Daily News Summary
Assembly Dems eye removing Cuomo COVID emergency powers amid scandal
NY Post
Feb. 24, 2021
Democrats who run the state Assembly privately huddled Wednesday to craft a plan to remove the emergency powers given to Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year to address the coronavirus pandemic.
The move comes amid outrage over Cuomo's COVID-19 nursing home scandal, which included undercounting deaths of residents by 50 percent, according to a withering report issued last month by the state attorney general.
"We need to remove the governor's emergency powers immediately," Assemblyman Tom Abinanti (D-Tarrytown) said following the virtual meeting.
But Abinanti said more time is needed to refine an acceptable proposal. The Legislature wants to avoid what many critics have accused Cuomo of doing — micro-managing the activity of businesses and houses of worship.
"It's not appropriate for the Legislature to determine when a bar should close," he said.
The emergency powers, which expire April 30, allow Cuomo to issue emergency executive orders that suspend existing laws in order to address the pandemic. The Legislature approved a law last March giving the governor the extraordinary powers.
Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou (D-Manhattan) said, "The governor never needed the emergency powers. His emergency powers were already extensive."
Support in the Legislature to rein in Cuomo's COVID-19 powers skyrocketed in the wake of The Post's recent revelation that top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa privately admitted his administration for months hid the total number of nursing home residents killed by COVID-19 and other information from lawmakers and the public over fear that federal prosecutors would use it "against us."
The Post's scoop — based on an audiotape obtained from the private meeting — has sparked outrage, including calls for Cuomo to be impeached or censured amid and a probe by the FBI and Brooklyn US Attorney's Office.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and the Democratic leadership are also preparing a package of bills to beef up oversight and accountability of nursing homes.
The Democratic-led Senate on Monday passed a series of bills to strengthen patient safety and disclosure of reports and ratings of nursing homes.
The governor proposed his own nursing home reform measures last week in light of the scandal, including increased penalties for safety violations and staffing level requirements.
Cuomo last week said emergency powers "have nothing to do with nursing homes."
Cuomo spokesman Jack Sternie said Tuesday, "Off the bat, I'd remind everyone that under the current situation, the legislature can overturn ANY of the Gov's actions through a simple majority resolution."
The Legislature has not rescinded or overturned any of Cuomo's hundreds of pandemic-era directives.
The governor first came under fire for a controversial state Health Department March 25, 2020 directive that required nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals without testing to see if they were no longer infected.
Cuomo rescinded the policy on May 10 without admitting it was a mistake and state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker last week defended the policy as appropriate given concerns about hospitals getting swamped with COVID-19 patients.
More than 13,600 nursing home residents were killed by COVID-19, updated state data reveal — about 5,000 more than the Cuomo administration reported just a few weeks ago. The death tally tops 15,000 when including residents who lived in other long-term care and assisted living facilities.
What Are Cuomo's Pandemic "Superpowers," And How Long Will They Last?
Feb. 24, 2021
Democrats who run the state Assembly privately huddled Wednesday to craft a plan to remove the emergency powers given to Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year to address the coronavirus pandemic.
The move comes amid outrage over Cuomo's COVID-19 nursing home scandal, which included undercounting deaths of residents by 50 percent, according to a withering report issued last month by the state attorney general.
"We need to remove the governor's emergency powers immediately," Assemblyman Tom Abinanti (D-Tarrytown) said following the virtual meeting.
But Abinanti said more time is needed to refine an acceptable proposal. The Legislature wants to avoid what many critics have accused Cuomo of doing — micro-managing the activity of businesses and houses of worship.
"It's not appropriate for the Legislature to determine when a bar should close," he said.
The emergency powers, which expire April 30, allow Cuomo to issue emergency executive orders that suspend existing laws in order to address the pandemic. The Legislature approved a law last March giving the governor the extraordinary powers.
Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou (D-Manhattan) said, "The governor never needed the emergency powers. His emergency powers were already extensive."
Support in the Legislature to rein in Cuomo's COVID-19 powers skyrocketed in the wake of The Post's recent revelation that top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa privately admitted his administration for months hid the total number of nursing home residents killed by COVID-19 and other information from lawmakers and the public over fear that federal prosecutors would use it "against us."
