Nowhere Juan

Queens Eagle

Queens Assemblymember Juan Ardila, who was recently accused by two women of sexually assaulting them at a 2015 party, has lost his ability to represent his Western Queens district, his constituents, local elected officials and his colleagues in Albany say.

On Thursday night, a representative for the freshman Democratic lawmaker appeared before Queens Community Board 2, which overlaps with Ardila’s district. The board is chaired by Danielle Brecker, who, as an elected state committee member, became one of the first elected officials to call for Ardila’s resignation last month. During Thursday’s meeting, the first since the allegations were made, Brecker had a message for Ardila.

“I don’t want to make this awkward,” Brecker told Ardila’s representative. “But there is a lot of frustration with the feeling that the assemblymember has not properly or fully addressed the allegations against him – and that he should really consider resigning.”

It’s been a month since the allegations against Ardila were first made public. In that time, nearly all of his Western Queens colleagues, one of the women he allegedly sexually assaulted, a number of his constituents and the governor have called on him to step down. He has, thus far, ignored those calls.

But also in that time, his fellow state legislators have been engaged in what is often the most important time in a lawmaker’s calendar – budget negotiating season. According to his colleagues, Ardila has been absent and has become, to some assemblymembers, a pariah in Albany. Some of his constituents have lost faith in his ability to advocate for them. And a number of his Western Queens colleagues at more local levels of government have sworn off collaborating with him on any policies or projects.

“A lot of people in the community have said to me, ‘this is really not okay’,” Brecker told the Eagle on Friday. “The first step of restorative justice is to listen to your survivor, and if you're an elected official, the second step of restorative justice is to listen to your community and to try to restore that trust, and if the community is saying we need you to step down, he should be listening to that.”

Other members of the board, including First Vice Chair Dr. Rosamond Gianutsos, said they were “concerned” that Ardila was not in Albany this week, and Caroline Spitzer, a constituent of Ardila’s, said she was disappointed that the lawmaker did not attend their meeting himself considering he wasn’t in Albany fighting for their needs in the state’s budget.

“Since he is posting on social media and not in Albany, I assumed he would be at the meeting,” Spitzer told the Eagle on Friday.

Ardila was not assigned to a budget negotiating committee, the only freshman Democrat to be left out. Spitzer said his exclusion from a committee also concerns her.

“We are in critical budget seasons and the fact that he wasn’t represented in any committees has me concerned,” she said. “We, as a district, are suffering for that.”

Although Brecker is not a constituent of Ardila’s, her board’s purview overlaps with his district. The board works closely with elected representatives at all levels of government and Brecker said that as of late, she doesn’t think that Ardila has been an effective representative.

“If he's not effective in Albany, he shouldn't be in Albany,” she said. “He's not doing the job.”

“I thought he was kind of good, but I feel like right now, [his constituents] are not being represented,” she added. “I was in Albany three weeks ago advocating for things in the budget. I didn't see him. I saw both of my electeds, I saw all the area electeds…I didn't see him anywhere.”

An average assemblymember is not negotiating the state’s budget line-by-line. Instead, they advocate for their position during their party’s conference meetings or they advocate for their position in public through rallies, the press or town halls with their constituents.

According to an assemblymember who requested anonymity, Ardila has been iced out of budget talks over the past month.

“I think there are a number of members who do not want to share space with him…I mean that in the very literal sense – if he's on the floor, I know that there are people who don't want to be on the floor,” the assemblymember said. “His presence in a room has an impact on whether or not people want to be in that same room.”

NY Post 

  Assemblyman Juan Ardila ditched a pro-bail reform rally at the Capitol on Monday before refusing to answer questions from The Post about sexual misconduct allegations made against him by two women. The freshman Queens Democrat has avoided the press in recent weeks without explicitly saying whether he forcibly touched two women without their consent while they were intoxicated at a 2015 party.

One of the women says Ardila exposed himself and forcibly kissed her as well.

“I put my statement out and am focusing on doing the work,” the lawmaker said during a four-minute, one-sided interview in which The Post pressed him to clarify his contradictory statements about whether he did what he is accused of.

Fellow Democrats have mostly shunned Ardila, 29, ever since the Queens Chronicle revealed the accusations against him on March 13, weeks after he took office.

State legislators fantasy MTA fix

 

Queens Post 

New York City lawmakers and public transport advocates held a rally in Albany on Tuesday, Feb. 14, calling on the state to pass a finance bill worth nearly $11 billion that they say would fully fund the MTA through 2026 and make it more efficient.

