19 minute read
FIRST READ
Just like that, she cleared out the old administration and appointed a new one. Now, can Hochul make the honeymoon phase last?
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– Rich Schaffer, the chair of the county’s Democratic committee, via The New York Times
THE FIRST 45
Gov. Kathy Hochul has officially been in office for 45 days, the unofficial deadline she gave to herself to get her administration set up – and to rid it of holdover loyalists to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Since Cuomo resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, Hochul has had a fairly eventful early start to her tenure, beginning first with the remnants of a hurricane that brought with it deadly flooding. She has sought to differentiate herself from her predecessor first and foremost in tone, putting an emphasis on cooperation with the state Legislature. In more concrete measures, Hochul implemented a statewide vaccine mandate for various health care workers, and though it’s still being fought in court, vaccination rates have gone up ahead of enforcement. She also got the ball rolling on issues that stalled under Cuomo, including getting rent relief money out the door and appointing members of the Cannabis Control Board. And she did get rid of many Cuomo cronies – although not quite all of them. Perhaps most notably, Hochul retained state Budget Director Robert Mujica, a key member of Cuomo’s inner circle who is recognized by members of both parties as a budgetary
ICON DEFACED
Statues of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rep. John Lewis were unveiled in Union Square on Oct. 1, but not two days later, the display was vandalized. Gray paint was thrown on the bust of Floyd. This summer, the Floyd statue was also defaced when it was on display in Brooklyn. “It just goes to show you how far we still have to go to reach our goal of unity,” George’s brother Terrence Floyd said in a statement.
– state Senate Majority Leader Andrea StewartCousins, on former Gov. Andrew Cuomo writing that the state is in a “dangerous moment,” via State of Politics expert and a professional. Progressives met the decision with wariness, one of a handful of indicators that the good feelings may not last past January.
ENDORSEMENTS ROLL IN FOR HOCHUL
The new governor also enjoyed some new – albeit controversial – support for her reelection. Last week kicked off with an announcement from state Democratic Committee Chair Jay Jacobs that he is endorsing Hochul. He emphasized that the endorsement did not reflect the will of the state party, but simply his own personal belief that she is the best candidate. Still, many regarded the announcement as an inappropriate decision and believed that he should remain unbiased through the primary process. Jacobs has made it no secret that he has been trying to discourage other candidates from running to prevent party disunity and turmoil that could result from a contentious primary. But a call to Cuomo before the endorsement was perhaps the most controversial part of the announcement. A close ally of the governor prior to his resignation, Jacobs said he called Cuomo as a “courtesy” to give him a “heads-up” about what was coming. The revelation led some, including women who accused the ex-governor of sexual harassment, to say that Hochul should
replace Jacobs as the head of the party, a call Hochul indicated she has no immediate intention to heed. Hochul also gained the support of several different upstate county Democratic Party leaders after Jacobs weighed in.
LOVELY WARREN TO STEP DOWN
The twisting, turning saga that has been Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren’s time in office seems to have reached its conclusion. Facing a felony charge related to campaign finance violations, Warren agreed to a plea deal that will see her resign at the beginning of December in return for decreasing the felony charge to a misdemeanor. The plea also settles charges of child endangerment after weapons were found in her home during a search related to drug charges against her estranged husband. Warren lost reelection and was set to leave office in January anyway, but the plea deal brings her tale to an end just a little bit sooner.
BLAZ SCRUTINIZED FOR POLICE DETAIL
The New York City Department of Investigation released a report on alleged misuse by Mayor Bill de Blasio of his police security detail for personal reasons, and during his presidential campaign. It concluded that he had indeed misused city resources, and the mayor has refused to pay back over $300,000 for the security provided for him during his ill-fated run for president. Apparently, the city Conflicts of Interest Board even warned de Blasio in 2019 that he would have to pay back the security costs, according to the DOI report. It also found that the mayor essentially used his police detail as a “concierge service” for family, staff and guests even when he wasn’t in the car, in addition to helping his daughter move. De Blasio strongly defended his use of his security detail, calling the report inaccurate.
Bill de Blasio used his police detail inappropriately while he was campaigning for president in other states, according to a city Department of Investigation report.
Facing the music on congestion pricing
After nearly 18 hours and hundreds of public speakers, the first series of virtual public hearings on congestion pricing is complete. The plan to toll vehicles in Manhattan’s central business district – south of 60th Street – has languished for two years despite passing the state Legislature in 2019.
