Meet Eric Adams agents of the city committee

 

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Will Melissa be appealing to citywide voters?

From AMNY:
Melissa Mark-Viverito is looking to get back into city public office.

The former City Council speaker announced Tuesday that she plans to run in next year's special election for public advocate. Mark-Viverito, who first announced her bid on "Mornings on 1," will kick off her campaign with an evening event at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

She has said she would hold city and state leaders accountable over the state of the city's transit system, ongoing problems at New York City Housing Authority developments and issues of inequality, as public advocate.

Council speaker rides float with terrorist

From the NY Post:

Controversial onetime convicted terror leader Oscar Lopez Rivera may have declined the Puerto Rican Day Parade’s “National Freedom Award,” but he was still at the head of the event Sunday — with the City Council speaker right by his side.

Lopez Rivera — who did 35 years behind bars for his ties to the Puerto Rican terror group FALN — was on the first float out of the gate at the Manhattan parade, and speaker pal Melissa Mark-Viverito hopped on to join him at 62nd Street.

BIG budget approved early

From Crains:

The City Council approved an early $85.2 billion budget for its 2018 fiscal year Tuesday, the last under term-limited Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

The council added funding for summer jobs and a property tax exemption for veterans to Mayor Bill de Blasio's fiscal agenda but for the most part avoided the elaborate "budget dance" that involved the proposed removal and subsequent restoration of certain expenditures, a practice Blasio vowed to end. It was the earliest budget the council has delivered in 20 years, according to City Councilman Fernando Cabrera, D-Bronx.

But while the mayor and speaker declined a dance, they stepped into the ring on the issue of legal help for immigrants. The council added a provision ensuring universal representation regardless of criminal history; the mayor wants certain immigrants blocked from services.

Disagreement over immigrant defense fund

From the Observer:

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito failed to reach an agreement on whether the $26 million the city will set aside to provide free legal counsel to undocumented immigrants will cover those convicted of violent crimes—though the mayor emphasized that the contracting for the program will lie entirely in his hands.

The “budget handshake” at City Hall—touted as the earliest since 1992—was all smiles and self-congratulation until a reporter inquired whether the mayor and speaker, both liberal Democrats and longtime allies, had resolved their difference on the matter. New York’s “sanctuary city” statutes forbid the NYPD or Department of Corrections from honoring federal requests to detain foreign nationals lacking proper paperwork, unless those individuals have been convicted of one of roughly 170 violent offenses, such as rape, murder or terrorism.

De Blasio told the Observer at his proposed spending plan roll-out in April that, while he would meet Mark-Viverito’s request he make permanent a pilot program for attorneys for those fighting deportation, he would not allow city dollars to go toward the defense of someone found guilty of one of those 170 crimes—a stance he maintained today.

BDB, MMV trying to duck OLR controversy

From CBS:

On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed that he will still march in the parade, but will not march alongside Lopez Rivera – whom some call a political prisoner, others a practitioner of terrorism.

De Blasio has joyously marched in the parade in past years. But after weeks of controversy over his own decision to participate in parade honoring Lopez Rivera, he spoke about the issue.

“I’m not marching with this individual,” de Blasio said. “I was never going to march with him.”

The mayor said in years past, he walked down Fifth Avenue with other elected officials. When Kramer asked whom de Blasio would be marching with this year, de Blasio said he didn’t know.

Meanwhile, Lopez Rivera’s top champion in New York, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, is now refusing to say if she will march with him. Mark-Viverito is “still finalizing logistics,” according to her spokeswoman.

Bill's closing Rikers

From Politico:

Just days before a special commission was set to release a report calling for the closure of Rikers Island, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday he supports a ten-year timeline to shutter the troubled jail.

“This is the first time in 85 years, since Rikers Island opened in 1932, that the official policy of the city of New York will be to end our efforts on Rikers Island and close the jails there,” de Blasio said flanked by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte and director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, Elizabeth Glazer.

The press conference, which was not initially listed on the mayor's public schedule, came nearly a year after City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for the complete closure of the facility.

De Blasio said his own evolution on the idea — which he had previously dismissed as a "noble" but impractical undertaking — came after weeks of conversations between he and Mark-Viverito, describing a consensus that formed around the general idea that the facility could be closed after it reaches 5,000 inmates. The first step would be reducing the inmate population to 7,000 as the city figures out where to house the inmate population would be displaced.

