm, LLC filed with SSNY on March 5, 2020. Office: NY Dutchess County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 59 Hudson Heights Drive, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Law office of Wayne Alton Cumberbatch, PLLC filed with SSNY on August 19, 2019.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 52 Van Buren Street, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, New York 11221. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of Somerset 2020 LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/21/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The Baker Law Firm PLLC, 1175 York Ave., #15D, NY, NY 10065, Attn: Brett R. Baker, Esq. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of CLUBSTAR NYC DESIGN, LLC filed with SSNY on November 07, 2019. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 80 Varick St, 7F, NY, NY 10013. Purpose: any lawful act or activity..

Notice of Qualification of PGF1 SPE JV1, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/11/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/17/18. Princ. office of LLC: 75 Broadway, Ste. 230, San Francisco, CA 94111. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, DE Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Family Love Loyalty LLC filed with SSNY on March 11th, 2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 101 Jamie Lane, Staten Island, NY 10312. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Move it, Baby! LLC Filed 2/13/20 Office: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent for process & shall mail to: 120 Riverside Blvd, Apt 16J, New York, NY 10069 Purpose: all lawful

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

April 13, 2020

Notice of Qualification of PQOZ FUND MANAGER LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/11/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/07/18. Princ. office of LLC: 75 Broadway, Ste. 230, San Francisco, CA 94111. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, DE Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of CLUBSTAR NYC DESIGN, LLC filed with SSNY on November 07, 2019. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 80 Varick St, 7F, NY, NY 10013. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

DANIELLE SROOR MANAGEMENT LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 03/12/2020. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: D. Sroor, 110 Wall Street, Apt 1704, NY, NY 10005. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Qualification of Epyllion Industries LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/19/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/18/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Matthew Ball, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, Ste. 2822, NY, NY 10019. Address to be maintained in DE: 9 E. Loockerman St., Ste. 311, Dover, DE 19901.

Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of ZAPPOS.COM LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/19/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/10/09. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of PSYK LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/11/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 600 West 138th St., Apt. 63, NY, NY 10031. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of RM781 LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/12/20.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/21/20.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 810 7th Ave., NY, NY 10019. Address to be maintained in DE: Corporation Trust Center, 1209 Orange St, Wilmington, DE 19801.

Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of Cow Hill Realty Holdings LLC name amended to: Cowhill Realty Holdings LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/10/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, c/o Sachs Companies, 155 East 55th St., Ste. 5F, NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activities.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Venn Media Holdings LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/16/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 3/12/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Lemery Greisler LLC, 60 Railroad Place, Suite 502, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. DE addr. of LLC: c/o United Corporate Services, Inc., 874 Walker Road, Suite C, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, Div. of Corps., P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903.

Purpose: General.

Notice of Qualification of HOURS NEW YORK LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/18/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/25/19. Princ. office of LLC: 530 7th Ave., M1, NY, NY 10018.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Clothing.

Roll & Hill Furniture, LLC. App. for Authority filed with the Secretary of State of NY (“SSNY”) on 1/29/2020. LLC formed in DE on 1/29/2020. Office location: Kings County.

SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 87 34th Street, Unit 11, Brooklyn, NY 11232. Cert. of Form. on file: DE SOS, Delaware Div. of Corporations, P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: any lawful business.

Notice of Qualification of LIRIO MANAGER LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/27/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/07/19. Princ. office of LLC: c/o The Hudson Companies Inc., 826 Broadway, NY, NY 10003. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Venn Media Holdings LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/16/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 3/12/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Lemery Greisler LLC, 60 Railroad Place, Suite 502, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. DE addr. of LLC: c/o United Corporate Services, Inc., 874 Walker Road, Suite C, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, Div. of Corps., P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903.

Purpose: General.