The process ground to a rush hour-like standstill under the Trump presidency, whose Federal Highway Administration declined to give the state necessary guidance on what kind of environmental study would be required to jumpstart the program. The MTA now has that guidance, but laid out a timeline that would see congestion pricing implemented at the earliest in 2023, two years after it was originally slated to start. It’s been a long wait for advocates of congestion pricing, the goal of which is to lower congestion and air and noise pollution, and raise $15 billion for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to fund transit improvements in the process.
Ten virtual public hearings that wrapped up on Oct. 6 offered residents of New York City, suburban counties, New Jersey and Connecticut the chance to comment on the plan. A series of three public hearings focused on the impacts of congestion pricing on environmental justice communities – described as including low-income and minority populations – kicked off Oct. 7.
In the roughly 18 hours of public comment so far, three general groups of people have emerged. There are those who want to see the tolling program put in place as quickly as possible and with zero exemptions. There are those who support congestion pricing but who argue that certain exemptions – for Manhattan residents, for first responders, for motorcyclists and more – are crucial. And then there are those who don’t want to see it implemented at all. The vast majority of commenters seemed to fall in one of the first two categories.
“You know you have a big problem when your idea is so overdue that the Wikipedia page about it is too long to read,” said Miles McManus, a resident of the central business district. – Annie McDonough
THE WEEK AHEAD
TUESDAY 10/12
The New York City Council Committee on Public Housing holds a 10:30 a.m. remote oversight hearing on utilities in public housing and winter preparedness. INSIDE DOPE
We’ll see if Congress passes more funding for NYCHA, because as Chuck Schumer wrote for City & State: “The only solution is through big, bold, and transformative action by the federal government.” WEDNESDAY 10/13
Learn about the rising stars in New York City politics at City & State’s 5 p.m. virtual New York City 40 Under 40 event. THURSDAY 10/14
State lawmakers are discussing gun safety proposals at a 10:30 a.m. hearing at the Legislative Office Building in Albany.
Election October 11, 2021게임 games
Maybe we should just pivot from this whole “gubernatorial election” and take some inspo from Netflix.
By Caitlin Dorman
BEFORE THE RACE for governor really kicks off (and the entire borough of Brooklyn decides to run), we’d like to offer an alternative to the normal election cycle, a suggestion that we think will save everyone a lot of time, money and energy: Everyone who wants to be governor in 2022, including Kathy Hochul, should compete in the inaugural Gubernatorial Squid Games, based on the immensely popular (and incredibly violent) Netflix series of the same name.
Candidates will compete in a series of six games, with the winner taking office. Unlike in “Squid Game” the TV show, losers won’t die, they just won’t be allowed to run for election ever again (for Bill de Blasio, this may be a fate worse than death).
Here’s how we think the games should be run:
1
RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT: You can only talk about running for governor when New York state Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs has his back turned. Red light, green light, 1, 2, 3!
3 2
HONEYCOMB: Forget stars, circles and umbrellas. Candidates have to painstakingly carve a honeycomb candy version of the state seal … Good luck with that “E Pluribus Unum” addition. Anyone who cracks the mold has to drop out.
TUG OF WAR: Primary debate time! In lieu of talking about substantive issues (which they probably wouldn’t talk about anyway), each candidate and their top staff play tug of war, with the losers falling into the bottomless chasm of no name recognition.
4 5
MARBLES: Instead of making up a game to trade marbles with a partner, you’re allowed to take your opponents’ donors by any means necessary except violence.
GLASS BRIDGE: Door-knocking for potential voters, but 50% of the people who answer are actually registered to vote in a different state, but don’t tell you until after you’ve spent five minutes talking to them. It might be physically safer than falling through alternating unstable glass tiles, but it’s a bigger waste of money.
6
SQUID GAME: The main event! The general will just be the Democratic and Republican nominees going at each other in a knife fight, except the Democrat is supported by everyone who dropped out in the primary, and the Republican is on their own. The GOP will love this one because they have better odds than a normal election.
A Q&A with Assembly Member
KENNY BURGOS
You’re the chair of the Assembly Subcommittee on Reentry and Transitional Services. What does the crisis on Rikers Island say about the city’s jail system? It’s an issue that really hits close to me. The reason that I asked to chair this subcommittee and the reason I even got it renamed so that it conveys the messaging of what we have to do here is because my father was incarcerated in Rikers when I was about 12 years old, and I saw firsthand what that incarceration can do to a family. We almost lost our home. My dad was scarlet-lettered coming out of jail, couldn’t get a job. You’re just basically reentering society, you’re branded a certain way, and we put every single obstacle through our criminal justice for you not to make it past that.
