Caption the City Council Cronies

Name this band, wrong answers only of course

Senator Schumer and Rep. Torres looking to double federal funding to fund public housing

 

 Bronx Times

 Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Ritchie Torres unveiled a push over the weekend for an $80-plus billion dollar investment in federal public housing funds via the just-proposed American Jobs Plan.

Schumer and Torres said after decades of disinvestment, bad management and federal neglect, NYCHA and its residents face a “now-or-never moment” to secure critically-needed investments via the American Jobs Plan.

The lawmakers said the administration’s plan calls for $40 billion dollars for the whole nation, but that number is not enough given the needs of public housing properties across the country, particularly in New York. Schumer and Torres said they are going to fight to double down on that proposal to ensure that it is at least $80 billion dollars.

“As a product of NYCHA, the subject of public and affordable housing is deeply personal to me,” Torres said. “Investing in and repairing public housing means investing in hard working families. While the American Jobs Plan proposes to invest $40 billion in public housing, that simply is not enough and will not cover all the capital repairs needed in public housing nationwide. We need to double that commitment in order to address the public housing repair backlog. Together with my House and Senate colleagues we will continue to push the Biden Administration to make significant investments in NYCHA and public housing authorities across the country.”

The American Jobs Plan called on Congress to invest $40 billion to improve the infrastructure of the public housing system in America. The funding “will address critical life-safety concerns, mitigate imminent hazards to residents, and undertake energy efficiency measures, which will significantly reduce ongoing operating expenses. The improvements will disproportionately benefit women, people of color, and people with disabilities.”

Mayor de Blasio prefers that his appointed officials testilie instead of testify

NY Post

Mayor Bill de Blasio is opposing a bill requiring officials correct the record if they give inaccurate statements in sworn testimony — and is allegedly threatening to prevent his commissioners from testifying before lawmakers if the bill passes.

The administration’s reluctance to support the legislation comes just a week after The Post revealed that de Blasio officials mislead the City Council about the ouster of a whistleblower.

Mayoral spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein called the bill Tuesday “unnecessarily duplicative.”
“It’s our policy to correct the record with the City Council if someone misspeaks at a hearing,” Goldstein said.

Councilman Ritchie Torres blasted the administration’s response as “Trumpian.”

“There’s no rational justification for obstructing legislation that would require public officials to tell the truth unless you have something to hide,” he said.

The bill, which Torres introduced in 2018 and had a hearing last March, would amend the City Charter by requiring agency heads who give a “materially inaccurate statement” in sworn testimony or an official report to correct the record.

“There is a clear obligation not to make knowingly false statements,” Torres told The Post. “But there’s no obligation to subsequently correct false statements that might have been made unknowingly. The bill is to close that gaping loophole.”

He claims members of the city Law Department essentially put the proposal on ice by threatening, “If you pass the bill then we will no longer allow commissioners to testify before the City Council.”

Torres called “threatening obstruction of City Council oversight a Trumpian assault on the separation of powers.”

 

Movement to bar corrupt pols from running for office again

From CBS 2:

Two members of the New York City Council are introducing a bill to keep felons off the ballot.

As WCBS 880’s Peter Haskell reported, Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-15th) of the Bronx thinks when it comes to corruption, it should be one strike and you’re out. Once you are convicted of betraying the public trust, Torres thinks you should be banned from running for city office.

“Public office is a privilege,” Torres said. “It is not a right. It is not an entitlement.”

Torres said he believes in second chances, but not in this case.

“I’m an advocate of redemption, but redemption should mean that you have the ability to enjoy your life as a public citizen,” he said.

Torres is troubled by the fact that a corrupt candidate could receive public money to campaign.

Torres leading anti-tweeding investigative committee

From the NY Times:

If there was any lingering doubt that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s mostly harmonious relationship with the City Council was about to change, Councilman Ritchie Torres may put that question to rest.

Mr. Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, has been chosen by the Council’s newly selected speaker, Corey D. Johnson, to be in charge of a new investigations unit that will look into the operation of city agencies.

In an interview, Mr. Torres said that between 10 and 15 professional investigators, possibly including former prosecutors, would be hired and that the committee would use them to conduct its own inquiries.

