Daily News Summary
De Blasio Urges Albany To Tax Billionaires And Avoid Budget Cuts
Gothamist
Feb. 11, 2021
Mayor Bill de Blasio spent the better part of three hours on Thursday morning asking state lawmakers to empower localities to fight the pandemic and distribute vaccines, and raise taxes on ultra-wealthy New Yorkers to avoid cuts to health care and education.
"The power has to go back to localities. We've seen delay upon delay, red tape, confusion, emanating from too many strict or incoherent rules coming from above," de Blasio said during his video testimony to the fiscal committees of the State Assembly and the State Senate. The mayor was referring to a raft of emergency powers the state legislature granted to Governor Andrew Cuomo last spring as the pandemic raged across New York. Many Republicans and some state Democrats have called for Cuomo's authority to be curtailed in recent weeks.
Yet when asked for specifics on his own plans for vaccine distribution—how to make it more equitable, to increase trust in communities of color—the mayor responded that he was either still working on a solution, or that one would be forthcoming "in the weeks ahead," which was his response to a question about how homebound seniors would be receiving the vaccine.
The mayor was using one of Governor Cuomo's budget scenarios that assumes $6 billion in federal aid from Congress, far below the $15 billion Cuomo has said repeatedly that the state needs. De Blasio said that as written, this version of the budget would force the city to cut or shift more than $600 million over the next two years, and supplant $800 million in education funding the city is supposed to receive. The health care cuts would include shutting down 19 Health+Hospitals clinics that serve 140,000 New Yorkers.
"One hundred and twenty New York State billionaires have increased their income by $77 billion," de Blasio said. "We need taxes on the wealthy so we can protect working people, everyday people...I strongly urge that that is the way to go forward."
The mayor has been calling on Albany to raise taxes on the rich since he took office in 2014. Long Island State Senator Jim Gaughran asked the mayor if he would approve of Albany giving New York City the power to raise its own taxes to target high-income earners.
"I think that's a fine alternative," de Blasio said, pointing out that this was his plan to pay for universal pre-K, until Governor Cuomo stepped in with the funding to quash the prospects of any new tax.
De Blasio said that he generally favored a specific tax on billionaires over a state tax on stock trades, like the "Wall Street Tax" being proposed in the state legislature. "I think it should be done federally. I agree there is a problem if one state acts and other states don't, it could have a counterproductive outcome," de Blasio said of a stock transfer tax.
Republican Senator Thomas O'Mara asked, wouldn't billionaires leave if they were taxed more?
"I've literally had this conversation with a number of business leaders," the mayor replied, saying that working remotely is "a different matter than whether they want to live someplace else."
"A lot of people want what's here in New York City...That's not going to change."
The governor has said he is only in favor of raising income taxes on wealthy New Yorkers if the state does not receive enough relief money from Congress.
Freeman Klopott, a spokesperson for the governor's Budget Division, disputed the mayor's reading of Cuomo's proposed budget.
Let's be clear: In the midst of a global pandemic and the worst economic downturn in generations, funding in the Executive Budget for New York City goes up $1.3 billion, including a 13% increase for schools—significantly higher than the statewide average," Klopott wrote in a statement.
"Washington right now is debating a $350 billion package for state and local governments and it must include $15 billion for New York State to close our deficit that was caused entirely by the global pandemic the federal government failed to stop. Raising taxes is best done at the federal level so as not to pit one state against another and right now we all need to keep our focus on Washington to ensure the critical resources it is poised to deliver to the state and the City are fair."
At times, the mayor shied away from the bleak picture he had painted this past fall, when he threatened the layoffs of 22,000 city workers. Those layoffs would only be necessary if the city got no federal relief, de Blasio said, and he also backed away from his request for billions in borrowing authority.
But he also refused to commit to enacting a $75 million plan, endorsed by City Comptroller Scott Stringer, to help struggling taxi cab drivers. "I'm gonna look at this plan but the first thing I need to know is, what is going to be our overall situation in this city," the mayor said.
Many Democratic lawmakers congratulated de Blasio on his two terms in office, and marveled that it was his eighth and final appearance before the joint committee.
Cuomo budget could cut $500M from NYC public hospitals, de Blasio says
Feb. 11, 2021
Mayor Bill de Blasio spent the better part of three hours on Thursday morning asking state lawmakers to empower localities to fight the pandemic and distribute vaccines, and raise taxes on ultra-wealthy New Yorkers to avoid cuts to health care and education.
"The power has to go back to localities. We've seen delay upon delay, red tape, confusion, emanating from too many strict or incoherent rules coming from above," de Blasio said during his video testimony to the fiscal committees of the State Assembly and the State Senate. The mayor was referring to a raft of emergency powers the state legislature granted to Governor Andrew Cuomo last spring as the pandemic raged across New York. Many Republicans and some state Democrats have called for Cuomo's authority to be curtailed in recent weeks.
Yet when asked for specifics on his own plans for vaccine distribution—how to make it more equitable, to increase trust in communities of color—the mayor responded that he was either still working on a solution, or that one would be forthcoming "in the weeks ahead," which was his response to a question about how homebound seniors would be receiving the vaccine.
The mayor was using one of Governor Cuomo's budget scenarios that assumes $6 billion in federal aid from Congress, far below the $15 billion Cuomo has said repeatedly that the state needs. De Blasio said that as written, this version of the budget would force the city to cut or shift more than $600 million over the next two years, and supplant $800 million in education funding the city is supposed to receive. The health care cuts would include shutting down 19 Health+Hospitals clinics that serve 140,000 New Yorkers.
"One hundred and twenty New York State billionaires have increased their income by $77 billion," de Blasio said. "We need taxes on the wealthy so we can protect working people, everyday people...I strongly urge that that is the way to go forward."
The mayor has been calling on Albany to raise taxes on the rich since he took office in 2014. Long Island State Senator Jim Gaughran asked the mayor if he would approve of Albany giving New York City the power to raise its own taxes to target high-income earners.
"I think that's a fine alternative," de Blasio said, pointing out that this was his plan to pay for universal pre-K, until Governor Cuomo stepped in with the funding to quash the prospects of any new tax.
De Blasio said that he generally favored a specific tax on billionaires over a state tax on stock trades, like the "Wall Street Tax" being proposed in the state legislature. "I think it should be done federally. I agree there is a problem if one state acts and other states don't, it could have a counterproductive outcome," de Blasio said of a stock transfer tax.
Republican Senator Thomas O'Mara asked, wouldn't billionaires leave if they were taxed more?
"I've literally had this conversation with a number of business leaders," the mayor replied, saying that working remotely is "a different matter than whether they want to live someplace else."
"A lot of people want what's here in New York City...That's not going to change."
The governor has said he is only in favor of raising income taxes on wealthy New Yorkers if the state does not receive enough relief money from Congress.
Freeman Klopott, a spokesperson for the governor's Budget Division, disputed the mayor's reading of Cuomo's proposed budget.
Let's be clear: In the midst of a global pandemic and the worst economic downturn in generations, funding in the Executive Budget for New York City goes up $1.3 billion, including a 13% increase for schools—significantly higher than the statewide average," Klopott wrote in a statement.
"Washington right now is debating a $350 billion package for state and local governments and it must include $15 billion for New York State to close our deficit that was caused entirely by the global pandemic the federal government failed to stop. Raising taxes is best done at the federal level so as not to pit one state against another and right now we all need to keep our focus on Washington to ensure the critical resources it is poised to deliver to the state and the City are fair."
At times, the mayor shied away from the bleak picture he had painted this past fall, when he threatened the layoffs of 22,000 city workers. Those layoffs would only be necessary if the city got no federal relief, de Blasio said, and he also backed away from his request for billions in borrowing authority.
But he also refused to commit to enacting a $75 million plan, endorsed by City Comptroller Scott Stringer, to help struggling taxi cab drivers. "I'm gonna look at this plan but the first thing I need to know is, what is going to be our overall situation in this city," the mayor said.
Many Democratic lawmakers congratulated de Blasio on his two terms in office, and marveled that it was his eighth and final appearance before the joint committee.
Cuomo budget could cut $500M from NYC public hospitals, de Blasio says
NY Post
Feb. 11, 2021
Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that Gov. Cuomo's budget proposal would cut nearly $500 million in funding from the city's public hospital system, potentially forcing City Hall to cut 900 doctors and nurses and close 19 clinics in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those clinics serve 140,000 New Yorkers, predominately in lower-income and minority neighborhoods, de Blasio told lawmakers during his annual testimony on the state's spending plans.
"We see dangerous cuts," Hizzoner said.
"It would mean longer wait times for patients," he added. "We can't let that happen."
The state cuts would slash $139 million in state funding from the current 2021 budget and then another $334 million from the upcoming 2022 spending plan, de Blasio said.
Hizzoner made the remarks during his annual testimony before state lawmakers about the impact of Cuomo's proposed $193 billion budget on the Big Apple.
Cuomo is attempting to close a budget shortfall that he says measures $15 billion over two years.
De Blasio faces his own deficits at City Hall, which his administration estimates exceed $4 billion in 2023.
A budget spokesman for Cuomo accused de Blasio of "picking and choosing reductions without looking at the overall picture" and claimed that a key source of H&H's funding — from Medicaid — would grow.
State lifts quarantine rules for some vaccinated New Yorkers
Feb. 11, 2021
Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that Gov. Cuomo's budget proposal would cut nearly $500 million in funding from the city's public hospital system, potentially forcing City Hall to cut 900 doctors and nurses and close 19 clinics in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those clinics serve 140,000 New Yorkers, predominately in lower-income and minority neighborhoods, de Blasio told lawmakers during his annual testimony on the state's spending plans.
"We see dangerous cuts," Hizzoner said.
"It would mean longer wait times for patients," he added. "We can't let that happen."
The state cuts would slash $139 million in state funding from the current 2021 budget and then another $334 million from the upcoming 2022 spending plan, de Blasio said.
Hizzoner made the remarks during his annual testimony before state lawmakers about the impact of Cuomo's proposed $193 billion budget on the Big Apple.
Cuomo is attempting to close a budget shortfall that he says measures $15 billion over two years.
De Blasio faces his own deficits at City Hall, which his administration estimates exceed $4 billion in 2023.
A budget spokesman for Cuomo accused de Blasio of "picking and choosing reductions without looking at the overall picture" and claimed that a key source of H&H's funding — from Medicaid — would grow.