De Blasio creates fake issue for press conference

From City Council Watch:

Mayor de Blasio held a press conference earlier this week at Tweed Courthouse to announce a major new policy directive. He was joined by Melissa Mark-Viverito, Zachary Carter, Carmen Fariña, Gale Brewer, Vanessa Gibson, Nisha Agarwal, Carlos Menchaca, Helen Rosenthal, and a number of other officials and advocates.

The announcement was that from now on ICE agents will not be allowed in DOE schools unless they have a warrant. Everybody took a turn at the mike to denounce fear and hate. Corporation Counsel Carter and the head of school security for the NYPD ran through all the new protocols and training, the chains of command and lines of authority, the phone trees and channels of communication. Who would authenticate the warrants, who would accompany the agents. What number to call when the children are arrested and where you can go to get help.

At question time I asked the obvious question: “How many incidents have there been so far of ICE agents trying to enter schools, with or without warrants.” Mayor de Blasio answered, “None, so far.” Hmm. Then I had another question for Chancellor Fariña.

Later I went on YouTube to review the video of the press conference. But when the video came to my question there was an odd skip: the first question was cut from the video, and picked up again about 15 seconds later with my question for Fariña.

Someone with authority in Mayor de Blasio’s communications department decided that his answer to my question was off-message, and edited the tape to erase the part where the mayor admits that his new policy directive addresses a problem that does not exist. Basically it was all for show.

I excerpted a clip from the video to preserve the evidence that the mayor’s press office redacted his comments. Here it is:



Greg Gutfield went off on the Dope from Park Slope. (This is a must watch.)



Dopey also leaves news conferences when the questions aren't to his liking.

Safety bills to come before council

From Crains:

City Council members will introduce a slew of bills next week in response to an increase in construction deaths and injuries during the city's building boom.

The package includes 18 pieces of legislation that could have sweeping consequences for the industry.

Crane operation and licensing would be more strictly monitored, while smaller construction sites where accidents have been more prevalent would be required to boost oversight. Several proposals would require the city to more closely track troubled actors in the industry and increase the penalties for flouting laws.

The legislation, called the Construction Safety Act, is led by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, but some elements could face resistance from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has ambitious goals for housing development and has clashed with construction-worker unions. The mayor has already expressed skepticism with one of the council measures, a bill to require training programs for construction workers.

Fauxgressives use the F word a lot

Language in polite society has become a lot coarser over the years, but isn't the F word still a bit taboo for public governmental figures?

He knew me. Didn't know him. & he wanted assurance he/his 1yr old would be ok. THIS is Trumpmerica folks. & you know what? #FuckThat! 3/3

— Melissa MarkViverito (@MMViverito) November 19, 2016

When did this become the norm?

Legislators refuse to allow SBJSA to be voted on

From the Village Voice:

You'd think a law that would give small businesses a fighting chance against astronomical rents and the soulless chains willing to pay them would be an easy sell for a City Council chock-full of progressives and our supposedly liberal mayor.

Yet Mayor Bill de Blasio, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Public Advocate Letitia James, and Robert Cornegy, the chairperson of the council's Committee on Small Business, won’t even allow the legislation to go before a committee hearing, even though 27 councilmembers support it. Why?

In short, because it would supremely piss off the powerful real estate interests that all major politicians in New York City must answer to, which makes it a total nonstarter. Debating the Small Business Jobs Survival act would start a conversation about the future of the city that no ambitious politician actually wants to have.

At 9 a.m. Friday morning, a group of community advocates will hold a rally outside City Hall to protest the mayor and the council's willful inaction on the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which would give commercial tenants a ten-year minimum lease, as well as the right to renewal, and a right to go to arbitration to settle on a new rent.

The SBJSA has been kicking around in some form or another since commercial rent control died in New York City in 1963, and with it, the ability for a small business owner to have any sort of economic stability in New York City. Instead, they became subject to the whims of landlords and speculation, larger market forces that are able to take a vibrant, locally owned business district and completely clear it out, in just a few months.

"This isn’t a silver bullet of legislation," said Jenny Dubnau, an artist based in Long Island City, who’s a member of the Artist Studio Affordability Project (ASAP), an organization that aims to unite artists and small business owners who are each being displaced by commercial speculation. "All we’re asking for is some level of negotiating power. We need something to help us stop the bleeding."