The legislation, known as Fix the MTA, would also keep current subway fares at $2.75 and prevent a proposed 25 cents hike to $3.

It would also make bus rides throughout the city free by 2027 and aims to make services more frequent and reliable — by ensuring subways and most buses arrive at least every six minutes, every day of the week.

The largest portion of the package, around $4.6 billion, would essentially bail out the agency by plugging its forecasted budget deficit for the next four years, while nearly $2 billion would go towards increasing bus services across the system by 20 percent.

Around $1.4 billion would be allocated to the agency to account for a 27% dip in ridership numbers compared to 2019 levels.

Fun fact: nothing is mentioned about congestion pricing. And it's mostly hedging on

State Senators Michael Gianaris, Jessica Ramos, John Liu and Kristen Gonzalez were among the Queens lawmakers who attended the rally, while Assembly members Zohran Mamdani, Alicia Hyndman Juan Ardila, and Jessica González-Rojas were also present. Assembly member Robert Carroll from Brooklyn and Assembly member Tony Simone from Manhattan also attended.

They were joined by transportation advocate groups such as Riders Alliance, the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA and Transportation Alternatives.

 Jesus Christ these cults are just never going to go away, as a public duty I present the counterpoint plan from Passengers United who actually ride the buses and the trains everyday with their proposal to "fix the MTA" which also includes public safety measures for transit workers, something the Albany fauxgressives and the moneyed transportation actorvates never bother to acknowledge.

 

 

 

 

The Department of Transportation Alternatives figurehead screws up speed camera negotiations

 

 NY Daily News 

An off-the-rails trip to Albany last week by city Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez put at risk the city’s push to run red light and speed cameras around the clock, according to DOT sources and lawmakers with knowledge of his meetings upstate.

Before the May 3 trip to the state capital, Rodriguez and DOT staffers had prepared to brief lawmakers on legislation to permit the city’s speed and red light cameras to issue tickets beyond the 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. window currently authorized by state law.

But Rodriguez went off script, DOT sources said, by pressing for even more speed and red light cameras across the city — a proposal that was previously floated by Transportation Department staffers and shot down by lawmakers.

“They prepped for extending the current cameras, not brand new ones,” said a source, who described Rodriguez’s trip to Albany as a “total f--- up.”

DOT staffers had already asked lawmakers for “home rule” for the city’s traffic camera program, which would allow the city to put as many eyes in the sky as they want without state approval.

Mayor Adams and Rodriguez have for months called for the provision, but legislators have made clear they don’t buy into the idea. It’s no secret that home rule for cameras was off the table weeks before Rodriguez’s visit, said a City Council official who asked not to be named.

But, to the surprise of lawmakers and his staffers, Rodriguez during his trip pushed for home rule for the camera program anyway, sources said.

Ydanis didn't go off script, he's doing what Danny Harris and his Transportation Scientology cult is telling him to say and do.

What's in the Biggest Ugliest Big Ugly in state history

 

NY Daily News 

While New York’s $220 billion budget was more than a few days late, no one can say it was a dollar short.

Bolstered by federal COVID funds and higher-than-anticipated tax revenues, the Democratic-led Legislature finally approved a sweeping, week-late spending plan Saturday. The budget language includes funds for boosting child care and wages for health care workers, temporarily suspending part of the state’s gas tax, and overhauling bail laws.

A marathon voting session concluded early Saturday in the State Capitol following two weeks of secretive, closed-door conversations centered around Gov. Hochul’s 11th-hour public safety proposals and a half-billion-dollar handout to the Buffalo Bills for a new stadium.

The final budget, which Hochul signed Saturday afternoon, included some of the governor’s desired changes to bail and gun laws and other policy items like allowing restaurants to resume the popular pandemic practice of selling to-go cocktails.

It also accelerates tax cuts for middle-class families and includes a property tax break for homeowners and a temporary, partial suspension of the state’s gasoline tax.

The state will cut taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel by 16 cents a gallon from June 1 through the end of the year in response to soaring prices at the pump.

Homeowners can expect a little relief as the state will spend about $2.2 billion in one-time property tax rebates for low- and middle-income property owners.

New York is also set to decrease tax rates for middle families by $162 million by April 2023, instead of waiting until 2025 to fully phase in the long-planned tax cuts.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to not just bring relief to families and put more money in people’s pockets today, but also to make historic investments in New Yorkers for years ahead,” Hochul said in a statement. “With this budget, we are seizing that opportunity and ushering in a new era of a stronger, safer, more prosperous New York State.”