State lifts quarantine rules for some vaccinated New Yorkers
Crain's
Feb. 11, 2021
New York will follow updated guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and will not require certain individuals who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 to quarantine after being exposed to someone with the virus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday.
Cuomo and state health commissioner Howard Zucker said New York will follow CDC recommendations released Wednesday that apply to individuals who have received either the second shot of a two-dose vaccine or the first and only shot of a one-dose vaccine.
Once two weeks from full vaccination have passed, those individuals will not be required to quarantine after COVID-19 exposure if they experience no symptoms of the disease, Cuomo said. That exemption lasts 90 days after vaccination.
The state's current rules allow individuals exposed to COVID-19 to end quarantine after ten days without testing if they haven't had symptoms.
Cuomo and Zucker urged New Yorkers to stay vigilant and continue to wear masks and stay apart from others even if vaccinated. They said that "the science regarding COVID transmissibility post-vaccination remains unsettled, and this updated guidance is not an all-clear for New Yorkers to let their guard down."
'This inconsistency is not good for anyone': Frequent school closures take steep toll on NYC families, teachers
Feb. 11, 2021
New York will follow updated guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and will not require certain individuals who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 to quarantine after being exposed to someone with the virus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday.
Cuomo and state health commissioner Howard Zucker said New York will follow CDC recommendations released Wednesday that apply to individuals who have received either the second shot of a two-dose vaccine or the first and only shot of a one-dose vaccine.
Once two weeks from full vaccination have passed, those individuals will not be required to quarantine after COVID-19 exposure if they experience no symptoms of the disease, Cuomo said. That exemption lasts 90 days after vaccination.
The state's current rules allow individuals exposed to COVID-19 to end quarantine after ten days without testing if they haven't had symptoms.
Cuomo and Zucker urged New Yorkers to stay vigilant and continue to wear masks and stay apart from others even if vaccinated. They said that "the science regarding COVID transmissibility post-vaccination remains unsettled, and this updated guidance is not an all-clear for New Yorkers to let their guard down."
'This inconsistency is not good for anyone': Frequent school closures take steep toll on NYC families, teachers
NY Daily News
Feb. 11, 2021
Every day six-year-old son Adrian attends in-person class is a lifeline for the Bronx Kindergartner with autism and his overwhelmed parents.
But those days have become increasingly few and far-between.
Adrian's school, Samara Community School, has shut down twice for extended stretches in the past two months because of multiple COVID-19 cases, and when it's open, he can only attend part-time under the hybrid model that switches between remote and in-person classes.
"It's just crazy," his mother, Maria Paulino said. School has "been more closed than open."
The back-and-forth school closures and ongoing childcare challenges eventually got so severe that Paulino's husband quit his job as a parking attendant to stay home full-time.
"It was hard," said Paulino, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who works for the federal government. "Now I have to pay everything, but I know it's for the benefit of my son."
When city preschools, elementary schools, and District 75 schools for students with complex special needs reopened for in-person classes in early December, city officials promised more stability. With that came five days a week of in-person classes for more students and no more system-wide shutdowns.
But the reality has been far more complicated, parents, staff and administrators say — undercut by frequent school closures, ongoing staffing challenges and lingering gaps in city childcare networks.
"I do think it's really beneficial for our kids coming in person," said Joanna Cohen, an Assistant Principal at P.S. 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where the majority of the school's low-income Asian and Hispanic families have chosen remote learning. "At the same time I think it's incredibly challenging for the kids and parents to not have any consistency and not know from day to day whether we'll be closing."
Health officials maintain schools are safe even as COVID-19 numbers remain high citywide, pointing to fewer cases in schools than in the surrounding community.
But keeping in-person classes open with higher levels of community spread has come with another cost: frequent closures of individual school buildings triggered by reports of two or more COVID-19 cases within a week.
More than 1,000 of those temporary closures — which can last for 10 days or more — have occurred since in-person learning restarted Dec. 7, according to city data.
Several factors have contributed to the rash of shutdowns. As case numbers soared citywide, infection rates ticked up in schools, where test positivity doubled from .28% in December to its current .54%. The the Bronx, that number is at .77%.
More frequent asymptomatic testing in schools has allowed officials to catch more of those cases. Roughly 11,000 of the nearly 15,000 student and staff COVID-19 cases recorded by the city since September have in the past two months, city data shows.
The DOE has also held fast to a rule devised last summer that shutters schools for up to ten days when two or more COVID-19 cases are reported within a week, and contact tracers can't determine the origin of the cases.
That guideline has come under fire from some parents and health experts who say it's overly conservative.
"The two case rule was not based on science or evidence and it is doing tremendous harm to the overall well being of children," said Jennifer Lighter, a pediatric epidemiologist at NYU, who joined parents protesting the rule in January.
But teachers and union officials say it has helped stave off additional spread, and it's reckless to change it with community rates still high and more contagious variants out there.
"We need to continue the protocols that have helped keep students and school staff safe," United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said.
Education Department spokeswoman Miranda Barbot acknowledged the rule was "was established before schools opened and there was any data on transmission within a building."
The DOE is now "taking a close look at the data and this threshold and will make any changes in accordance with public health guidance," she said.
Families and school staff say it's not just the frequency of the temporary shutdowns that make them so jarring — it's their unpredictability.
"It really impacted my son because just the inconsistency of the routine," said Regina Alston, the mother of a seven-year-old with autism in the Bronx, who described one meltdown prompted by a last-minute school closure that was "so bad that the police happened to get out the car to make sure he's okay."
For teachers and school administrators, that unpredictability throws another wrench into the already delicate balancing act of planning for in-person and remote lessons simultaneously.
At P.S. 169 in Brooklyn, teachers have started sending their in-person students home each day with school-issued headphones in case the building shuts down that night and students are forced back into online learning.
"This inconsistency is not good for anyone," said Lindsey Yang, a Kindergarten teacher at the school.
Ongoing staffing challenges are also hampering schools' efforts to provide more consistency for students and families.
Only 250 of the nearly 900 schools open for in-person learning are offering five days a week of face-to-face classes to all their students, with another 260 offering full-time in-person learning to a majority of students, city officials said.
Personnel challenges at P186X, the Bronx school for children with complex disabilities where Alston sends her son, grew so severe that the school could no longer accommodate the staffing requirements on the boy's Individual Education Plan, forcing her to withdraw him from in-person classes.
"There's just not enough staff in the school to teach," she said.
Education Department officials said they're aware of staffing challenges at Alston's son's school and are sending additional support.
Neither Alston nor Paulino found the safety net they were hoping for in the city's Learning Bridges program — a sprawling city-funded childcare network set up to supervise kids on days they're not in class.
Alston says she never got a response to her application, and Paulino says program staffers told her they didn't have the resources or expertise to accommodate a child with autism.
An Education Department spokesman said children with disabilities are prioritized for Learning Bridge spots, and no child should be turned away because of a disability.
Both moms are now facing wrenching solutions.
Alston, a single mom who works outside the home as a substance abuse counselor, managed to find childcare by paying a friend to watch her son, but had to drop out of her masters program in Social Work because of the financial and logistical strain of the past few months.
"I was saddened and discouraged, of course worried," she said of the decision. "I'm in debt now to the tune of $10,000… and I feel like I wasted this money and didn't accomplish anything."
Paulino, meanwhile, decided with the help of a special education lawyer to transfer her son to a District 75 school where he will get more individualized support and five days a week of in-person classes.
It was a bittersweet decision, as Paulino loved her son's old school and worries he might lose out on opportunities by attending a school strictly for students with disabilities.
"I don't feel very good," she said, "but I decided to give it a try."
Why SoHo Struggles and Indie Shops in Brooklyn Are Doing Fine
Feb. 11, 2021
Every day six-year-old son Adrian attends in-person class is a lifeline for the Bronx Kindergartner with autism and his overwhelmed parents.
But those days have become increasingly few and far-between.
Adrian's school, Samara Community School, has shut down twice for extended stretches in the past two months because of multiple COVID-19 cases, and when it's open, he can only attend part-time under the hybrid model that switches between remote and in-person classes.
"It's just crazy," his mother, Maria Paulino said. School has "been more closed than open."
The back-and-forth school closures and ongoing childcare challenges eventually got so severe that Paulino's husband quit his job as a parking attendant to stay home full-time.
"It was hard," said Paulino, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who works for the federal government. "Now I have to pay everything, but I know it's for the benefit of my son."
When city preschools, elementary schools, and District 75 schools for students with complex special needs reopened for in-person classes in early December, city officials promised more stability. With that came five days a week of in-person classes for more students and no more system-wide shutdowns.
But the reality has been far more complicated, parents, staff and administrators say — undercut by frequent school closures, ongoing staffing challenges and lingering gaps in city childcare networks.
"I do think it's really beneficial for our kids coming in person," said Joanna Cohen, an Assistant Principal at P.S. 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where the majority of the school's low-income Asian and Hispanic families have chosen remote learning. "At the same time I think it's incredibly challenging for the kids and parents to not have any consistency and not know from day to day whether we'll be closing."
Health officials maintain schools are safe even as COVID-19 numbers remain high citywide, pointing to fewer cases in schools than in the surrounding community.
But keeping in-person classes open with higher levels of community spread has come with another cost: frequent closures of individual school buildings triggered by reports of two or more COVID-19 cases within a week.
More than 1,000 of those temporary closures — which can last for 10 days or more — have occurred since in-person learning restarted Dec. 7, according to city data.
Several factors have contributed to the rash of shutdowns. As case numbers soared citywide, infection rates ticked up in schools, where test positivity doubled from .28% in December to its current .54%. The the Bronx, that number is at .77%.
More frequent asymptomatic testing in schools has allowed officials to catch more of those cases. Roughly 11,000 of the nearly 15,000 student and staff COVID-19 cases recorded by the city since September have in the past two months, city data shows.
The DOE has also held fast to a rule devised last summer that shutters schools for up to ten days when two or more COVID-19 cases are reported within a week, and contact tracers can't determine the origin of the cases.
That guideline has come under fire from some parents and health experts who say it's overly conservative.
"The two case rule was not based on science or evidence and it is doing tremendous harm to the overall well being of children," said Jennifer Lighter, a pediatric epidemiologist at NYU, who joined parents protesting the rule in January.
But teachers and union officials say it has helped stave off additional spread, and it's reckless to change it with community rates still high and more contagious variants out there.
"We need to continue the protocols that have helped keep students and school staff safe," United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said.