The Post's scoop — based on an audiotape obtained from the private meeting — has sparked outrage, including calls for Cuomo to be impeached or censured amid and a probe by the FBI and Brooklyn US Attorney's Office.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and the Democratic leadership are also preparing a package of bills to beef up oversight and accountability of nursing homes.
The Democratic-led Senate on Monday passed a series of bills to strengthen patient safety and disclosure of reports and ratings of nursing homes.
The governor proposed his own nursing home reform measures last week in light of the scandal, including increased penalties for safety violations and staffing level requirements.
Cuomo last week said emergency powers "have nothing to do with nursing homes."
Cuomo spokesman Jack Sternie said Tuesday, "Off the bat, I'd remind everyone that under the current situation, the legislature can overturn ANY of the Gov's actions through a simple majority resolution."
The Legislature has not rescinded or overturned any of Cuomo's hundreds of pandemic-era directives.
The governor first came under fire for a controversial state Health Department March 25, 2020 directive that required nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals without testing to see if they were no longer infected.
Cuomo rescinded the policy on May 10 without admitting it was a mistake and state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker last week defended the policy as appropriate given concerns about hospitals getting swamped with COVID-19 patients.
More than 13,600 nursing home residents were killed by COVID-19, updated state data reveal — about 5,000 more than the Cuomo administration reported just a few weeks ago. The death tally tops 15,000 when including residents who lived in other long-term care and assisted living facilities.
What Are Cuomo's Pandemic "Superpowers," And How Long Will They Last?
Gothamist
Feb. 24, 2021
Last March, as New York officials attempted to contain several dozen confirmed cases of COVID-19, the state legislature granted special new powers to Governor Andrew Cuomo to fight a pandemic that would soon kill hundreds of New Yorkers every day.
Some of those same legislators who voted in favor of the powers are now calling to repeal them. Others say that Governor Cuomo should face impeachment hearings for decisions made using his new authority.
How has Governor Cuomo used these powers? How long do they last? And who will make vitally important decisions in the midst of a pandemic if they are repealed?
On March 3rd, 2020, the state legislature passed a bill that provided $40 million in coronavirus relief aid to New Yorkers. Attached to that bill was language that gave the governor the emergency power to suspend, modify, and create laws by issuing "directives." The powers are set to expire on April 30th, 2021.
A handful of lawmakers objected. One recalled how emergency powers were used by the Roosevelt administration to put Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II.
The measure passed overwhelmingly, 53 to 4 in the Senate, and 120 to 12 in the Assembly.
According to the Daily News, the governor has since issued more than 230 executive orders and directives since then. They affect almost every aspect of New Yorkers' lives, from the early stay-at-home orders, to who is eligible to receive a vaccine, to how schools can reopen.
Other directives affect the public in less visible ways.
"It's emergency procurement authority, so agencies don't have to go through the regular procurement process," explained Rachael Fauss, a senior research analyst who studies for the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany. "A lot of the procurement rules that are in place require competitive bidding. They're anti-corruption measures, and they're meant to ensure the state gets the best deal as possible."
The Cuomo administration for example is currently trying to claw back tens of millions of dollars from state contractors who pledged to provide masks and medical equipment but never delivered.
Under his expanded powers, Cuomo has also stripped reopening responsibilities from local leaders. Stephen Acquario, the executive director of the New York Association of Counties, said he believed that Cuomo has done an overall "good job" of administering them, but that it was time for some change.
"We'd be handling the issues of movie theaters, indoor dining, grocery store operations, we're accustomed to that, we're up to that task. But that has been superseded with the superpowers of the governor right now," said Acquario, whose nonpartisan group represents county executives across the state. "I don't want to say it was a good thing, I want to say it was a necessary thing."
He added that during a state of emergency, being able to respond quickly is crucial. As the pandemic approaches its anniversary, he is wondering how and when the normal course of deliberations and jurisdictional control over local affairs might return.
"Is the legislature comfortable with straight executive law?" Acquario said. "That's a question they have to answer to the public and to answer for themselves."
There are currently two legislative proposals to check the governor's power. One, sponsored by Bronx State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, would repeal the March 3rd law.
