The local paper for Downtown wn
2017
B UILDING SERVICE WORKER
AWAR DS Pg. 11
WEEK OF OCTOBER
19-25 2017
CONTESTING THE ‘CON-CON’ POLITICS Pols, unions, citizens, advocates, lobbyists, special-interest groups – and strange bedfellows – take to the barricades over the November 7 referendum on a statewide Constitutional Convention BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Public Advocate Letitia James discussed plans to help Puerto Ricans and others displaced by the recent hurricanes. She spoke at City Hall on Oct. 12. Photo: Mihika Agarwal
HURRICANE VICTIMS TO GET HELP FROM CITY REFUGE Armories could house those displaced; education, health care and other services will be available BY MIHIKA AGARWAL
With thousands in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the region still displaced by the ravages wrought by hurricanes in recent weeks, city and officials along with representatives
from 10 Latin-American community organizations said last week they would pool resources and political might to ensure those with housing and other needs would be cared for. Emphasizing the need to view the victims of the storms as “displaced Americans,” the city’s public advocate, Letitia James, said it was incumbent on New York officials and others to help provide shelter and other basic services to those affected.
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To say that Planned Parenthood and the New York State Right to Life Committee are historical antagonists is a huge understatement. The truth is, they manifest fear and loathing for each other’s viewpoints. The pro-choice group assertively champions a woman’s reproductive rights. The pro-life organization is just as tough-minded in opposing abortion. Could they ever pool resources and join forces? Actually, yes. Bedfellows don’t get any stranger than this. Yet every 20 years, such highly unlikely — and very temporary — alliances are formed as groups that routinely bash each other suddenly discover a common agenda. At issue is a November 7th referendum that boils down to this: “Shall there be a convention to revise the Constitution and amend the same?” That 13-word question appears on the ballot every two decades when voters, as prescribed by law, determine if a Constitutional Convention — or “Con-Con” — should be held in Albany to retool, rewrite and amend the New York State Constitution. A convention is a journey into the unknown. It can augment rights, protections and prerogatives. It can also strip them away forever. Thus do players with ostensibly nothing in common find common ground: Planned Parenthood, fearing that abortion rights could be abridged at a convention, and the Right to Life Committee, dreading they could be ex-
Delegates to the state Constitutional Convention convened in the state Capitol in Albany in 1867 for a speech by William Wheeler, a future U.S. vice president, who argued that the concept of racial equality should be incorporated into the Constitution. Engraving: Stanley Fox, via New York Public Library collection panded and enshrined in an updated Constitution, are now allied in a coalition, New Yorkers Against Corruption, campaigning to defeat the measure. Meanwhile, on the other side of the barricades, such establishment groups as the New York City Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association, which believe a new Constitution can reform the judiciary and enhance ethics in government, have come out in favor. But so, too, have less mainstream advocates — like Restrict & Regulate in NY State, which seeks to legalize adult-use marijuana, and Divide NYS Caucus, which calls for the legal separation of downstate and upstate into two autonomous regions. It’s a free-for-all: Unions and liberal downstaters fear wealthy special interests will hijack the convention and undermine hard-fought labor rights. But upstate conservatives, also opposed, fret that big money from the city will use its leverage to roll back Downtowner
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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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gun-ownership rights. Manhattan’s progressive wing is divided. “New York State government has a lot wrong with it, and I share many of the pro-convention movement’s goals,” said Borough President Gale Brewer. “But the way the rules are set up, we’d be unlikely to win improvements, and would have to put a lot of hard-won protections at risk.” Brewer cited environmental protections, labor rights and voting rights, which are all now protected by constitutional provisions. Upper West Side City Council Member Helen Rosenthal agreed, saying Con-Con could undermine state pension obligations to municipal workers and conservation measures that preserve the Adirondacks. “Great things in the Constitution could be revoked,” Rosenthal said. “If the people driving this have the same point of view as the people in the state
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