Education Department spokeswoman Miranda Barbot acknowledged the rule was "was established before schools opened and there was any data on transmission within a building."
The DOE is now "taking a close look at the data and this threshold and will make any changes in accordance with public health guidance," she said.
Families and school staff say it's not just the frequency of the temporary shutdowns that make them so jarring — it's their unpredictability.
"It really impacted my son because just the inconsistency of the routine," said Regina Alston, the mother of a seven-year-old with autism in the Bronx, who described one meltdown prompted by a last-minute school closure that was "so bad that the police happened to get out the car to make sure he's okay."
For teachers and school administrators, that unpredictability throws another wrench into the already delicate balancing act of planning for in-person and remote lessons simultaneously.
At P.S. 169 in Brooklyn, teachers have started sending their in-person students home each day with school-issued headphones in case the building shuts down that night and students are forced back into online learning.
"This inconsistency is not good for anyone," said Lindsey Yang, a Kindergarten teacher at the school.
Ongoing staffing challenges are also hampering schools' efforts to provide more consistency for students and families.
Only 250 of the nearly 900 schools open for in-person learning are offering five days a week of face-to-face classes to all their students, with another 260 offering full-time in-person learning to a majority of students, city officials said.
Personnel challenges at P186X, the Bronx school for children with complex disabilities where Alston sends her son, grew so severe that the school could no longer accommodate the staffing requirements on the boy's Individual Education Plan, forcing her to withdraw him from in-person classes.
"There's just not enough staff in the school to teach," she said.
Education Department officials said they're aware of staffing challenges at Alston's son's school and are sending additional support.
Neither Alston nor Paulino found the safety net they were hoping for in the city's Learning Bridges program — a sprawling city-funded childcare network set up to supervise kids on days they're not in class.
Alston says she never got a response to her application, and Paulino says program staffers told her they didn't have the resources or expertise to accommodate a child with autism.
An Education Department spokesman said children with disabilities are prioritized for Learning Bridge spots, and no child should be turned away because of a disability.
Both moms are now facing wrenching solutions.
Alston, a single mom who works outside the home as a substance abuse counselor, managed to find childcare by paying a friend to watch her son, but had to drop out of her masters program in Social Work because of the financial and logistical strain of the past few months.
"I was saddened and discouraged, of course worried," she said of the decision. "I'm in debt now to the tune of $10,000… and I feel like I wasted this money and didn't accomplish anything."
Paulino, meanwhile, decided with the help of a special education lawyer to transfer her son to a District 75 school where he will get more individualized support and five days a week of in-person classes.
It was a bittersweet decision, as Paulino loved her son's old school and worries he might lose out on opportunities by attending a school strictly for students with disabilities.
"I don't feel very good," she said, "but I decided to give it a try."
Why SoHo Struggles and Indie Shops in Brooklyn Are Doing Fine
NY Times
Feb. 12, 2021
Retail chains have failed all over New York City. Is it a surprise that smaller stores can finally breathe?
With the exception of November 1929, there has probably been no moment less conducive to opening a jewelry store in New York than at any point during the past 11 months. So it was a hopeful and norm-defying sign, like a heat wave in a Finnish noir, to find Page Sargisson Jewelry arriving on the corner of Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn right after Thanksgiving.
Ms. Sargisson had been designing and making jewelry for 16 years, selling it wholesale and online. But she had long wanted to open a store, one that was big enough to accommodate a workshop. This past August, as the lease on her studio space was running out, she approached the owner of a building whose ground floor, like hundreds of other shop fronts around the city, had been empty for some time. She told him what she could pay. They came to an agreement. By the end of December, her sales had far exceeded her expectations.
When the pandemic struck late last winter, it devastated a retail sector that had been battered for at least a decade. Vacancy mounted upon vacancy, bankruptcy upon bankruptcy. By May, with hundreds of thousands of people living in pajamas, staffing at clothing stores was down by 40 percent from the previous year. Between February and October, nearly 30,000 retail jobs vanished in New York City alone. You hardly needed any kind of statistical analysis if you walked around Hudson Yards or SoHo or Madison Avenue, where everything has felt bleak, enervating: Karma was having its way with Big Real Estate.
By contrast, a chicly homey stretch of stores along well-traveled Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn has maintained the vitality of an alternate world. These shops are an unlikely bright spot in a devastating year, when as many as one-third of all businesses in New York City have failed or been severely constrained. Any inquiry into how this has come to pass must begin with the fact that many of the stores belong to the individual people who created them.
The monuments to corporate branding — the Guccis and Pradas — that line so many of the desolate retail corridors in Manhattan are essentially absent here. In the 1980s and '90s, this part of Atlantic Avenue was given over to modest antiques stores serving a new population of first-time homeowners restoring brownstones in Boerum Hill. As those houses turned over again and again in the years ahead, as linoleum was stripped away and the farmhouse sinks made their way into the kitchen, the surrounding area evolved to suit the tastes of a haute bohemian class that preferred its luxuries set at a lower register.
When you walk into one of these stores, you are likely to find the owner behind the counter. Often she — and it's usually a woman — is also the person making what she sells: lamps, pillows, pottery, dresses, body oils. Michele Varian moved her interior design store from SoHo to Atlantic Avenue in January 2020 because the community she had first encountered when she opened 19 years earlier was long gone. "If I were in SoHo now, I'd be dead in the water, owing lots of money," she told me recently. Her rent had become untenable at the same time that the sort of person who really appreciated what she carried no longer lived nearby.
Artists had left SoHo years earlier, but she noticed a second-wave exodus after Hurricane Sandy, when people traded in lofts they bought years earlier for whole buildings in Brooklyn. "I think this is an underrecognized, pivotal turning point in the history of Lower Manhattan,'' Ms. Varian said.
The newcomers brought with them not only money, but the locavore values of liberal affluence. They were neither about Amazon nor Moncler. When a branch of Barneys opened on the ground floor of a new apartment building farther west on Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn Heights, it was empty nearly all the time, long before the company shut down. Even as people living in the area renovated vast townhouses — waiting two years for the arrival of $5,000 Japanese toilets, for example — they weren't about to spend $2,800 on a slip dress.
But they were happy to shop in places that distinguished their tastes as artful. "Through all of this, the neighbors have been so aware of how important it is to support us," Ms. Varian said.
The intimacy extends, crucially, to the landlords, who in several cases have held these properties for decades. The boutique owners have managed to avoid faceless real-estate investment trusts, huge development outfits or private equity interests who have seized upon neighborhoods based on Instagram ideas of hipness, with little understanding of what the people who live in them actually need or want.
These relationships have been important during the current crisis. "In March I called my landlord, freaking out," Eva Dayton, a single parent, told me. Ms. Dayton, who owns Consignment Brooklyn, a vintage clothing store, has had the same landlord for 17 years. "He is like my dad," she said. "His response when I called him was, 'I am here to help you be successful.'" He forgave three months of rent.
Just before the pandemic, she had started a text group for the 12 like-minded women who own stores on the block. The network included Kalyn McCutcheon, who had just opened a midcentury modern furniture store; Marcia Patmos, a fashion designer; Gale Mayron, who was in the fortunate position to have been making a hand sanitizer with essential oils since 1997; and Yvonne Chu, who had been making wedding dresses in her store, Kimera, for two decades and who quickly began turning out masks. Nothing has been easy, but everyone has survived.
"We went through all of Covid together, texting each other every day about 500 things — P.P.P. loans, snow shoveling," Ms. Dayton said. "We talk about everything. 'You guys are having a sale? Maybe we'll have a sale.'" At one point, before Christmas, they incentivized shopping in multiple stores by coordinating a traveling bingo game which culminated in prizes.
Chain stores have proliferated in New York City on the belief held by landlords and banks that they are more or less invulnerable to economic downturns. The pandemic has offered a profound challenge to that idea. In December, the Center for an Urban Future, a policy organization, issued its 13th annual study of national retailers in New York City. It found by far the biggest overall decline in the number of chain stores; more than 1,000 of them, or approximately one out of seven, had disappeared during the preceding 12 months.
The lessons would seem obvious — that neighborhoods do best when they evolve organically in sync with the people who live in them. They cannot be manufactured as if real life were Minecraft. In the micro sense there are hopeful signs — landlords tying rents to percent of sales, banks slowly becoming more flexible in their financing. But the way we think about commerce and communities needs a radical re-evaluation.
"Retail has to be integrated into people's lives," Ms. Varian remarked. "Where are people walking their dogs? Where are they taking their kids to school?" Those businesses then need to be supported. And in the end, the vultures need to be kept away.
NYC Small Businesses on the Brink Cast Hopes on New PPP Loans and Rent Deals
Feb. 12, 2021
Retail chains have failed all over New York City. Is it a surprise that smaller stores can finally breathe?
With the exception of November 1929, there has probably been no moment less conducive to opening a jewelry store in New York than at any point during the past 11 months. So it was a hopeful and norm-defying sign, like a heat wave in a Finnish noir, to find Page Sargisson Jewelry arriving on the corner of Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn right after Thanksgiving.
Ms. Sargisson had been designing and making jewelry for 16 years, selling it wholesale and online. But she had long wanted to open a store, one that was big enough to accommodate a workshop. This past August, as the lease on her studio space was running out, she approached the owner of a building whose ground floor, like hundreds of other shop fronts around the city, had been empty for some time. She told him what she could pay. They came to an agreement. By the end of December, her sales had far exceeded her expectations.
When the pandemic struck late last winter, it devastated a retail sector that had been battered for at least a decade. Vacancy mounted upon vacancy, bankruptcy upon bankruptcy. By May, with hundreds of thousands of people living in pajamas, staffing at clothing stores was down by 40 percent from the previous year. Between February and October, nearly 30,000 retail jobs vanished in New York City alone. You hardly needed any kind of statistical analysis if you walked around Hudson Yards or SoHo or Madison Avenue, where everything has felt bleak, enervating: Karma was having its way with Big Real Estate.
By contrast, a chicly homey stretch of stores along well-traveled Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn has maintained the vitality of an alternate world. These shops are an unlikely bright spot in a devastating year, when as many as one-third of all businesses in New York City have failed or been severely constrained. Any inquiry into how this has come to pass must begin with the fact that many of the stores belong to the individual people who created them.
The monuments to corporate branding — the Guccis and Pradas — that line so many of the desolate retail corridors in Manhattan are essentially absent here. In the 1980s and '90s, this part of Atlantic Avenue was given over to modest antiques stores serving a new population of first-time homeowners restoring brownstones in Boerum Hill. As those houses turned over again and again in the years ahead, as linoleum was stripped away and the farmhouse sinks made their way into the kitchen, the surrounding area evolved to suit the tastes of a haute bohemian class that preferred its luxuries set at a lower register.