Among the areas of possible investigative interest, according to Mr. Torres: “The abuse of placards. The use of eminent domain. The disposition of public land. Deed restriction. The disbursement of city subsidies,” he said. “All of it is on the table.”

So you think you have talent? - Speaker edition

It's Friday. The City Council Speaker candidates didn't have a care in the world (except jockeying for position to kiss the king's ring) when they boogied down at Joe Crowley's holiday party. You might hit the eggnog extra hard yourself when you realize what we're in store for over the next 4 years. Go ahead and caption this photo.

Speaker race campaign finance shenanigans questioned

From Progress Queens:

Because Election Day is four (4) days away, on Tuesday, 07 November, Progress Queens is publicly releasing a civilian crime report filed by the publisher of Progress Queens with the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's southern district.

The complaint outlined how the eight (8) candidates for New York City Council speaker have been making donations to other Councilmembers out of their committees to reëlect to win support for the speakership campaign ; have been having meetings, including with U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Queens) ; and have been preparing for debates or holding debates before the November general election. The Council speaker candidates are: Councilmembers Robert E. Cornegy, Jr. (D-Brooklyn), Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan), Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), Donovan Richards (D-Queens), Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan), Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx), Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Queens), and Jumaane D. Williams (D-Brooklyn).

These speakership campaign activities have been taking place in the apparent absence of dedicated campaign committees for the speakership race. Four years ago, the Municipal campaign finance regulatory authority reportedly provided advice to Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Spanish Harlem) that using a committee to reëlect for the speakership race was prohibited, forcing her to form a separate, dedicated campaign committee for the speakership race.

A review of information about campaign committees tracked online by the New York State Board of Elections did not identify which campaign committees were designated for the speakership race. For this report, attempts were made to reach the Council speaker candidates, or their representatives, but no response was received to a request made late Thursday evening. The Federal complaint alleges that Council speaker candidates, who do not presently have a dedicated campaign committee for the speakership race, are violating campaign finance laws, because the absence of a dedicated Council speakership race campaign committees implies that campaign consultants are working for free, a violation of law.

Speaker candidates will be tougher on the mayor

From Crains:

The eight city councilmen running to succeed Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vowed to further democratize the body—and some said they would be tougher with the mayor.

The speaker candidates—Manhattan Councilmen Corey Johnson, Mark Levine and Ydanis Rodriguez, Queens Councilmen Donovan Richards and James Van Bramer, Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres and Brooklyn Councilmen Robert Cornegy and Jumaane Williams—made the remarks at a Crain's forum in Midtown. As speaker, Mark-Viverito has instituted reforms such as distributing discretionary money based on district need, but some members have chafed that she bottles up legislation unless she has negotiated a deal for the mayor's approval.

This has spared Mayor Bill de Blasio, who helped engineer Mark-Viverito's election as speaker in late 2013, from having to veto even a single bill after nearly four years in office. Torres decried as an "embarrassing months-long spectacle" the ill-fated agreement between Mark-Viverito and de Blasio to curtail the horse carriage industry in Central Park.

"Instead of representing the weight of the members, I thought the leadership of the council was effectively doing the bidding of the mayor," said the Bronx lawmaker, viewed generally as an underdog in the speaker's race.

He asserted that bills with a veto-proof "supermajority" of 34 or more sponsors should receive a vote regardless of the mayor's or speaker's feelings, even as he argued the speaker should provide some kind of "quality control."

Several of Torres' colleagues noted that the council bucked both the mayor and the speaker on the carriage deal. Van Bramer, Johnson and Levine praised Mark-Viverito for overcoming the mayor's initial resistance to more NYPD hires, to a new legal defense fund for all undocumented immigrants fighting deportation and to closing the Rikers Island jail complex.

Still, they called for rules changes that would stop a future speaker from continuing Mark-Viverito's tack of blocking bills that she or the mayor dislikes. Johnson suggested new mechanisms that would ensure a hearing on bills with majority support (at least 26 sponsors) and a vote on bills with 34 members signed on.