The budget also includes billions in pandemic recovery funds that will add $800 million to the state’s depleted COVID rental assistance program, $250 million in utility arrear assistance and $125 million in homeowner and landlord assistance.

Another $1.2 billion will help fund bonuses for frontline healthcare workers and $3.9 billion in funding to aid hospitals struggling in the wake of the pandemic. Another $7.7 billion will be spent over four years to increase the home care worker minimum wage by $3.

The final tally came in $4 billion over Hochul’s initial budget proposal and includes $7 billion to be spent over the next four years to expand childcare access across the state, a priority for lawmakers in both chambers.

 The Assembly Majority has always believed in putting families first because we know that the success of our state depends on the wellbeing of our families,” said Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx). “The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the childcare crisis and forced too many New Yorkers out of the workforce entirely.”

Hochul didn’t walk away from the negotiations empty-handed as lawmakers gave the green light to $600 million in state money for a new stadium for the Bills and legislative leaders acquiesced and allowed some changes to the state’s bail laws.

 

Senate and Assembly vote for accountability infrastructure for shady state deals

 

 Gotham Gazette

In their separate one-house budget resolutions passed this week both houses of the State Legislature included a "database of deals," a public register of state business subsidies that would shed light on billions of dollars in government incentives to corporations.

The legislation, which has been around for years but not passed, would require the state to publish a searchable database of state subsidies for economic development projects that would document the corporate recipient, the state benefits received, and number of jobs committed to and created.

Supporters of the proposal including legislators and transparency advocates say the tool would allow the government and the public to evaluate the efficacy of roughly $5 billion in annual business and economic development incentives and could make it possible to track the total flow of state money to businesses across the state.

Passage in State Senate and Assembly budget resolutions does little more than show significant legislative support for the proposal. In order to become law, it would have to survive final state budget negotiations, which are now unfolding among Governor Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders ahead of the April 1 start of the next state fiscal year. Alternatively, the bill could be passed at any time by the two houses of the Legislature.

Hochul has not taken a public position on a database of deals nor did she put it in her $216 billion executive budget or State of the State policy agenda, both released in January.

Calls for a database of state economic development deals and subsidies have grown over the years amid related corruption scandals, high-profile failures, evidence of pay-to-play politics, and general questions about the necessity and effectiveness of such tax breaks and other incentives favored by former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

"The public wants to know how their dollars are being spent and we think this database of deals legislation will go a long way to ensure that we can capture exactly what is happening, especially in economic development projects," said State Senator Leroy Comrie, a Queens Democrat who has sponsored the bill.

The legislation will "help the public see which businesses are getting state subsidies, how much they are receiving, and whether those subsidies are creating jobs, as intended," said Assembly sponsor Monica Wallace, in an email statement urging lawmakers to back its inclusion in the final enacted budget.

Economic development subsidies can take many forms, from government grants and loans to tax benefits to utility assistance. They can be administered through a range of state agencies where reporting on them is decentralized and often incomplete. One of the largest, the New York State Film Tax Credit Program, gives $420 million a year in tax breaks to businesses that produce films in New York.

Opaque and unaccountable subsidies have helped prop up billionaires and political insiders. Tech mogul Elon Musk received upwards of $950 million in state incentives to open a spectacularly overvalued solar panel factory in upstate New York that created few jobs before being absorbed by Musk's company Tesla. Another economic development project, the billion-dollar nanotech initiative spearheaded by Cuomo as part of “the Buffalo Billion,” incubated one of the biggest bid-rigging scandals in recent state history and ended with close Cuomo allies going to jail.

Like her predecessor, Hochul has continued to tout state incentives for major economic development projects, like the "Finger Lakes Forward" initiative that includes a $500 million state investment promised to “incentivize private business to invest well over $2.5 billion” to revitalize the region and create “up to 8,200 new jobs.”

As part of that effort, on Wednesday Hochul announced that a French yogurt and desserts company, La Fermière, “will establish its U.S. production operations in New York State” and committed to constructing a large new production facility in Batavia. The company, the governor’s office said in a press release, “expects to create up to 135 new jobs in the region.” The press release did not say what types of incentives the company was getting from the state.