One thing that always stuck with me when my dad was coming out, he chose an early release after a couple hearings with parole. His options were basically come out, I think, two months early and you get a year parole, or you finish up two months, you get no parole. Everyone that he was incarcerated with told him it was insane to take the two months early release with a year parole as opposed to just finishing out because everyone in there to this day understood that parole was a trap. It was just a system designed to make you go back into the jail and correction system; the recidivism was insane. Me being the chair of reentry, we want to rewrite that story. My dad, thankfully now, has gone on, he’s built his own business, and he had resources and family, but most of that is luck. I think what our goal here now, my goal as the chairman of the subcommittee, is to take luck out of the equation, to make sure that we reverse these policies, that we make sure this criminal justice system really works for people to reintegrate in society, to rehabilitate them.
What are your hopes while Rikers is in the spotlight? My hopes are we bring the population way, way down. And I think strategically with this being a top of the news cycle, we need to take our top political leaders to take real decisive action and really change what that structure looks like. So again, I commend the governor for expanding remote court hearings, but now at least come down a little bit harder on the correction officers union. They need to come to the table and have a better conversation on how we’re going to make this facility work. I sympathize with the (correction officers) – it’s a hellhole for the people incarcerated and the people who work there. But someone has to make decisive action and say we need to fix this entire system from the root. – Gabriel Poblete
Our Perspective
A Historic Win for New York Farm Workers
By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW Twitter: @sappelbaum
For far too long, farm workers in New York have been subject to discrimination, abuse, and exploitation. They have reported enduring 70-hour, seven-day work weeks without overtime pay. They toil in extreme heat in the summer months, but are cruelly denied adequate bathroom breaks or enough access to water. Farm workers often are forced to venture into the fields in seek of relief, where they are subjected to exposure to ticks and potentially hazardous chemicals. For female farm workers, this can be even more dehumanizing, exposing more of their bodies to these hazards, and even risking sexual harassment as they undress to relieve themselves. Women in agricultural work are at increased risk of uterine tract infections due to their exposure in the fields.
When workers suffer from injuries or health problems — dehydration, cuts, broken limbs — they often find they are on their own, without adequate medical care. When they seek out medical care, they pay out of their own pockets. Rather than risk missing work and the income they need to survive, many agricultural workers are forced to stay on the job despite injuries.
These workers — largely immigrants - have suffered while toiling in a multimillion-dollar industry that often uses their documentation status as a tool to exploit and intimidate them. And, they’ve never been able to seek out the best tool workers have to protect them; unions and collective bargaining. Shockingly, under New York law, they were forbidden from bargaining collectively and exercising the rights most New Yorkers take for granted.
The RWDSU and a coalition including the NY AFL-CIO and others fought hard to change that, and in 2019 secured the passage of the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act, which finally gave countless farm and agricultural workers the right to bargain collectively and create better lives for themselves. And now, we are already seeing results.
A group of farm workers at Pindar Vineyards in Peconic, New York, became the first farmworkers in the state to join a union when they became members of RWDSU Local 338 in early October. Their historic victory makes them the first group of agricultural workers to win a union voice so they can negotiate a contract that will ensure better pay and working conditions. These workers — who reported discrimination while being treated far worse than the retail “tasting staff”- have seized the opportunity to change their jobs and their lives by joining the RWDSU.
Countless farm workers in New York can look to this worker victory as an inspiration and the first step toward changing their own lives. With the labor movement at their side, New York’s farm workers can finally exercise their right to join a union, and claim dignity, respect, and a voice on a job. By bargaining collectively, they can begin to address they many issues they face at work.
New York’s agricultural workers are entering a new era, and the RWDSU will be with them every step of the way. Fighting back against exploitation and mistreatment with the power of collective bargaining starts now. www.rwdsu.org
JUSTIN BRANNAN
He’s tight with Eric Adams and labor leaders – but he’s also a white guy in an increasingly diverse council.
By Annie McDonough
Brannan has been running for City Council speaker for years.
JOHN MCCARTEN/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL T HERE’S A LOT we already know about the next New York City Council when it convenes in January. It will likely have women as a majority, more Latino members than ever and a new progressive wing that will include some of the furthest left members the city has seen yet.