BKauf, LLC. Filed with the SSNY on 2/14/202.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC, United States Corporation Agents, INC. 7014 13th Avenue, Suite 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qualification of HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/27/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/03/20. Princ. office of LLC: c/o The Hudson Companies Inc., 826 Broadway, NY, NY 10003. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

25

Notice of Formation of Galen Botanicals, LLC filed with SSNY on January 17, 2020. Office: Kings County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 7014 13th Avenue, Suite 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of formation of MikeGeez Fitness Boutique, LLC. Filed with SSNY Richmond County on 1/20/2020. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 4131 Hylan Blvd, SI, NY 10308.

Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

App. for Auth. (LLC) Solid & Striped LLC. App. for Auth. filed w/ the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/1/20. LLC formed in DE on 6/7/12. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 529 W. 20th St., #7E, NY, NY 10011, registered agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: All lawful purposes.

PUBLIC NOTICE

PUBLIC NOTICE AT&T Mobility Services, LLC (AT&T) proposes the modifications of existing AT&T facilities installed atop existing buildings in New York: at 230 Yonkers Ave in Yonkers, Westchester County (Job #47254); at 200 W 147th St in New York, New York County (Job #47266); at 131 E 85th St in New York, New York County (Job #47349).

In accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the 2005 Nationwide Programmatic Agreement, AT&T is hereby notifying the public of the proposed undertaking and soliciting comments on Historic Properties which may be affected by the proposed undertaking. If you would like to provide specific information regarding potential effects that the proposed undertaking might have to properties that are listed on or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and located within 1/2 mile of the site, please submit the comments (with job number) to: RAMAKER, Contractor for AT&T, 855 Community Dr, Sauk City, WI 53583 or via e-mail to his tor y@ramaker. c om within 30 days of this notice.

Cellco Partnership and its controlled affiliates doing business as Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless) proposes to collocate wireless communications antennas at a top height of 65-feet on a 64-foot building at the approx. vicinity of 281283 East 149th Street, Bronx, Bronx County, NY 10451. Public comments regarding potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30 days from the date of this publication to: Trileaf Corp, Morgan Rasmussen, m . rasmus s e n@ trile af. com, 1395 S. Marietta Pkwy, Building 400, Suite 209, Marietta, GA 30067; 678-653-8673 ext. 657 PUBLIC NOTICE Cellco Partnership and its controlled affiliates doing business as Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless) proposes to collocate wireless communications antennas at a top height of 71 feet on a 76-foot building at the approx. vicinity of 87-24115th Street, Richmond Hill, Queens County, NY 11418. Public comments regarding potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30 days from the date of this publication to: Trileaf Corp, Laura Elston, l.elston@trileaf.com, 1395 South Marietta Parkway, Building 400, Suite 209, Marietta, GA 30067, 678653-8673 BKauf, LLC. Filed with the SSNY on 2/14/202.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC, United States Corporation Agents, INC. 7014 13th Avenue, Suite 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

26 CityAndStateNY.com

April 13, 2020

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Comptroller David Pirozzi, Business & Operations Manager Patrea Patterson, Administrative Assistant Lauren Mauro

Who was up and who was down last week

LOSERS LEE ZELDIN

The congressman went to Jared Kushner asking for N95 masks for Suffolk County, and President Donald Trump said he’d send 200,000. Normally, being a member of New York’s Republican delegation doesn’t get you very far. But this time, it was just what the doctor ordered.

The Rockland County executive couldn’t get Cuomo to set up a containment zone. Now he says he can’t enforce state social distancing mandates, and Cuomo’s administration disagrees. For Rockland’s sake, these two need to kiss and make up – from at least 6 feet away.

PLA NF OR TH IS ?

WAS THERE EV ER A CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

April 13, 2020

Cover netsign33, Vector-3D/Shutterstock

NICK LANGWORTHY

President Donald Trump is perpetuating the unfounded assertion that absentee voting fosters fraud. The GOP may hinder mail-in ballots in other states, but the state party chairman is going to have to accept that New York will be voting by mail.

WINNERS & LOSERS is published every Friday morning in City & State’s First Read email.

Sign up for the email, cast your vote and see who won at cityandstateny.com.