Pol wants better voter participation

From the Daily News:

The Board of Elections would be required to send all eligible voters in the five boroughs a “voter history” card that will tell people how many elections they’ve missed in the past four years under a new bill being considered in the City Council.

Councilman Ritchie Torres, who proposed the legislation, said the tattle cards will encourage people to get off the couch and do their civic duty.

He said he felt compelled to introduce the bill, which has its first hearing in the Council on Monday, because of New York’s abysmal voter participation rate.

Nationally, New York State ranked 46th in the country in voter turnout, and only 25% of eligible city voters cast a ballot in city elections last year.

Maybe people just realize that whoever they vote for, they're probably getting screwed anyway.

Community board quotas soon?

From Gotham Gazette:

In an effort to ensure that local community boards are representative of their neighborhoods, New York City Council Member Ritchie Torres will introduce a bill on Wednesday requiring the city to publish demographic information about board members.

The bill, co-sponsored by Council Members Jimmy Van Bramer and Ben Kallos, is straightforward and reads much like a general population census. It would require the reporting of community board members’ names, neighborhoods, occupations, and employment, duration of board service, who they were appointed by, as well as aggregations by borough.

The bill also mandates the publishing of members’ attendance records and the number of vacancies on each community board.

The most important aspect of the bill, according to Torres, is the reporting of detailed demographic information -- obtained through a voluntary survey -- including race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, income, employment status, marital status, level of education, disability status, veteran status, language spoken at home or if they own or lease a car.

DBlasio still plans to develop NYCHA property

From the Observer:

The heads of the New York City Housing Authority today told the City Council that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “NextGeneration” plan to revitalize public housing’s strapped finances may involve selling several valuable lots to developers.

NYCHA General Manager Michael Kelly and Vice President for Development Bill Crawley testified that the “land lease” portion of the plan, intended to monetize vacant tracts of authority property by opening them up for low- and mixed-income development, may involve outright sale of at least two to four as-yet unspecified parcels. Their comments were in response to requests from Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres, chairman of the Committee on Public Housing, for assurances that the housing authority leaders would not sell property—which former Mayor Michael Bloomberg had proposed as a fix for NYCHA’s ballooning operating deficits and $17 billion backlog in repairs.

Koo pushing for expanded developer air rights

From Crains:

A group of City Council members sent Mayor Bill de Blasio a letter this week urging him to allow owners of landmarked nonprofits to sell a combined 25 million square feet of their air rights, which would then be used by developers in a few selected areas across the city to build taller buildings.

Democratic Councilmen Peter Koo of Queens and Ritchie Torres and Fernando Cabrera of the Bronx argued in the Feb. 24 letter that such a system would allow 180 landmarked nonprofit institutions to cash in on their full property values. Under current rules, those unused rights can be transferred only to sites close by.

"As you know, many religious and nonprofit institutions housed in individually designated landmarked structures struggle to maintain their buildings while providing services to further their mission," the letter stated. Mr. Koo is chair of the Committee on Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses and Mr. Torres is deputy leader of the council.

The trio used concepts and numbers contained in a proposal advanced by a group called Iconplans, which is led by former real estate broker and grocery store executive Lawrence Daitch, and real estate investor Michael Lipstein. The duo first floated their idea years ago, during the Bloomberg administration.

Leftie revolution coming soon

From the Daily News:

The City Council is about to take a sharp left turn.

Twenty-one new Council members are about to take office, and many of them are more liberal than the lawmakers they will replace — creating a tipping point, analysts say, in favor of a “progressive” agenda that has been bottled up for decades.

New Yorkers can expect everything from the expansion of workers’ rights to the imposition of new burdens on businesses.

“You have a wealth of young progressives who are going to be more aggressive than their predecessors,” said Councilman-elect Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx).

“And then you have a mayor who’s willing to partner with the City Council to advance progressive legislation.”

“All the stars are aligning in a progressive direction,” Torres said.

Some civic and political leaders are sounding the alarm.

“What concerns me is they’re certainly going to have agreement on the broader strokes, and I think they’re going to advance that agenda,” said outgoing Council Minority Leader James Oddo (R-Staten Island). “What’s to stop it?”