When you walk into one of these stores, you are likely to find the owner behind the counter. Often she — and it's usually a woman — is also the person making what she sells: lamps, pillows, pottery, dresses, body oils. Michele Varian moved her interior design store from SoHo to Atlantic Avenue in January 2020 because the community she had first encountered when she opened 19 years earlier was long gone. "If I were in SoHo now, I'd be dead in the water, owing lots of money," she told me recently. Her rent had become untenable at the same time that the sort of person who really appreciated what she carried no longer lived nearby.
Artists had left SoHo years earlier, but she noticed a second-wave exodus after Hurricane Sandy, when people traded in lofts they bought years earlier for whole buildings in Brooklyn. "I think this is an underrecognized, pivotal turning point in the history of Lower Manhattan,'' Ms. Varian said.
The newcomers brought with them not only money, but the locavore values of liberal affluence. They were neither about Amazon nor Moncler. When a branch of Barneys opened on the ground floor of a new apartment building farther west on Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn Heights, it was empty nearly all the time, long before the company shut down. Even as people living in the area renovated vast townhouses — waiting two years for the arrival of $5,000 Japanese toilets, for example — they weren't about to spend $2,800 on a slip dress.
But they were happy to shop in places that distinguished their tastes as artful. "Through all of this, the neighbors have been so aware of how important it is to support us," Ms. Varian said.
The intimacy extends, crucially, to the landlords, who in several cases have held these properties for decades. The boutique owners have managed to avoid faceless real-estate investment trusts, huge development outfits or private equity interests who have seized upon neighborhoods based on Instagram ideas of hipness, with little understanding of what the people who live in them actually need or want.
These relationships have been important during the current crisis. "In March I called my landlord, freaking out," Eva Dayton, a single parent, told me. Ms. Dayton, who owns Consignment Brooklyn, a vintage clothing store, has had the same landlord for 17 years. "He is like my dad," she said. "His response when I called him was, 'I am here to help you be successful.'" He forgave three months of rent.
Just before the pandemic, she had started a text group for the 12 like-minded women who own stores on the block. The network included Kalyn McCutcheon, who had just opened a midcentury modern furniture store; Marcia Patmos, a fashion designer; Gale Mayron, who was in the fortunate position to have been making a hand sanitizer with essential oils since 1997; and Yvonne Chu, who had been making wedding dresses in her store, Kimera, for two decades and who quickly began turning out masks. Nothing has been easy, but everyone has survived.
"We went through all of Covid together, texting each other every day about 500 things — P.P.P. loans, snow shoveling," Ms. Dayton said. "We talk about everything. 'You guys are having a sale? Maybe we'll have a sale.'" At one point, before Christmas, they incentivized shopping in multiple stores by coordinating a traveling bingo game which culminated in prizes.
Chain stores have proliferated in New York City on the belief held by landlords and banks that they are more or less invulnerable to economic downturns. The pandemic has offered a profound challenge to that idea. In December, the Center for an Urban Future, a policy organization, issued its 13th annual study of national retailers in New York City. It found by far the biggest overall decline in the number of chain stores; more than 1,000 of them, or approximately one out of seven, had disappeared during the preceding 12 months.
The lessons would seem obvious — that neighborhoods do best when they evolve organically in sync with the people who live in them. They cannot be manufactured as if real life were Minecraft. In the micro sense there are hopeful signs — landlords tying rents to percent of sales, banks slowly becoming more flexible in their financing. But the way we think about commerce and communities needs a radical re-evaluation.
"Retail has to be integrated into people's lives," Ms. Varian remarked. "Where are people walking their dogs? Where are they taking their kids to school?" Those businesses then need to be supported. And in the end, the vultures need to be kept away.
NYC Small Businesses on the Brink Cast Hopes on New PPP Loans and Rent Deals
The City
Feb. 11, 2021
Before the pandemic struck New York 11 months ago, Janine Labriola's Ditmas Park fitness business was thriving.
A studio she started five years ago for classes and personal training was solidly profitable, and the self-service gym she later opened nearby was building clientele.
Labriola shuttered the fitness studio for good over the summer and is able to keep the gym open only because her landlord agreed to a deal where she is paying only half the rent. Most of her customers at Park Fitness BK are either too afraid of COVID-19 to come to the Coney Island Avenue gym or have left the city for elsewhere.
Some days, she signs up a new member but often two cancel.
"I cut my losses and closed a thriving business," she said. "I don't even know how much debt I am in."
As the shutdown that sent the city's economy into a free fall nears the one-year mark, prospects for small businesses in New York City are worsening, new data shows. Businesses that are hanging on are doing so because their landlords have decided some rent is better than no tenant — and because a new round of federal Paycheck Protection Program loans offers hope of paying some bills until the economy rebounds.
"The only reason we have survived because our landlord has deferred and forgiven rent," said Fonda Sara of Zuzu's Petals, a 50-year florist shop in Park Slope. "As long as my landlord values my tenancy I will be fine."
Meanwhile, the de Blasio administration says it has provided 108,000 services, running from help getting money to webinars for local small businesses. It too is betting on the latest PPP loans, which include funds set aside for very small businesses, to bolster many owners.
"The Biden administration is a breath of fresh air," said Jonnel Doris, commissioner of the city's department of Small Business Services
'No One Came Back'
Despite a small uptick during the holiday shopping season, small business revenue is one again slipping toward the March lows, according to a recent report from City Comptroller Scott Stringer. Hit hardest are firms in Manhattan deserted by tourists, office workers and many residents.
Revenue there is down 65% compared with the same period a year ago, with declines of 40% in Queens, about 35% in the Bronx and Brooklyn and 22% in Staten Island.
The citywide average 50% decline is similar to Washington, and slightly better than Boston and San Francisco, both of which have the same ills as Manhattan.
But other cities are doing better, including Philadelphia, where the drop is only 29%.
"The data confirms the inescapable realities and experiences of New York City's small business community on the frontlines of the pandemic," said Randy Peers, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. "Revenues are in free-fall and the significant and constantly evolving government COVID-19 restrictions are hurting businesses."
The Department of Small Business Services says New York City has about 230,000 businesses with 125 employees or fewer employing about 1.3 million workers. Counting a small business as any with 20 employees or less puts the number at about 200,000.
Peers notes that 73% of small business employees in New York City are people of color, with more than half of all jobs in the sector held by immigrants, documented and otherwise — populations that have been hit hard on all levels by the pandemic.
Thompson Chemists once employed 17 people at their community drug store in SoHo. Now Jolie Alony and her husband, Gary, run the place with one part-time employee. They keep the door locked and let customers individually.
"All our regular customers are out of here," Jolie Alony said. "They left in March for the Hamptons, Rhode Island or Florida."
She said customers had told her they would return after the presidential election, but "no one came back."
The couple opened the story in 1994 and the landlord is letting them pay what they can. "We are very vital to his community," she said.
'We are Pushing Hard'
Small business owners interviewed by THE CITY all said that rent deals were the key to their survival. Most are paying 50% or less.
When Labriola decided to close the fitness studio, she owed $14,000 in back rent. The landlord kept her security deposit but said he wouldn't pursue her for the unpaid amount. She notes no one has taken the space she vacated.
Current New York COVID-19 safety restrictions rules would prohibit her from holding indoor group fitness classes, though gyms are allowed to operate at one-third capacity.
The $7,200 monthly rent on the gym has been cut in half, although she still is responsible for utilities. "Who knows when they are going to ask me to pay it back," she wondered.
These deals are done on an informal basis.
"I have a landlord who has paid off the mortgage," said Linda Pagan, owner of the Hat Shop on Thompson Street in SoHo, who uses only New York-sourced supplies except for shipping boxes. "He basically told me not to worry about the rent, and I have been paying half the rent but I don't have anything in writing."
Business owners are also counting on the new round of forgivable PPP loans to keep their doors open.
Labriola expects to get $37,000 instead of the $16,000 she received in the first round because she now knows that the loan can cover her own salary.
Alony of Thompson Chemists expects another $100,000 loan, and Pagan of the Hat Shop is also seeking the same $15,000 that she received the first time.
"There was a long wait for the second round of federal stimulus," noted Jessica Walker, president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. "We are pushing hard to get PPP and other help to businesses right now."
'Completely Forgotten'
Many business owners are angry at their treatment by the city.
"The fitness industry has been completely forgotten," said Labriola, who notes her gym has been inspected by the city health department five times, one that she scheduled and four surprise inspections.
She said other gym owners she knows haven't been inspected even once.
Alony received a $28,500 fine from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection for price gouging for thermometers and other goods in short supply in the early days of the pandemic. The prices represented only a modest markup from her cost, she said, and the inspector refused to look at her invoices.
A customer who is a lawyer has taken on her case pro bono and she is awaiting a verdict from a virtual hearing on the case.
The department of Small Business Services notes it has connected 5,000 firms to $125 million in funding, answered 54,000 calls to its hotline for support and conducted more than 300 webinars attended by 30,000 businesses on how to pivot, find money and navigate regulatory issues.
It has launched a Fair Share campaign to make sure the smallest city businesses receive PPP loans in the latest round.
More broadly, says the Brooklyn Chamber's Peers, government needs to loosen the restrictions on key businesses.
"We need to lift many of the state and city restrictions that have disproportionately impacted restaurant, hospitality, health and wellness, and entertainment businesses in Brooklyn," he added.
"After a year of operating under siege, small businesses have demonstrated they can effectively and safely manage operations during the pandemic."
Say It With Flowers
The city remains more cautious, even as restaurants reopen for partial indoor dining Friday.
"The concern is that we have a health crisis that bought on the economic crisis and we have to responsibly relate those concerns to the restrictions," said SBS's Doris. "The worst result businesses tell me would be that we open up and then have to shut down again."
Meanwhile, Valentine's Day has given Sara of Zulu's Petals some hope.
The Fifth Avenue store was once destroyed in a fire and rebuilt in part with contributions from her customers. She renamed the florist's in an ode to the "It's a Wonderful Life" scene where Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey stuffs petals from his daughter Zuzu's flower into his pocket as a sign of life.
"We've been busy this week," she reported. "People seem to want flowers."