"It really does go beyond what is going on in nursing homes," Biaggi told WNYC's Brian Lehrer on Tuesday. Three weeks after the legislature granted the governor his new powers, Cuomo used them to issue a directive that required nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients from medical centers to free up desperately needed hospital beds. The Associated Press reported more than 9,000 people were transferred under the order, which was rescinded in May.
According to public health experts, it's still too early to say whether the directive caused an increase in COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, but the Cuomo administration has not been forthcoming with the data itself. At a legislative oversight hearing in August, the State Health Commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, told lawmakers that he could not respond to their repeated requests for the numbers because he needed to ensure they were accurate.
Last month, Attorney General Letitia James released a damning report showing that nursing homes deaths had been undercounted by at least 50%, and days later, a judge ordered the Cuomo administration to turn all the figures over to the public.
"We are a year into this crisis. We are, as a legislative body, a co-equal branch of government and frankly, it doesn't really make sense to circumvent the legislature any longer," Biaggi said.
Another proposal being floated in the State Senate by their leadership would create a 10-person commission, made up of members of the Assembly and Senate, to review any future pandemic-related directives. The text of that legislation has yet to be released. A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins did not respond to a request for comment.
What is unclear is how decisions currently being made by Cuomo—about movie theaters, schools, vaccines—would be made if Biaggi's bill passes.
"These are the details that we are still discussing and going through," Biaggi said. "It would not slow down or stop government, which is one of the myths that unfortunately, the executive is talking about."
The governor's office did not respond to a series of questions about the emergency powers.
Not much may change, given localities' reluctance to wade into public health issues, and how broad the governor's powers are during a state of emergency, even before the March 3rd law.
"The governor has had the ability to suspend laws for his whole tenure as governor and he's frequently done so. The MTA has been under a state of emergency since 2017. That emergency order has now been renewed 45 times," Fauss said.
The current state of emergency for the pandemic has been renewed since the fall. It lasts for 30 days and expires on February 26th, 2021, but can be renewed indefinitely.
Gerald Benjamin, a political science professor at SUNY New Paltz, said that given that the March 3rd emergency powers expire in a little more than two months, repealing them may be more "symbolic" than "substantive." There may also be blowback for legislators who are attacking the governor.
"The governor has veto power over redistricting plans, which will not come up immediately but will come up shortly, and is life and death to many legislators," Benjamin said. "My view is that there has been an overgrowth of executive power and a legislative assertion is legitimate and needed. But taking on the governor in the budget would be a better place to do it on substance."
The budget negotiations also involve Cuomo's second set of emergency pandemic powers. During last spring's peak, the state legislature took the unprecedented step of giving the governor the power to "withhold" portions of the budget as a way of avoiding permanent cuts in an uncertain year. An agency by agency breakdown of those withholdings have not yet been made public by the governor's office. Absent any federal aid to restore the Cuomo's "withholdings," the state legislature is essentially negotiating two budgets at once, last year's and this year's, all of which are due in April.
Just last week, Cuomo proposed a budget amendment that would essentially grant himself more power, by controlling all new revenues passed by the legislature in the upcoming budget.
"It does not make sense to wait. Waiting continues to further the unfortunate reality that we find ourselves in, in the legislature, which is really not being part of any process," Biaggi said, arguing for immediate repeal of the governor's March 3rd powers.
"Our constituents are looking to us, all of us, every member of the legislature for answers, and we should have those answers," Biaggi continued. "Whether it's school closings, vaccination sites, testing sites, sports in schools, pick a topic. These are things that people are going to look to us for answers on."
De Blasio's new 'Tale of Two Cities': Manhattan has more COVID vaccine sites than other boroughs
Feb. 24, 2021
Last March, as New York officials attempted to contain several dozen confirmed cases of COVID-19, the state legislature granted special new powers to Governor Andrew Cuomo to fight a pandemic that would soon kill hundreds of New Yorkers every day.
Some of those same legislators who voted in favor of the powers are now calling to repeal them. Others say that Governor Cuomo should face impeachment hearings for decisions made using his new authority.
How has Governor Cuomo used these powers? How long do they last? And who will make vitally important decisions in the midst of a pandemic if they are repealed?
On March 3rd, 2020, the state legislature passed a bill that provided $40 million in coronavirus relief aid to New Yorkers. Attached to that bill was language that gave the governor the emergency power to suspend, modify, and create laws by issuing "directives." The powers are set to expire on April 30th, 2021.
