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1-7 2018
POWERS AIMS FOR QUICK, SAFE CLOSURE OF RIKERS JUSTICE A Q&A with Council Member Keith Powers on the city’s steps toward closing the jail complex BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
City Council Member Keith Powers, who this year took office as the representative for District 4, will serve as chair of the Council’s criminal justice committee in his first term. In this role, one of Powers’ chief responsibilities will be overseeing the closure of the notoriously violent Rikers Island jail complex. Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio laid out a plan for closing Rikers and moving the city’s jail population to borough-based facilities within ten years. Some activists and Council members have advocated for a more aggressive timeline. The administration says it needs to reduce the city’s jail population to 5,000 from its current average of roughly 9,000 to be in a position to transition from Rikers to borough-based facilities. The mayor’s office announced in January that it plans to close the first of the nine jails on the island this summer. In January, the city awarded a $7.6 million contract to an architecture and design firm to conduct a 10-month study of the design and location of borough-based jails that will replace Rikers Island.
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U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler discussed immigration policy and the recently ended government shutdown with constituents at a town hall meeting at Goddard Riverside Community Center Jan. 25. Photo: Michael Garofalo
NADLER HOSTS TOWN HALL ity would take to oppose the agenda pushed by Trump and congressional Republicans. Last week Nadler returned to the Upper West Side community center and shared his analysis of the first year of the Trump administration at a town hall meeting. Trump, Nadler said, represents “the greatest threat to constitutional liberty” in living memory. Nadler denounced the president’s attacks on the press, the judiciary and federal agencies like the FBI, and criticized Republicans in the House and Senate for not doing more to scrutinize Trump’s conduct
COMMUNITY “There is almost unanimous opinion on the Dreamers,” the congressman said BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Council Member Keith Powers, pictured here speaking at his Jan. 21 inauguration at the CUNY Graduate Center, will serve as chair of the City Council’s criminal justice committee in his first term representing District 4. Photo courtesy of Keith Powers.
When U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler spoke at Goddard Riverside Community Center a year ago, days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump (which Nadler, in an act of protest, declined to attend), he detailed the steps he and his House colleagues in the Democratic minor-
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FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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in relation to possible collusion between his campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election and subsequent investigations into the matter. “Congress is not fulfilling its oversight role,” Nadler said, adding, “The Republicans in Congress seem to view their role as facilitating whatever the president wants to do and protecting him from the special prosecutor or from the FBI or from anybody who is trying to have oversight of the president or limit his power to do what he wants.”
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