CITY & STATE NEW YORK (ISSN 2474-4107) is published weekly, 48 times a year except for the four weeks containing New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas by City & State NY, LLC, 61 Broadway, Suite 1315, New York, NY 10006-2763. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices.

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General: (212) 268-0442, subscribe@cityandstateny.com Copyright ©2020, City & State NY, LLC

LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

Reyes is taking weekend nursing shifts, while Rose and Schmitt have mobilized with the National Guard. Their state needs them – and it’s the type of service voters might remember.

HEART OF THE STORM

?

IT

OUR PICK

ED DAY

YO RK

WA IT ,W A

KARINES REYES, MAX ROSE & COLIN SCHMITT

WHY COVID-19 IS BA TTE RIN GN EW

RICH ARE SU RVIV ING

THE REST OF THE WORST

Vol. 9 Issue 14 April 13, 2020

THE WHY

THE BEST OF THE REST

EVENTS events@cityandstateny.com Sales Director Lissa Blake, Events Manager Alexis Arsenault, Event Coordinator Amanda Cortez

BL EW

RICHARD CARRANZA We wouldn’t call it a “Zoom bombing,” but New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza dropped a double whammy of bad news on students and teachers.

Much to the dismay of the teachers union, Carranza announced that teachers must work not only through spring break but on the religious holidays on April 9 and 10.

And if remote learning wasn’t hard enough, Carranza said schools can no longer use Zoom because of its issues with security and privacy.

ADVERTISING Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@ cityandstateny.com, Account/Business Development Executive Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com, Vice President, Advertising and Client Relations Danielle Koza dkoza@cityandstateny.com, Sales Associate Cydney McQuillan-Grace cydney@cityandstateny.com, Legal Advertising Executive Shakirah Gittens legalnotices@ cityandstateny.com, Sales Assistant Zimam Alemenew

WH O

JUMAANE WILLIAMS New York City’s outspoken public advocate spent weeks aggressively pushing the de Blasio administration to track the racial breakdown of COVID-19 cases, and others quickly began paying attention to the disproportionate share of cases among minorities. On Tuesday, both the mayor and the governor followed Williams’ recommendation. Sadly, the first set of racial data made public revealed that black and Latino residents are dying at a much higher rate than most.

DIGITAL Digital Marketing Director Maria Cruz Lee, Project Manager Michael Filippi, Digital Content Manager Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, Digital Marketing Strategist Caitlin Dorman, Digital Marketing Associate Chris Hogan, Web/ Email Strategist Isabel Beebe

SION? SES OF ND EE TH AT TH

OUR PICK

CREATIVE Art Director Andrew Horton, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton

S

WINNERS

It was a good news/bad news kind of week. New York reportedly crested the top of the proverbial curve, which means that the number of coronavirus hospitalizations should start trending downward. But it happened at the same time that we saw a horrific peak in deaths – nearly 800 in a single day, and that’s not counting people who died in their homes. In keeping with our mixed fortunes, here’s a more sobering week of Winners & Losers.

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Editor-in-Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Senior Editor Ben Adler badler@cityandstateny.com, Special Projects Editor Alice Popovici, Deputy Editor Eric Holmberg, Senior Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Zach Williams zwilliams@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Rebecca C. Lewis rlewis@cityandstateny.com, Tech & Policy Reporter Annie McDonough amcdonough@ cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Kay Dervishi, Associate Copy Editor Holly Pretsky

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MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE ON CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC APRIL 14, 2020 - 2:00-3:00PM EST PA N E L TO PI C S I N C LU D E WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE TO BETTER PREPARE OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM FOR COVID-19?

HOW DO PAST OUTBREAKS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE INFORM OUR CURRENT RESPONSE EFFORTS? WHAT CHANGES ARE NEEDED TO BETTER OUR CAPACITY FOR DEALING WITH FUTURE BIOLOGICAL CRISES?

PA N E LI STS I N C LU D E

DR. SYRA MADAD Senior Director of the Systemwide Special Pathogens Program, NYC Health + Hospitals

DR. SASKIA POPESCU

Infection Prevention Epidemiologist and Biodefense Researcher

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events .For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com