But one unknown about the 2022 council – in addition to a handful of somewhat competitive general elections next month – is who will lead this history-making body. While the City Council speaker is technically elected by the council’s 51 members, the race has traditionally been one in which county party leaders, members of Congress and labor unions flex the political muscles they’ve spent all campaign season exercising.
Those power brokers, the incoming mayor – and yes, the actual council members – are the ones wannabe speakers have to win over in the coming months. Half a dozen members are either publicly running for the position or are reported to be considering it, including Manhattan’s Carlina Rivera, Keith Powers and Gale Brewer, Queens’ Francisco Moya and Adrienne Adams, and Diana Ayala, whose district includes parts of Manhattan and the Bronx.
And then there’s Justin Brannan, the Eric Adams-supporting, Bernie Sanders-endorsing, metal music-loving
vegetarian from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who has been not so inconspicuously gunning for speaker for years. While most observers say it’s still too early to name a front-runner in the speaker race, some said Brannan is as well positioned as one can be for a contest in which political winds could change swiftly. “I would rather be Justin than any of the other candidates right now,” said one Democratic strategist, who asked not to be named in order to speak openly.
Brannan’s strengths going into the race are clear. His ties to Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor, makes him a contender for the likely mayor’s allimportant support. He’s seen as pro-labor by the unions that are likely to push for their favorite candidate. Some political observers even say Brannan shouldn’t be counted out for the possible support of voting blocs that emerge in Queens and the Bronx, should county leaders rally behind a candidate like they did for Corey Johnson in 2017. And he’s laid the groundwork with incoming council members by endorsing and campaigning widely across the five boroughs this year. It would hardly be a surprise to see momentum building behind Brannan, the candidate who is perhaps most vocally campaigning for speaker.
But in New York City politics, putting in the time and wanting it really badly doesn’t always cut it. Sure, Brannan is one of a few candidates Adams may end up supporting. And even if Adams ends up pulling harder for a different candidate, or stays out of the race entirely, Brannan may still have a path to victory. “Justin is a formidable candidate,” said a Democratic consultant who requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the candidates. “He has very good, strong relationships across the board. And it doesn’t hurt that he and Eric have a good relationship.” But
Brannan has close ties to likely Mayor Eric Adams.
As the council grows increasingly diverse, there might be little appetite for a white male speaker.
A former punk rocker, Brannan was elected to represent Bay Ridge in 2017.
WILLIAM ALATRISTE/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL; JASON JAMAL NAKLEH/WIKIPEDIA; WILLIAM ALATRISTE/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL some incoming members don’t want an Adams-aligned speaker. While the council speaker has to work with the mayor, they’re also expected to hold the mayor accountable – something progressive council members are eager to see under an Adams administration. And Brannan is not exactly the candidate of the left.
Right now that’s Carlina Rivera, whose name has been floated by progressive Democrats. Rivera is being supported by Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who endorsed five progressive council candidates that all won their primaries. Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Hakeem Jeffries are also expected to have influence in the race but have yet to stake a position publicly.
Still, say that Brannan, while not a first choice, is deemed “palatable” to progressives – as some argue he will be – he still faces another hurdle. There’s an undeniable interest in electing a woman and/or a Latino speaker to lead the diverse and majority-female council, especially because of the lack of leadership roles held by Latinos in the city. It’s an imperative few Democrats disagree with, but it may not be a sticking point for all new members. “I think it just comes down to, do we support the person who has worked the hardest, or do we support the person just because they are Latino or they live in Manhattan or they live in Queens and they’re a woman?” said a likely incoming council member who asked for anonymity because they haven’t made up their mind about who to support in the race. That candidate added that some people may be hesitant to state their support for Brannan given the pressure building to elect a woman and/or a Latino speaker. Notably, the council has never had a Black speaker.
Brannan, like fellow white male candidate Keith Powers, has to be prepared for this hurdle as the campaign for speaker continues. In a recent interview, Brannan vowed that as speaker he would be invested in elevating women of color to committee chairs and other leadership roles. “I think it would be all the more incumbent upon a straight white guy to empower women, especially women of color, in top leadership
positions, and rightfully so,” he said.
That incoming council member is supportive of Brannan but hasn’t ruled out supporting other candidates if push comes to shove. No new council member really wants to piss off the power brokers, after all. “I like Justin and support Justin, but am still waiting to see where the chips are falling,” they said. “At the end of the day, I don’t want to make a wrong political decision just for one person.” ■
