Assemblymember Lucas on supporting the NY state reparations bill

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

Establishing a New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies as actually becoming law is still in a waiting mode.

Passed in the state assembly as bill number A07691, the legislation awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.

This was a polemical bill, authored by State Assemblymember Michaelle C. Solages, who chairs the assembly’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, & Asian

Legislative Caucus. The bill was not universally accepted, even by caucus members, until it was rewritten to specifically identify the community to receive reparations.

Assemblymember Nikki Lucas told the Amsterdam News that she was not initially willing to support Solages’s bill.

In an impassioned speech before the bill’s final vote, Lucas had declared: “It is essential to advocate for lineage-based reparations to ensure justice and equity for American Freedmen who are direct descendants of enslaved individuals in the United States. Reparations should be targeted toward those who directly experienced harm and their descendants due to slavery and its enduring effects.”

Lucas felt Solages’s bill was not specific enough about specifying that the Community Commission would study ways to endorse reparations for the descendants of people who suffered chattel slavery and later Jim Crow discrimination in the United States.

Solages’s bill had to make clear that this was not going to be a reparations

Passaic River may be impacted by toxins

A July 9, 2023, Wall Street Journal article said that “AT&T, Verizon and other telecom giants have left behind a sprawling network of cables covered in toxic lead that stretches across the U.S., under the water, in the soil and on poles overhead…As the lead degrades, it is ending up in places where Americans live, work and play.”

One of the locations where these lead-covered telco cables can be found is in the Passaic River, which flows through Paterson (which, according to the U.S. Census, is 62.6% Latino and 24.7% Black) and Passaic (73.4% Latino, 49.0% white and 7.6% Black) and into Newark Bay, which leads into the state’s largest city, Newark (48.2% Black and 36.8% Latino).

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, New Jersey-based industries helped make the state a major powerhouse even as they discharged industrial waste into the Passaic River.

The Wall Street Journal conducted independent tests that found some sediment and soil lead levels measured 14.5 times the EPA threshold in areas where children play. “Doctors say that no amount of contact with lead is safe, whether ingested or inhaled, particularly for children’s physical and mental development,” the Journal noted.

“For many years, telecom companies have known about the lead-covered cables and the potential risks of exposure to their workers, according to documents and interviews with former employees. They were also aware that lead was potentially leaching into the environment, but haven’t meaningfully acted on potential health risks to the surrounding communities or made efforts to monitor the cables.”

Businesses affected by I-95 collapse can get help

The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low-interest Economic Injury Disaster Loans to small businesses and nonprofit organizations in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties that were affected by the June 11 collapse of I-95.

Local businesses can borrow up to $2 million, with interest rates on the loans set at 4% for businesses and 2.4% for nonprofit organizations. The filing deadline is March 29, 2024.

To apply, go to the SBA’s secure website at https://disasterloanassistance.sba.gov/ela/s/, call SBA’s Customer Service Center at 800-6592955 (800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-ofhearing), or email DisasterCustomerService@ sba.gov.

Piscataway’s ‘Concert in the Park’ summer series returns

The Piscataway Cultural Arts Commission’s 2023 “Concert in the Park” season starts up again Thursday, July 13, and will continue through August 17. Concerts will take place in the Columbus Park extension gazebo on Thursday nights