The local paper for Downtown wn DINNER WITH DIGNITY < P. 7
WEEK OF APRIL
13-19 2017
Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg tours a neighborhood damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Photo: Edward Reed/Mayor’s Office of Photography
CITY COPES WITH TRUMP APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE ENVIRONMENT With proposed cuts to the EPA, will there be more Sandys in Manhattan’s future? BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
“People were living in our backyard in tents,” said Jeff Lydon, board secretary of the West Village Houses. “It looked like Katrina with piles of personal belongings, personal effects, sofas, photographs just piled up. It was terrible.” He was talking about Hurricane Sandy, which became the second-costliest storm of its kind when it made landfall in October 2012. Though most of the damage was to New Jersey and the outer boroughs, Lower Manhattan and the West Side are among those
still recovering. Lydon’s residential co-op houses more than 1,000 people, and many of those whose apartments were flooded during Sandy had to pay for the repairs out of pocket. In a recent study commissioned by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Office of Resiliency and Recovery, the global nonprofit think tank RAND Corporation found that many New York City households could lose crucial flood insurance if Congress decides to phase out certain subsidies in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). “A considerable number of one- to four-family structures face substantial flood risk based on their elevation relative to water depth,” the report reads. Individual premiums could increase by $2,000 per year if the government lets the program expire at the end of
September. The mayor said he was proud to unveil the report as part of the city’s “multilayered resiliency program.” “If Congress doesn’t act, rising flood insurance rates will put a critical tool to build more resilient communities out of reach for too many New Yorkers,” de Blasio said in a statement. “In the meantime, we’re making strides in the fight to keep flood insurance affordable by working with [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] to revise New York’s floodplain maps.” In a map of the 100-year floodplain, which highlights areas with a one percent annual chance of flooding, the Manhattan coastline shows significant danger below West 40th Street.
New NYPD officers at their graduation ceremony at Madison Square Garden March 30. A City Council bill would compel the city to maintain an internal information sharing system to track lawsuits and complaints regarding allegations of police misconduct. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
BILL ADDRESSES NYPD MISCONDUCT DATA LAW ENFORCEMENT Proposal aims to improve city agencies’ access to officer complaint history BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
In the wake of the revelation that New York City Police Department officers involved in the deaths of Ramarley Graham and Eric Garner had previously been investigated for alleged misconduct, City Council members last week discussed legislation that would improve the accountability of the department’s internal system for flagging and addressing improper police behavior. The bill, introduced by Council Member Dan Garodnick, would require the city to maintain an internal information sharing system to track lawsuits and complaints regarding alleged misconduct by police. The system would be accessible by the police department, law department, comptroller and Civilian Complaint Review Board.
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The NYPD currently employs an internal early intervention system to identify officers liable to engage in misconduct, based on disciplinary history and civilian complaints, and place those officers in the department’s performance monitoring system. “I think we can all agree that the goal is that we have an early alert with respect to at-risk officers, and that way we can get these members of the service either monitoring, training [or] increased supervision,” Oleg Chernyavsky, the NYPD’s director of legislative affairs, said at a City Council hearing on the bill April 6. But critics say the system has failed to stop abusive officers from continuing to engage in misconduct. Civilian Complaint Review Board documents recently leaked to the progressive news outlet ThinkProgress show that the cases of Graham and Garner — unarmed black men killed in high-profile cases of alleged police misconduct in 2012 and 2014, respectively — each involved a
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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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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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