NYC pharmacies will offer COVID-19 vaccine to elderly residents
Feb. 11, 2021
Before the pandemic struck New York 11 months ago, Janine Labriola's Ditmas Park fitness business was thriving.
A studio she started five years ago for classes and personal training was solidly profitable, and the self-service gym she later opened nearby was building clientele.
Labriola shuttered the fitness studio for good over the summer and is able to keep the gym open only because her landlord agreed to a deal where she is paying only half the rent. Most of her customers at Park Fitness BK are either too afraid of COVID-19 to come to the Coney Island Avenue gym or have left the city for elsewhere.
Some days, she signs up a new member but often two cancel.
"I cut my losses and closed a thriving business," she said. "I don't even know how much debt I am in."
As the shutdown that sent the city's economy into a free fall nears the one-year mark, prospects for small businesses in New York City are worsening, new data shows. Businesses that are hanging on are doing so because their landlords have decided some rent is better than no tenant — and because a new round of federal Paycheck Protection Program loans offers hope of paying some bills until the economy rebounds.
"The only reason we have survived because our landlord has deferred and forgiven rent," said Fonda Sara of Zuzu's Petals, a 50-year florist shop in Park Slope. "As long as my landlord values my tenancy I will be fine."
Meanwhile, the de Blasio administration says it has provided 108,000 services, running from help getting money to webinars for local small businesses. It too is betting on the latest PPP loans, which include funds set aside for very small businesses, to bolster many owners.
"The Biden administration is a breath of fresh air," said Jonnel Doris, commissioner of the city's department of Small Business Services
'No One Came Back'
Despite a small uptick during the holiday shopping season, small business revenue is one again slipping toward the March lows, according to a recent report from City Comptroller Scott Stringer. Hit hardest are firms in Manhattan deserted by tourists, office workers and many residents.
Revenue there is down 65% compared with the same period a year ago, with declines of 40% in Queens, about 35% in the Bronx and Brooklyn and 22% in Staten Island.
The citywide average 50% decline is similar to Washington, and slightly better than Boston and San Francisco, both of which have the same ills as Manhattan.
But other cities are doing better, including Philadelphia, where the drop is only 29%.
"The data confirms the inescapable realities and experiences of New York City's small business community on the frontlines of the pandemic," said Randy Peers, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. "Revenues are in free-fall and the significant and constantly evolving government COVID-19 restrictions are hurting businesses."
The Department of Small Business Services says New York City has about 230,000 businesses with 125 employees or fewer employing about 1.3 million workers. Counting a small business as any with 20 employees or less puts the number at about 200,000.
Peers notes that 73% of small business employees in New York City are people of color, with more than half of all jobs in the sector held by immigrants, documented and otherwise — populations that have been hit hard on all levels by the pandemic.
Thompson Chemists once employed 17 people at their community drug store in SoHo. Now Jolie Alony and her husband, Gary, run the place with one part-time employee. They keep the door locked and let customers individually.
"All our regular customers are out of here," Jolie Alony said. "They left in March for the Hamptons, Rhode Island or Florida."
She said customers had told her they would return after the presidential election, but "no one came back."
The couple opened the story in 1994 and the landlord is letting them pay what they can. "We are very vital to his community," she said.
'We are Pushing Hard'
Small business owners interviewed by THE CITY all said that rent deals were the key to their survival. Most are paying 50% or less.
When Labriola decided to close the fitness studio, she owed $14,000 in back rent. The landlord kept her security deposit but said he wouldn't pursue her for the unpaid amount. She notes no one has taken the space she vacated.
Current New York COVID-19 safety restrictions rules would prohibit her from holding indoor group fitness classes, though gyms are allowed to operate at one-third capacity.
The $7,200 monthly rent on the gym has been cut in half, although she still is responsible for utilities. "Who knows when they are going to ask me to pay it back," she wondered.
These deals are done on an informal basis.
"I have a landlord who has paid off the mortgage," said Linda Pagan, owner of the Hat Shop on Thompson Street in SoHo, who uses only New York-sourced supplies except for shipping boxes. "He basically told me not to worry about the rent, and I have been paying half the rent but I don't have anything in writing."
Business owners are also counting on the new round of forgivable PPP loans to keep their doors open.
Labriola expects to get $37,000 instead of the $16,000 she received in the first round because she now knows that the loan can cover her own salary.
Alony of Thompson Chemists expects another $100,000 loan, and Pagan of the Hat Shop is also seeking the same $15,000 that she received the first time.
"There was a long wait for the second round of federal stimulus," noted Jessica Walker, president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. "We are pushing hard to get PPP and other help to businesses right now."
'Completely Forgotten'
Many business owners are angry at their treatment by the city.
"The fitness industry has been completely forgotten," said Labriola, who notes her gym has been inspected by the city health department five times, one that she scheduled and four surprise inspections.
She said other gym owners she knows haven't been inspected even once.
Alony received a $28,500 fine from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection for price gouging for thermometers and other goods in short supply in the early days of the pandemic. The prices represented only a modest markup from her cost, she said, and the inspector refused to look at her invoices.
A customer who is a lawyer has taken on her case pro bono and she is awaiting a verdict from a virtual hearing on the case.
The department of Small Business Services notes it has connected 5,000 firms to $125 million in funding, answered 54,000 calls to its hotline for support and conducted more than 300 webinars attended by 30,000 businesses on how to pivot, find money and navigate regulatory issues.
It has launched a Fair Share campaign to make sure the smallest city businesses receive PPP loans in the latest round.
More broadly, says the Brooklyn Chamber's Peers, government needs to loosen the restrictions on key businesses.
"We need to lift many of the state and city restrictions that have disproportionately impacted restaurant, hospitality, health and wellness, and entertainment businesses in Brooklyn," he added.
"After a year of operating under siege, small businesses have demonstrated they can effectively and safely manage operations during the pandemic."
Say It With Flowers
The city remains more cautious, even as restaurants reopen for partial indoor dining Friday.
"The concern is that we have a health crisis that bought on the economic crisis and we have to responsibly relate those concerns to the restrictions," said SBS's Doris. "The worst result businesses tell me would be that we open up and then have to shut down again."
Meanwhile, Valentine's Day has given Sara of Zulu's Petals some hope.
The Fifth Avenue store was once destroyed in a fire and rebuilt in part with contributions from her customers. She renamed the florist's in an ode to the "It's a Wonderful Life" scene where Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey stuffs petals from his daughter Zuzu's flower into his pocket as a sign of life.
"We've been busy this week," she reported. "People seem to want flowers."
NYC pharmacies will offer COVID-19 vaccine to elderly residents
NY Post
Feb. 11, 2021
Seniors in New York City can now make appointments to get their COVID-19 shot at local pharmacies.
More than 250 stores across the city will be offering the vaccine to New Yorkers 65 and older as part of a federal program, officials said Thursday.
"Pharmacies are a trusted part of our infrastructure, particularly for seniors who rely on them for medications and other services," City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said in a statement.
A first shipment of 26,500 doses began being delivered by the feds directly to the pharmacies on Monday, the health department said.
Those include 188 Walgreens/Duane Reade sites, 75 Rite Aids and five Costco stores in the five boroughs.
Locations can be found online a vaccinefinder.nyc.gov. Appointments will be made available as the pharmacies receive the doses.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson Defends Bills to Overhaul Policing
Feb. 11, 2021
Seniors in New York City can now make appointments to get their COVID-19 shot at local pharmacies.
More than 250 stores across the city will be offering the vaccine to New Yorkers 65 and older as part of a federal program, officials said Thursday.
"Pharmacies are a trusted part of our infrastructure, particularly for seniors who rely on them for medications and other services," City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said in a statement.
A first shipment of 26,500 doses began being delivered by the feds directly to the pharmacies on Monday, the health department said.
Those include 188 Walgreens/Duane Reade sites, 75 Rite Aids and five Costco stores in the five boroughs.
Locations can be found online a vaccinefinder.nyc.gov. Appointments will be made available as the pharmacies receive the doses.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson Defends Bills to Overhaul Policing
NY1
Feb. 11, 2021
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Thursday night defended a package of criminal justice and police reform bills, including one to end qualified immunity for NYPD officers that he called a "no-brainer."
"These are big bills. It would change the footprint of policing in New York City," Johnson said in an interview with NY1's Bobby Cuza on Inside City Hall. "It builds on many of the calls for reform that happened last year after the murder of George Floyd."
The Council introduced the 11 bills Thursday in an attempt to reshape the police department and increase officer accountability. They initially announced the package of bills late last month.
In addition to ending qualified immunity — which prevents officers from being sued and being liable for misconduct — the package of bills includes:
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who recently pushed new disciplinary guidelines for the NYPD, is expected to come up with his own plan for police reform in the coming weeks. Johnson says he is not sure if de Blasio will support the 11 bills because he and the mayor have not spoken about them.
"I'm sure there will be some negotiation, but the NYPD and the mayor's office testified at a Council hearing about a month ago and they didn't have much to share with us at that point. So we're plowing ahead with common sense reforms," Johnson said.
NY1 reached out to City Hall for comment but did not hear back by the time of this story's publication.
The speaker also told NY1 that the Council could add more bills and resolutions before the April 1 deadline.
Critics of efforts to end qualified immunity have argued scrapping the protection would tie officers' hands and could end up making them less aggressive in fighting crime if they have to worry about lawsuits. Some critics also worry officer recruitment would decline without qualified immunity.
Johnson rejected those arguments, telling NY1 that he believes ending qualified immunity will lead to better policing.
"We think this would get officers to actually behave more appropriately, and you need this level of accountability," Johnson said. "I think it's a bit of a no-brainer for what it should look like. Other states across the country and other cities across the country have been enacting these measures with great success."
Opinion: New York City has a Homelessness Problem—But it's Not What You Think
Feb. 11, 2021
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Thursday night defended a package of criminal justice and police reform bills, including one to end qualified immunity for NYPD officers that he called a "no-brainer."
"These are big bills. It would change the footprint of policing in New York City," Johnson said in an interview with NY1's Bobby Cuza on Inside City Hall. "It builds on many of the calls for reform that happened last year after the murder of George Floyd."
The Council introduced the 11 bills Thursday in an attempt to reshape the police department and increase officer accountability. They initially announced the package of bills late last month.