Unlike rent-stabilized units, or rent-controlled apartments, under the SBJSA, there wouldn’t be state-dictated increases or freezes. However, the all-powerful Real Estate Board of New York has viewed even a discussion of the law as an affront to good manners, and gotten City Hall to label the proposed legislation as rent control.

Employees say Mark-Viverito demanded discrimination at NYCHA

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito pressured the Housing Authority to remove the black manager of a Bronx housing development and replace her with a “Spanish manager,” former and current NYCHA workers told the Daily News.

Officials were so eager to make the Speaker’s wish come true that they turned to the city Department of Investigation to help “find something” on the manager.

Mark-Viverito made her ethnic-specific demand during a July 30, 2015, emergency meeting with several NYCHA officials held in her Bronx office, one of the meeting’s participants told the Daily News.

One of NYCHA’s top executives, Senior Vice President for Operations Brian Clarke, participated in that meeting via speakerphone — and later pressured subordinates to address Mark-Viverito’s demand because of the “cultural sensitivity” of the development’s tenants.

The Speaker began the meeting by asking how NYCHA dealt with Spanish-speaking tenants at the Mill Brook Houses in Mott Haven, according to the participants.

Mark-Viverito then confronted Allison Williams, the black manager of Mill Brook who is not fluent in Spanish, according to Williams and her boss, Sibyl Colon, NYCHA’s then-director of Optimal Property Management Department.

Williams says she told Mark-Viverito that — per NYCHA policy — she would rely on a “language bank” of on-call translators when dealing with non-English-speaking tenants.

Colon and Williams say Mark-Viverito responded with anger.

“She started asking me: ‘What do you do when you have to deal with the Spanish residents?’ I don’t speak Spanish. I said I used the language bank. She said — in her words — ‘That's unacceptable.’ I just sat silent.”

Colon, who was also at the meeting, says Mark-Viverito turned to her and stated, “You’re not hearing me. I want a Spanish manager.”

Speaker is full of herself, among other things

From the Observer:

The speaker of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, has an unusual strategy for solving city problems. When she came upon a broken Walk-Don’t Walk sign, she didn’t call 311 to report it. Nor did she shoot an email to the Department of Transportation’s chief to convey the importance of fixing this particular safety device—perhaps more quickly than normal. Instead, Mark-Viverito tweeted about it.

Surprisingly, a staffer at DOT saw Mark-Viverito’s tweet. But this on-top-of-it staffer almost immediately responded in kind—via Twitter—and informed the speaker that the most effective way to get fast action was to call the 311 hotline.

Mark-Viverito responded in full huff: “whaaaat???” she tweeted. “This a joke? Or an auto response? Or maybe even an intern? Not a response for an elected.”

Unfortunately, Mark-Viverito made it all about her: you don’t know who I am? Is an “elected” a new protected class? Is her sense of self-importance so out of control?

If Mark-Viverito had called 311 or emailed the DOT commissioner and not gotten results, a tweet would certainly have been appropriate. But we’d like to suggest to Mark-Viverito that a public servant—yes, that is the more appropriate word for an “elected”—is here to serve, not to huff or berate. And that includes disparaging interns.

Council set to stick its nose into landmarking process

From the NY Times:

As New York’s Landmarks Law enters its sixth decade, the City Council wants to rewrite the rules governing historic properties.

Despite a contentious fight over a package of revisions that stalled last year, the Council is again proposing a half-dozen recommendations to simultaneously streamline and expand the landmarks process. This month, the Council expects to vote on a bill creating timelines for the approval process.

The Council’s decision has drawn consternation not only among preservationists but also from the Landmarks Preservation Commission itself. At a hearing last year, Meenakshi Srinivasan, the chairwoman of the commission, called a number of the proposed changes overreaching. Ms. Srinivasan declined to discuss new proposals before any legislation was introduced, but acknowledged in a statement that some of the proposals had merit.

Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito countered that the Council wanted to ensure the changes cannot be easily rolled back by future administrations.

“It’s something that’s overdue,” Ms. Mark-Viverito, a Democrat who represents Manhattan and the Bronx, said in a recent interview. “That’s why we’re trying to balance the needs of the preservation community with the development needs of our growing city.”

Hmmm...do we notice the landmarks in this town or the nutty out of scale overdevelopment more? I'd say the balance is tipped in the developers' favor at this point. Which is just the way the council likes it.