Mayor Adams fires 1,430 non-compliant workers, doesn't do shit about bail reform

 NY Post

Mayor Eric Adams fired more than 1,400 government workers who refused to get vaccinated, the city revealed on Monday — including 36 NYPD personnel, 25 Fire Department workers and 914 Department of Education staffers.

The number had dropped considerably by last Friday’s vaccine mandate deadline as more employees submitted proof of getting at least one shot, City Hall officials said.

At one point last week, officials estimated that 4,000 were on the chopping block.

The number then dropped to around 3,400 — and then to 1,430 firings, officials said.

In one category, there were 2,400 veteran employees on leave without pay who had not opted to extend their health insurance and had not provided proof of vaccination. In the end, 1,428 of those city workers failed to get shots and were fired.

Nearly 1,000 — or 40 percent — provided evidence of getting at least one shot at the 11th hour and returned to work, officials said.

NY Post 

Mayor Adams appeared to throw in the towel on trying to convince Assembly Democrats to roll back the state’s bail-reform law following a closed-door meeting in Albany on Monday.

In remarks to reporters, Adams said he “shared” his plan to fight crime in the Big Apple before adding, “If I am not getting the things I laid out … I still have an obligation to keep the city safe.”

“That’s why we’re putting in place our anti-gun unit. That’s why we’re going to go after the causes and feeders of crime,” said Adams (above left with Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie).

Before the meeting, Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) — who last week clashed with Adams over his desire to let judges lock up defendants they deem dangerous — said that “we are gonna hold the line” on criminal justice reforms enacted in 2019. 

Municipal workers hold the line and have their livelihoods taken from them, lawmaker holds the line and Adams loses his spine. Looks like the mayor is swagger selective.

 

Scandal scarred Governor Cuomo finalizes state budget with more taxes for the wealthy, rent and mortgage relief,financial aid for undocumented immigrant workers and also ends immunity for nursing homes

 

THE CITY

State lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo reached a deal on the state’s $212 billion budget Tuesday, agreeing to tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers and to create a fund for undocumented workers shut out of financial assistance during the pandemic.

Buoyed by a $12.6 billion infusion from the stimulus package Congress passed in March, the budget is New York’s largest financial plan to date. New York’s second pandemic budget arrived nearly a week past the April 1 start of the state’s fiscal year, after an embattled Cuomo and Democratic lawmakers disagreed on a multitude of issues.

Among the most contentious: billions in aid for workers excluded from unemployment benefits and federal pandemic stimulus payments, billions more for financially distressed renters and homeowners, and another $1 billion-plus to jumpstart Cuomo’s Penn Station overhaul.

Bills detailing the intricacies of the proposals were introduced Tuesday evening.

“Thanks to the state’s strong fiscal management and relentless pursuit to secure the federal support that the pandemic demanded, we not only balanced our budget, we are also making historic investments to reimagine, rebuild and renew New York in the aftermath of the worst health and economic crisis in a century,” Cuomo said in a joint statement with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

The massive spending plan will also raise taxes on the state’s million-dollar-plus earners — spurring concerns from fiscal watchdogs who say it risks driving high-earning taxpayers to leave New York. And the deal will legalize online sports betting, adding a projected $99 million in revenue this fiscal year and up to $500 million annually in years to come, lawmakers estimate.

Spending highlights outlined by Cuomo, Stewart-Cousins and Heastie include:

• $2.1 billion for the so-called Excluded Workers Fund
• $2.4 billion in assistance to renters
• $600 million in aid to homeowners
• $1.3 billion for the Empire Station project at Penn Station
• $29.5 billion in schools spending — a $3 billion increase

  Governor Cuomo repealed a controversial law that shielded nursing homes and other essential businesses from coronavirus related lawsuits Tuesday night. The measure rolled back the “Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act,” which granted health care facilities and workers liability immunity from negligence suits, and comes as Cuomo’s administration is under federal investigation for covering up some 9,000 COVID-19 related nursing home deaths last year. The scandal — exclusively revealed by The Post — weakened Cuomo politically and led to calls for him to resign as sexual harassment accusations against him swirled in the wake of the report. “As we near the passage of this year’s momentous budget, I am relieved to see corporate immunity, which was slipped into last year’s budget, fully repealed,” Bronx State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, one of the bill’s sponsor said in a statement Tuesday night. “This blanket immunity prevented thousands of families who lost loved ones to COVID-19 from seeking legal recourse, and potentially incentivized nursing home executives to cut corners — endangering staff and residents.”