In addition to ending qualified immunity — which prevents officers from being sued and being liable for misconduct — the package of bills includes:
- Calling on the state to remove the police commissioner's exclusive authority over police discipline and send it to an independent body
- Giving the City Council a greater say over future police commissioners' actions, and would requiring the mayor to seek Council approval for appointing a police commissioner
- Investigating police officers with a history of bias
- Requiring the NYPD to issue a quarterly report on traffic stops
- Creating a non-police emergency response unit for mental health calls
- Reforming the role of school safety officers
- Requiring reporting on the turnover rate of school safety
- Transferring crash investigations to the city transportation department
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who recently pushed new disciplinary guidelines for the NYPD, is expected to come up with his own plan for police reform in the coming weeks. Johnson says he is not sure if de Blasio will support the 11 bills because he and the mayor have not spoken about them.
"I'm sure there will be some negotiation, but the NYPD and the mayor's office testified at a Council hearing about a month ago and they didn't have much to share with us at that point. So we're plowing ahead with common sense reforms," Johnson said.
NY1 reached out to City Hall for comment but did not hear back by the time of this story's publication.
The speaker also told NY1 that the Council could add more bills and resolutions before the April 1 deadline.
Critics of efforts to end qualified immunity have argued scrapping the protection would tie officers' hands and could end up making them less aggressive in fighting crime if they have to worry about lawsuits. Some critics also worry officer recruitment would decline without qualified immunity.
Johnson rejected those arguments, telling NY1 that he believes ending qualified immunity will lead to better policing.
"We think this would get officers to actually behave more appropriately, and you need this level of accountability," Johnson said. "I think it's a bit of a no-brainer for what it should look like. Other states across the country and other cities across the country have been enacting these measures with great success."
Opinion: New York City has a Homelessness Problem—But it's Not What You Think
City Limits
Feb. 11, 2021
New York City has a homelessness problem, but it's not what you think. Yes, there have been thousands of homeless folks in New York City shelters and in the streets and subways for decades. Yes, the budget for the Department of Homeless Services has risen exponentially over the years. Yes, COVID-19 slamming into the city nearly one year ago has only exacerbated the problem, with the closing of congregate shelters, libraries, subways and coffee shops (not to mention putting thousands of people out of work and on the edge of eviction).
Yet for all of these very real issues, the bigger problem lurking just beneath the surface is that as a society, we still haven't figured out that people don't choose to sleep outside; they choose not to sleep in shelters. The bigger problem is a fundamental misunderstanding about what causes homelessness and how the people who experience it deserve every opportunity that we can offer to help them access housing, not force them into shelters.
Last week, a keen observer noticed that the benches that previously dotted the landscape of a subway platform in NYC had mysteriously vanished. This individual took to Twitter to ask why and tagged the official account for subway news and updates: @NYCTSubway. In a surprising moment of honesty someone tasked with communicating on their behalf replied, "Benches were removed from stations to prevent the homeless from sleeping on them." This promptly created a firestorm in the Twitterverse, and the response was quickly deleted. MTA officials later stated that the benches at that station have been returned, claiming they were removed so they could be "deep cleaned."
The mindset that leads the MTA to remove benches so that homeless folks won't have warm, dry places to rest is not new. But it is backwards. This mindset is predicated on the systemic lie that homelessness exists because people choose to reject services. The belief is that if society makes homelessness as intolerable as possible, these individuals will see the error of their ways and ultimately accept the options the government provides. The people who perpetuate this belief system are convinced this approach is "humane" because they seem to believe the vast majority of those who sleep on these benches are incapable of making rational decisions. These leaders would call removing the benches "tough love."
But it's impossible to assume with any consistency that people sleeping in subway stations are both incapable of making rational decisions and capable of being persuaded to come inside because of the discomfort forced upon them through "hostile architecture" and criminalization. Punishing people in poverty so that they will be forced to "choose" not to be impoverished is insane. Instead of trying to increase the misery of miserable people, we should try offering solutions that decrease misery, build trust, and improve people's lives.
Here are several ideas:
Josiah Haken is an activist and practitioner who helps organizations, faith communities, and individuals cultivate spaces where those who experience homelessness are cared for with dignity and intentionality. He is the vice president of outreach operations at NYC Relief and has been helping people get off the street for over 10 years.
Bronx Dem Party endorses Sanchez for 14th District council race
Feb. 11, 2021
New York City has a homelessness problem, but it's not what you think. Yes, there have been thousands of homeless folks in New York City shelters and in the streets and subways for decades. Yes, the budget for the Department of Homeless Services has risen exponentially over the years. Yes, COVID-19 slamming into the city nearly one year ago has only exacerbated the problem, with the closing of congregate shelters, libraries, subways and coffee shops (not to mention putting thousands of people out of work and on the edge of eviction).
Yet for all of these very real issues, the bigger problem lurking just beneath the surface is that as a society, we still haven't figured out that people don't choose to sleep outside; they choose not to sleep in shelters. The bigger problem is a fundamental misunderstanding about what causes homelessness and how the people who experience it deserve every opportunity that we can offer to help them access housing, not force them into shelters.
Last week, a keen observer noticed that the benches that previously dotted the landscape of a subway platform in NYC had mysteriously vanished. This individual took to Twitter to ask why and tagged the official account for subway news and updates: @NYCTSubway. In a surprising moment of honesty someone tasked with communicating on their behalf replied, "Benches were removed from stations to prevent the homeless from sleeping on them." This promptly created a firestorm in the Twitterverse, and the response was quickly deleted. MTA officials later stated that the benches at that station have been returned, claiming they were removed so they could be "deep cleaned."
The mindset that leads the MTA to remove benches so that homeless folks won't have warm, dry places to rest is not new. But it is backwards. This mindset is predicated on the systemic lie that homelessness exists because people choose to reject services. The belief is that if society makes homelessness as intolerable as possible, these individuals will see the error of their ways and ultimately accept the options the government provides. The people who perpetuate this belief system are convinced this approach is "humane" because they seem to believe the vast majority of those who sleep on these benches are incapable of making rational decisions. These leaders would call removing the benches "tough love."
But it's impossible to assume with any consistency that people sleeping in subway stations are both incapable of making rational decisions and capable of being persuaded to come inside because of the discomfort forced upon them through "hostile architecture" and criminalization. Punishing people in poverty so that they will be forced to "choose" not to be impoverished is insane. Instead of trying to increase the misery of miserable people, we should try offering solutions that decrease misery, build trust, and improve people's lives.
Here are several ideas:
- Put the benches back. Though the MTA said it has returned the benches at the 23rd Street Station that sparked the initial Twitter debate, it should do the same at any other subway stations where benches may have been removed. This small gesture would demonstrate a desire on the part of city leadership to empathize with those in the margins of society who are often treated like a problem to be solved instead of a citizen to be helped.
- Open the subways at night. When COVID-19 slammed into New York City, the case was made that the subways needed to be closed to be cleaned. It seems logical, except for the fact that the timing was remarkably close to a blitz of news stories around complaints about homeless riders making life difficult for essential workers. The MTA repeatedly and rightfully claims they are not equipped to function as an alternative to the shelter system. But what if there was a coordinated strategy to both clean and operate specific trains during the winter months that allowed those experiencing homelessness to receive emergency supplies and connect with outreach teams that could get them into stabilization beds?
- Increase the number of stabilization beds for those in the street. COVID-19 is still a problem. While the mayor of New York City did move thousands of homeless individuals from the shelter system into hotel rooms, albeit slowly, the administration did not go nearly far enough (especially given the recent news about FEMA reimbursing 100 percent of the costs that cities incurred placing vulnerable populations into hotel rooms). There is still time. One of the most successful efforts that DHS has made since the start of the pandemic was increasing the number of stabilization beds available for homeless individuals. While those in the streets are understandably reluctant to accept an invitation to a congregate shelter, the offer of a private hotel room with a private bathroom is a game changer.
- Give the city contracted outreach teams the flexibility to offer winter clothing, food, and bottled water to those they engage in the street. While access to affordable housing continues to lag behind the number of people who actually need it, offering compassionate relief through tangible acts of service does nothing but help establish relationships and build trust.
Josiah Haken is an activist and practitioner who helps organizations, faith communities, and individuals cultivate spaces where those who experience homelessness are cared for with dignity and intentionality. He is the vice president of outreach operations at NYC Relief and has been helping people get off the street for over 10 years.
Bronx Dem Party endorses Sanchez for 14th District council race
Bronx Times
Feb. 11, 2021
This morning the Bronx Democratic Party announced today Pierina Sanchez in the west Bronx's City Council District 14 race, one which will replace the incumbent, term limited Fernando Cabrera who is now campaigning for borough president.
"As the people of the Bronx, our teachers, healthcare providers, and essential workers rise from this difficult period, we as Bronx leaders must work together to put our community first. I am proud to receive the Bronx Democratic County Committee's endorsement and look forward to fighting together for a just recovery for the people of the Bronx," Sanchez said upon the news of her endorsement.
Born a daughter of Dominican immigrants in University Heights, Sanchez has lived her entire life inside of District 14 as an advocate and public servant following her earning of two Ivy League degrees.
She has previously served with distinction in the Obama administration, as a staff member for the city council, and locally on her community board in the Bronx.
"She is a lifelong resident of Council District 14 and the best choice to represent the people of that district. I am proud that we, as the Bronx Democratic Party are endorsing Pierina Sanchez and we know that when elected, Pierina will continue to ensure that there is equity and social justice not only in the Council District 14 but in the city as a whole." said Bronx Democratic chairman and senator Jamaal T. Bailey.
Some of Sanchez's main campaign platforms come by way of housing, economic development, and also education.
Op-Ed: Virtual city planning has muted community voices on zoning issues
Feb. 11, 2021
This morning the Bronx Democratic Party announced today Pierina Sanchez in the west Bronx's City Council District 14 race, one which will replace the incumbent, term limited Fernando Cabrera who is now campaigning for borough president.
"As the people of the Bronx, our teachers, healthcare providers, and essential workers rise from this difficult period, we as Bronx leaders must work together to put our community first. I am proud to receive the Bronx Democratic County Committee's endorsement and look forward to fighting together for a just recovery for the people of the Bronx," Sanchez said upon the news of her endorsement.
Born a daughter of Dominican immigrants in University Heights, Sanchez has lived her entire life inside of District 14 as an advocate and public servant following her earning of two Ivy League degrees.
She has previously served with distinction in the Obama administration, as a staff member for the city council, and locally on her community board in the Bronx.