Bag tax coming soon

From Crains:

On Thursday, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito backed an effort to reduce plastic bag use and waste.

Councilman Brad Lander, D-Brooklyn, championed the legislation, which will charge a nickel for each plastic or paper bag New Yorkers use at supermarkets and shops. The fee is meant to encourage shoppers to bring reusable bags to stores instead of taking plastic ones.

The city spends more than $12 million a year dumping 91,000 pounds of plastic bags in landfills, according to the council. Lander had already amassed majority support for the bill, but it could be the tightest vote of the council's legislative season, he told Crain's.

Opponents of the bill say its yet another tax on city residents and burdens the poor. The proposed fee was reduced to 5 cents from 10 cents to address such concerns.

Mark-Viverito's support for the bill guarantees its passage next week by the City Council.

Will council allow illegal aliens to vote in city elections?

From the Queens Chronicle:

This bill, first reported by the New York Post on Monday, would grant illegal immigrants the right to vote in city elections. And that’s where a crystal clear line in the sand has to be drawn: absolutely not. No way. Never.

The bill has not been introduced yet; no record of it exists in the City Council’s online legislative database. According to the Post report, it is expected to be laid on the table in the spring. And it was recently discussed at a gathering of the Black and Latino Caucus.

Bertha Lewis, the former head of the leftist group ACORN, which was disbanded over its shady practices, is among those lobbying for the measure.

“We want to expand the right to vote for everybody, not suppress the vote,” the Post quoted Lewis as saying at the ethnic caucus event. “What a radical idea.”

Yes, it sure is a radical idea — when you want to expand the vote to people who either broke the law as soon as they arrived in the country, or did it when they violated the terms of their visas by not leaving when they agreed to leave.

That’s going to be a bridge too far for all but the most radical members of the Council, and seeing who supports the bill will be a good measure of determining who really is radical. According to the Post report, Lewis has discussed it with members including Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Councilman Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn and Dromm. Among those three, only Williams has said he supports it so far. Dromm’s office declined to comment on it when asked this week by the Chronicle.

Raises all around

From CBS 2:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has accepted recommendations by a panel that city elected officials should get raises in exchange for a ban on outside jobs.

De Blasio sent a letter to City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on Wednesday formally accepting the recommendations of the independent Quadrennial Commission.

The three-person panel recommended a 23 percent, or $25,815, raise for City Council members, which would raise their pay from $112,500 to $138,315 a year.

The commission also recommended banning most outside employment for Council members in order to prevent conflicts of interest.

De Blasio’s salary would rise by 15 percent, or more than $33,000, from $225,000 to $258,750 under the recommendations. But de Blasio has said he will not accept a raise this term.

Mark-Viverito’s salary would rise 37 percent.

Mark-Viverito fined for taking free gifts

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito will pay a $7,000 fine for breaking city laws on taking gifts from lobbyists, under a settlement with the Conflicts of Interest Board released Wednesday.

Mark-Viverito admitted she ran afoul of conflicts of interest rules by taking free help from Scott Levenson and his consulting firm the Advance Group when she was running for speaker two years ago.

Levenson, a registered lobbyist, and two staffers spent months pitching in on Mark-Viverito’s bid for the top job — attending “kitchen cabinet” meetings to prepare her for debates with other speaker candidates and networking events.

They also redesigned a flyer for a reception hosted in her honor at the Somos el Futuro conference in Puerto Rico, and spent $1,796.44 to have 3,000 copies of it printed at a FedEx office.

Mark-Viverito, an East Harlem rep who became speaker in January 2014, was never billed for the work.

City rules bar public officials from taking gifts worth more than $50 from people who do business with the city. And lobbyists are barred from giving any gifts to pols.

I don't think we're in Queens anymore, Toto

From the Juniper Berry:

Have you felt lately like you were conked on the head and awakened inside a nightmare? Or maybe that your house had been picked up by a cyclone and touched down in the Land of Odd? That's kind of what Queens feels like these days. All the characters are here – the witch, the coward, the heartless, the one without a brain. You name the freak, we have it representing us.

Unfortunately, we voters can't click our heels together three times and be brought back to a better time. The Land of Odd is now our reality and our first chance at getting back over the rainbow won't come until Election Day, 2017. Until then, we'll continue our long slog down the yellow brick road with this unsavory cast of characters.

Having said all that, does anyone have a bucket of water?