"She is a lifelong resident of Council District 14 and the best choice to represent the people of that district. I am proud that we, as the Bronx Democratic Party are endorsing Pierina Sanchez and we know that when elected, Pierina will continue to ensure that there is equity and social justice not only in the Council District 14 but in the city as a whole." said Bronx Democratic chairman and senator Jamaal T. Bailey.
Some of Sanchez's main campaign platforms come by way of housing, economic development, and also education.
Op-Ed: Virtual city planning has muted community voices on zoning issues
Crain's
Feb. 11, 2021
Public input is responsible for keeping the city a desirable place to live and work, but the mayor's new rules have prevented many residents from expressing their concerns about zoning issues that affect the livability of the city.
By holding virtual meetings to approve zoning issues in defiance of the laws surrounding the Uniform Land Use Review Process , Mayor Bill de Blasio is changing the face of the city without hearing from the residents this action affects most.
Residents have a different stake than developers and politicians when it comes to city planning. They know firsthand how overcrowded local schools are. They know the strain on public transit and what a new warehouse, power plant or processing facility would do to their neighborhood.
Community members should have an opportunity to respond to projects that would fundamentally change their day-to-day lives, but the mayor is cutting many out of the process by allowing the City Planning Committee to meet and vote online.
An example of this is at the core of an Article 78 lawsuit brought against the mayor and several agencies by Neighbors United Below Canal, a community advocacy group I co-founded more than two years ago. A ULURP-mandated "scoping" hearing for the site of a jail in Chinatown was replaced by small closed-door, invite-only meetings, which have now been made even more exclusive by becoming virtual. What was mandated by law to be public and accessible to all has, like several other city-run outreach schemes, morphed into a digital-access-only meeting of city reps and vetted participants.
About 18% of New Yorkers have no internet access at all, while nearly 40%—or 3.4 million people—lack either home or mobile connections, according to city data. De Blasio has promised since 2014 to close this gap, but so far those laudable efforts have come up short.
Now, as the pandemic continues to ravage the same communities that also lack internet access, poorer residents, students and communities of color have found themselves squeezed out of the digital "democracy" and unable to participate in the zoning process.
The process is also likely illegal. New York's Open Meetings Law says residents must be "fully aware of and able to observe the performance of public officials" during policy-setting sessions. When one-fifth of the city lacks the ability to watch or join a meeting, it's simply not an open meeting.
Proponents of advancing civic technology should consider how many end-users, who may need training and new equipment to access online applications, could feel left out and unable to participate.
The mayor allowed the move to online through an executive order made during the pandemic. And, of course, times like these require adjustments; I get that. Essential city services must move forward, and the government ought to take steps to protect the people. Using the pandemic as a cover to force residents out of the zoning process, however, is a step too far—even for this mayor.
ULURP was put in place in 1975 to keep special interests and power from dictating the city's growth over the objections of residents. Since its inception, New Yorkers have relied on ULURP to protect their communities from projects that would diminish their standard of living or unnecessarily drain limited resources. For example, the number of hospital beds, school seats, social services available and so forth.
"Virtual ULURP is illegal, pure and simple" said Penn Rhodeen, an attorney who is representing a group suing the city over the Gowanus project. "ULURP was already tilted against the community prior to the pandemic. Now, the city tries to create a false sense of urgency for this rezoning in a shameful attempt to justify an even more watered-down approach to the public review that is guaranteed by the city's charter."
New technologies hold great power to improve government, but they should be used to broaden access to public discourse, not limit it. Digital democracy cannot be our goal until all citizens have stable, reliable access to the internet.
The founder of the SoHo Alliance, Sean Sweeney, has this to say about the differences between in-person and online meetings "Public meetings are held in public, not in 'the cloud.' For the city to argue otherwise is absurd. In public meetings, we can see who is present, we can carry placards, we can react and not be muted, we can feel the energy. . . . If Zoom was around in 1776, we'd still be bowing to the queen of England. Bureaucrats are not technocrats. Too often, technical problems arise, glitches, that prevent communication and input."
When ULURP is threatened, community voices are silenced and corruption creeps into the process. Instead, the City Planning Commission should delay all decisions until life has returned to normal and neighborhood residents who lack internet access can participate.
Jan Lee is a co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal, an activist group that has successfully sued the city for violating the ULURP process in its effort to create four borough-based jails.
De Blasio Pledges Last Gasp Property Tax Reform Effort
Feb. 11, 2021
Public input is responsible for keeping the city a desirable place to live and work, but the mayor's new rules have prevented many residents from expressing their concerns about zoning issues that affect the livability of the city.
By holding virtual meetings to approve zoning issues in defiance of the laws surrounding the Uniform Land Use Review Process , Mayor Bill de Blasio is changing the face of the city without hearing from the residents this action affects most.
Residents have a different stake than developers and politicians when it comes to city planning. They know firsthand how overcrowded local schools are. They know the strain on public transit and what a new warehouse, power plant or processing facility would do to their neighborhood.
Community members should have an opportunity to respond to projects that would fundamentally change their day-to-day lives, but the mayor is cutting many out of the process by allowing the City Planning Committee to meet and vote online.
An example of this is at the core of an Article 78 lawsuit brought against the mayor and several agencies by Neighbors United Below Canal, a community advocacy group I co-founded more than two years ago. A ULURP-mandated "scoping" hearing for the site of a jail in Chinatown was replaced by small closed-door, invite-only meetings, which have now been made even more exclusive by becoming virtual. What was mandated by law to be public and accessible to all has, like several other city-run outreach schemes, morphed into a digital-access-only meeting of city reps and vetted participants.
About 18% of New Yorkers have no internet access at all, while nearly 40%—or 3.4 million people—lack either home or mobile connections, according to city data. De Blasio has promised since 2014 to close this gap, but so far those laudable efforts have come up short.
Now, as the pandemic continues to ravage the same communities that also lack internet access, poorer residents, students and communities of color have found themselves squeezed out of the digital "democracy" and unable to participate in the zoning process.
The process is also likely illegal. New York's Open Meetings Law says residents must be "fully aware of and able to observe the performance of public officials" during policy-setting sessions. When one-fifth of the city lacks the ability to watch or join a meeting, it's simply not an open meeting.
Proponents of advancing civic technology should consider how many end-users, who may need training and new equipment to access online applications, could feel left out and unable to participate.
The mayor allowed the move to online through an executive order made during the pandemic. And, of course, times like these require adjustments; I get that. Essential city services must move forward, and the government ought to take steps to protect the people. Using the pandemic as a cover to force residents out of the zoning process, however, is a step too far—even for this mayor.
ULURP was put in place in 1975 to keep special interests and power from dictating the city's growth over the objections of residents. Since its inception, New Yorkers have relied on ULURP to protect their communities from projects that would diminish their standard of living or unnecessarily drain limited resources. For example, the number of hospital beds, school seats, social services available and so forth.
"Virtual ULURP is illegal, pure and simple" said Penn Rhodeen, an attorney who is representing a group suing the city over the Gowanus project. "ULURP was already tilted against the community prior to the pandemic. Now, the city tries to create a false sense of urgency for this rezoning in a shameful attempt to justify an even more watered-down approach to the public review that is guaranteed by the city's charter."
New technologies hold great power to improve government, but they should be used to broaden access to public discourse, not limit it. Digital democracy cannot be our goal until all citizens have stable, reliable access to the internet.
The founder of the SoHo Alliance, Sean Sweeney, has this to say about the differences between in-person and online meetings "Public meetings are held in public, not in 'the cloud.' For the city to argue otherwise is absurd. In public meetings, we can see who is present, we can carry placards, we can react and not be muted, we can feel the energy. . . . If Zoom was around in 1776, we'd still be bowing to the queen of England. Bureaucrats are not technocrats. Too often, technical problems arise, glitches, that prevent communication and input."
When ULURP is threatened, community voices are silenced and corruption creeps into the process. Instead, the City Planning Commission should delay all decisions until life has returned to normal and neighborhood residents who lack internet access can participate.
Jan Lee is a co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal, an activist group that has successfully sued the city for violating the ULURP process in its effort to create four borough-based jails.
De Blasio Pledges Last Gasp Property Tax Reform Effort
Gotham Gazette
Feb. 12, 2021
After getting "derailed" by the pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio is reviving one of his earliest and most delayed mayoral commitments: to reform an out-of-date and unequal property tax system. The city's Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform will begin holding public hearings, originally scheduled for last March, on its preliminary recommendations and will produce a final report by the time de Blasio leaves office at the end of the year, he said Thursday morning.
The mayor made the announcement in testimony before the State Legislature at a hearing on the governor's proposed state budget, two days after downplaying the possibility of more work being done on the issue in his final months in office.
The advisory commission was empanelled by de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson in 2018 and billed as the fulfillment of de Blasio's 2014 promise to overhaul property taxes to make them more rational, equitable, and transparent. Its mandate was to comprehensively examine the problems that lead to widely variant effective tax rates across the city's properties -- disproportionately burdening owners of less valuable property and weakening the prospect of Black, Latino, and immigrant homeownership in New York City.
The mayor's promise was to create a roadmap for reform to push in City Hall and in Albany, where many of the arcane rules were crafted. But the commission was plagued by delays from its inception, and when it finally released its preliminary report last January, before the pandemic hit, there was only a tiny window to devise a final plan in time to advance it in Albany (another complicated endeavor) before de Blasio left office due to term limits.
At a press briefing Tuesday, de Blasio told reporters property tax reform was one of many "things that I'm very unhappy about that were derailed by covid." While he said he remained open to opportunities to advance it, he made no indication that next steps from his administration or the commission were imminent.
But when pressed on it at Thursday's budget hearing before the State Senate and Assembly fiscal committees, he told lawmakers the commission's work would begin again.
"We've talked about it internally, we've got to restart this engine. We're absolutely committed to a final report soon," he said in response to State Senator Andrew Gounardes, a Brooklyn Democrat, who asked whether the commission hearings would be rescheduled. He did not provide details for when the hearings would begin but said it would be soon and that the final report would come this year.
"Great," Gounardes said.
"We look forward to the Commission continuing its work in a safe and effective way," wrote a spokesperson for Speaker Johnson in an email.
City Lawmakers, budget watchdogs, and reform advocates have been frustrated with the de Blasio administration's slow pace on a commitment that would impact virtually every New Yorker.
"We waited nearly two years just for the New York City Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform to release a report that told us what we already knew: our property-tax system – which was last updated in 1981 when New York City was a very different place – is badly broken and unfair because it benefits the wealthiest 1% and crushes everyone else," said City Council Member Justin Brannan, a Democrat representing parts of southern Brooklyn overlapping with Gounardes, in an email to Gotham Gazette on Wednesday, when de Blasio's commitment to reform appeared dead.
Brannan pointed out single-family homeowners in his district and other neighborhoods that have seen relatively slow market growth, especially in the Bronx and Staten Island, pay a much higher percentage of their properties' sales value in taxes than co-ops and condos and even similarly valued properties in other parts of the city. The reason is the complex scheme of property classification, assessment, and taxation, with built-in tax caps and phases that hold down the taxes of rapidly appreciating properties -- benefiting owners in gentrifying neighborhoods at the detriment of other areas. The system has become more convoluted over the years with a host of rebates, abatements, and exemptions intended to plug holes in the leaky system. The problems don't only affect homeowners; landlords often pass large tax burdens on to their renters.
Property taxes account for a third of all city revenue. In the current fiscal year, that amounts to roughly $30.7 billion. That stream is forecasted to shrink to $29.4 billion in fiscal year 2022 due to a rare drop in market values as a result of the pandemic.
With so many interests at stake, so many layers, and the potential to create big winners and losers, the lack of political will has long made reform a white whale in New York City and Albany.
"Enough with the goddamn reports! We know what to do. We need action!" Brannan wrote to Gotham Gazette Thursday after the mayor announced the advisory commission's resurrection. To help struggling homeowners, Brannan said he and Gounardes are working on legislation in Albany to freeze property taxes at last year's rates or lower them on properties that have depreciated.
Per the executive order that created it, the advisory commission's preliminary recommendations are meant to be revenue neutral, meaning they should do nothing to reduce the city's bottom line. "The Mayor has to know we aren't dealing with a giveaway and if he was smart about it, this could be a way to tax his wealthy Park Slope neighbors who pay vastly different rates from average joe's," said Council Member Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, in an email Thursday.
While many of the frequently-discussed changes need to be made at the state level, some the city can do independently.
Martha Stark, a Department of Finance commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and policy director of the advocacy group Tax Equity Now New York, slammed the delays and offered suggestions for steps the city could take immediately.
"Blaming his inaction on the pandemic shows the Mayor's lack of leadership, courage, and commitment to doing what he could to make NYC's property tax less of a tale of two cities," Stark told Gotham Gazette in an email Wednesday, ahead of the budget hearing announcement. "He had six years to make the property tax system fairer for those who were also hardest hit by the pandemic: Black and Brown people, the working class, small businesses, and renters."
Stark, whose group is suing the city and state to change the property tax system, says the city could lower what's known as the "assessment ratio" -- the ratio of a property's assessed value to its market value -- which would effectively redistribute taxes from large swaths of the Bronx and Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, to more gentrified areas where property values have increased significantly in the last two decades. (Stark made a similar move in the late aughts when she headed up the Department of Finance.)
"Most importantly, he could drop his opposition to the lawsuit that could have set the City on a path towards developing a property tax system that is legal, fair, and not discriminatory," she told Gotham Gazette. Tax Equity Now's lawsuit was dismissed last by the state's appellate division in early 2020 and the group plans to file an appeal in the Court of Appeals.
Even without advocacy in Albany or action at the city-level, de Blasio has called the advisory commission and its promised report "historic," being the most significant foothold for comprehensive reform in decades. Yet, New York City was in an almost identical position under de Blasio's predecessor and mentor, Mayor David Dinkins.
In the early 1990s, Dinkins also created a commission to look at property taxes, which issued a report during his final days in office. But after losing his reelection bid, any proposed reforms met their demise when Rudy Giuliani took the reins as mayor in 1994.
"This is so hard to get done, so it needs momentum," Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said in a phone interview Wednesday. "One of the challenges is obviously that administrations only last so long. It needs momentum, whether the mayor can get it done in the current year, which is certainly a challenge, or at least build that support for the next mayor."
For Rein, property tax reform is paramount to encourage rental housing development and broader economic growth, which he says is right now impeded by opaque and uneven taxation.
"There is no question that this is a top Albany agenda if we are going to launch out of this recession into the next recovery," he said.
Feb. 12, 2021
After getting "derailed" by the pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio is reviving one of his earliest and most delayed mayoral commitments: to reform an out-of-date and unequal property tax system. The city's Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform will begin holding public hearings, originally scheduled for last March, on its preliminary recommendations and will produce a final report by the time de Blasio leaves office at the end of the year, he said Thursday morning.
The mayor made the announcement in testimony before the State Legislature at a hearing on the governor's proposed state budget, two days after downplaying the possibility of more work being done on the issue in his final months in office.
The advisory commission was empanelled by de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson in 2018 and billed as the fulfillment of de Blasio's 2014 promise to overhaul property taxes to make them more rational, equitable, and transparent. Its mandate was to comprehensively examine the problems that lead to widely variant effective tax rates across the city's properties -- disproportionately burdening owners of less valuable property and weakening the prospect of Black, Latino, and immigrant homeownership in New York City.
The mayor's promise was to create a roadmap for reform to push in City Hall and in Albany, where many of the arcane rules were crafted. But the commission was plagued by delays from its inception, and when it finally released its preliminary report last January, before the pandemic hit, there was only a tiny window to devise a final plan in time to advance it in Albany (another complicated endeavor) before de Blasio left office due to term limits.
At a press briefing Tuesday, de Blasio told reporters property tax reform was one of many "things that I'm very unhappy about that were derailed by covid." While he said he remained open to opportunities to advance it, he made no indication that next steps from his administration or the commission were imminent.
But when pressed on it at Thursday's budget hearing before the State Senate and Assembly fiscal committees, he told lawmakers the commission's work would begin again.
"We've talked about it internally, we've got to restart this engine. We're absolutely committed to a final report soon," he said in response to State Senator Andrew Gounardes, a Brooklyn Democrat, who asked whether the commission hearings would be rescheduled. He did not provide details for when the hearings would begin but said it would be soon and that the final report would come this year.
"Great," Gounardes said.
"We look forward to the Commission continuing its work in a safe and effective way," wrote a spokesperson for Speaker Johnson in an email.
City Lawmakers, budget watchdogs, and reform advocates have been frustrated with the de Blasio administration's slow pace on a commitment that would impact virtually every New Yorker.
"We waited nearly two years just for the New York City Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform to release a report that told us what we already knew: our property-tax system – which was last updated in 1981 when New York City was a very different place – is badly broken and unfair because it benefits the wealthiest 1% and crushes everyone else," said City Council Member Justin Brannan, a Democrat representing parts of southern Brooklyn overlapping with Gounardes, in an email to Gotham Gazette on Wednesday, when de Blasio's commitment to reform appeared dead.
Brannan pointed out single-family homeowners in his district and other neighborhoods that have seen relatively slow market growth, especially in the Bronx and Staten Island, pay a much higher percentage of their properties' sales value in taxes than co-ops and condos and even similarly valued properties in other parts of the city. The reason is the complex scheme of property classification, assessment, and taxation, with built-in tax caps and phases that hold down the taxes of rapidly appreciating properties -- benefiting owners in gentrifying neighborhoods at the detriment of other areas. The system has become more convoluted over the years with a host of rebates, abatements, and exemptions intended to plug holes in the leaky system. The problems don't only affect homeowners; landlords often pass large tax burdens on to their renters.
Property taxes account for a third of all city revenue. In the current fiscal year, that amounts to roughly $30.7 billion. That stream is forecasted to shrink to $29.4 billion in fiscal year 2022 due to a rare drop in market values as a result of the pandemic.
With so many interests at stake, so many layers, and the potential to create big winners and losers, the lack of political will has long made reform a white whale in New York City and Albany.
"Enough with the goddamn reports! We know what to do. We need action!" Brannan wrote to Gotham Gazette Thursday after the mayor announced the advisory commission's resurrection. To help struggling homeowners, Brannan said he and Gounardes are working on legislation in Albany to freeze property taxes at last year's rates or lower them on properties that have depreciated.
Per the executive order that created it, the advisory commission's preliminary recommendations are meant to be revenue neutral, meaning they should do nothing to reduce the city's bottom line. "The Mayor has to know we aren't dealing with a giveaway and if he was smart about it, this could be a way to tax his wealthy Park Slope neighbors who pay vastly different rates from average joe's," said Council Member Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, in an email Thursday.
While many of the frequently-discussed changes need to be made at the state level, some the city can do independently.
Martha Stark, a Department of Finance commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and policy director of the advocacy group Tax Equity Now New York, slammed the delays and offered suggestions for steps the city could take immediately.
"Blaming his inaction on the pandemic shows the Mayor's lack of leadership, courage, and commitment to doing what he could to make NYC's property tax less of a tale of two cities," Stark told Gotham Gazette in an email Wednesday, ahead of the budget hearing announcement. "He had six years to make the property tax system fairer for those who were also hardest hit by the pandemic: Black and Brown people, the working class, small businesses, and renters."
Stark, whose group is suing the city and state to change the property tax system, says the city could lower what's known as the "assessment ratio" -- the ratio of a property's assessed value to its market value -- which would effectively redistribute taxes from large swaths of the Bronx and Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, to more gentrified areas where property values have increased significantly in the last two decades. (Stark made a similar move in the late aughts when she headed up the Department of Finance.)
"Most importantly, he could drop his opposition to the lawsuit that could have set the City on a path towards developing a property tax system that is legal, fair, and not discriminatory," she told Gotham Gazette. Tax Equity Now's lawsuit was dismissed last by the state's appellate division in early 2020 and the group plans to file an appeal in the Court of Appeals.
Even without advocacy in Albany or action at the city-level, de Blasio has called the advisory commission and its promised report "historic," being the most significant foothold for comprehensive reform in decades. Yet, New York City was in an almost identical position under de Blasio's predecessor and mentor, Mayor David Dinkins.
In the early 1990s, Dinkins also created a commission to look at property taxes, which issued a report during his final days in office. But after losing his reelection bid, any proposed reforms met their demise when Rudy Giuliani took the reins as mayor in 1994.
"This is so hard to get done, so it needs momentum," Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said in a phone interview Wednesday. "One of the challenges is obviously that administrations only last so long. It needs momentum, whether the mayor can get it done in the current year, which is certainly a challenge, or at least build that support for the next mayor."
For Rein, property tax reform is paramount to encourage rental housing development and broader economic growth, which he says is right now impeded by opaque and uneven taxation.
"There is no question that this is a top Albany agenda if we are going to launch out of this recession into the next recovery," he said.
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