A handful of lawmakers objected. One recalled how emergency powers were used by the Roosevelt administration to put Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II.
The measure passed overwhelmingly, 53 to 4 in the Senate, and 120 to 12 in the Assembly.
According to the Daily News, the governor has since issued more than 230 executive orders and directives since then. They affect almost every aspect of New Yorkers' lives, from the early stay-at-home orders, to who is eligible to receive a vaccine, to how schools can reopen.
Other directives affect the public in less visible ways.
"It's emergency procurement authority, so agencies don't have to go through the regular procurement process," explained Rachael Fauss, a senior research analyst who studies for the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany. "A lot of the procurement rules that are in place require competitive bidding. They're anti-corruption measures, and they're meant to ensure the state gets the best deal as possible."
The Cuomo administration for example is currently trying to claw back tens of millions of dollars from state contractors who pledged to provide masks and medical equipment but never delivered.
Under his expanded powers, Cuomo has also stripped reopening responsibilities from local leaders. Stephen Acquario, the executive director of the New York Association of Counties, said he believed that Cuomo has done an overall "good job" of administering them, but that it was time for some change.
"We'd be handling the issues of movie theaters, indoor dining, grocery store operations, we're accustomed to that, we're up to that task. But that has been superseded with the superpowers of the governor right now," said Acquario, whose nonpartisan group represents county executives across the state. "I don't want to say it was a good thing, I want to say it was a necessary thing."
He added that during a state of emergency, being able to respond quickly is crucial. As the pandemic approaches its anniversary, he is wondering how and when the normal course of deliberations and jurisdictional control over local affairs might return.
"Is the legislature comfortable with straight executive law?" Acquario said. "That's a question they have to answer to the public and to answer for themselves."
There are currently two legislative proposals to check the governor's power. One, sponsored by Bronx State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, would repeal the March 3rd law.
"It really does go beyond what is going on in nursing homes," Biaggi told WNYC's Brian Lehrer on Tuesday. Three weeks after the legislature granted the governor his new powers, Cuomo used them to issue a directive that required nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients from medical centers to free up desperately needed hospital beds. The Associated Press reported more than 9,000 people were transferred under the order, which was rescinded in May.
According to public health experts, it's still too early to say whether the directive caused an increase in COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, but the Cuomo administration has not been forthcoming with the data itself. At a legislative oversight hearing in August, the State Health Commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, told lawmakers that he could not respond to their repeated requests for the numbers because he needed to ensure they were accurate.
Last month, Attorney General Letitia James released a damning report showing that nursing homes deaths had been undercounted by at least 50%, and days later, a judge ordered the Cuomo administration to turn all the figures over to the public.
"We are a year into this crisis. We are, as a legislative body, a co-equal branch of government and frankly, it doesn't really make sense to circumvent the legislature any longer," Biaggi said.
Another proposal being floated in the State Senate by their leadership would create a 10-person commission, made up of members of the Assembly and Senate, to review any future pandemic-related directives. The text of that legislation has yet to be released. A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins did not respond to a request for comment.
What is unclear is how decisions currently being made by Cuomo—about movie theaters, schools, vaccines—would be made if Biaggi's bill passes.
"These are the details that we are still discussing and going through," Biaggi said. "It would not slow down or stop government, which is one of the myths that unfortunately, the executive is talking about."
The governor's office did not respond to a series of questions about the emergency powers.
Not much may change, given localities' reluctance to wade into public health issues, and how broad the governor's powers are during a state of emergency, even before the March 3rd law.
"The governor has had the ability to suspend laws for his whole tenure as governor and he's frequently done so. The MTA has been under a state of emergency since 2017. That emergency order has now been renewed 45 times," Fauss said.
The current state of emergency for the pandemic has been renewed since the fall. It lasts for 30 days and expires on February 26th, 2021, but can be renewed indefinitely.
Gerald Benjamin, a political science professor at SUNY New Paltz, said that given that the March 3rd emergency powers expire in a little more than two months, repealing them may be more "symbolic" than "substantive." There may also be blowback for legislators who are attacking the governor.
"The governor has veto power over redistricting plans, which will not come up immediately but will come up shortly, and is life and death to many legislators," Benjamin said. "My view is that there has been an overgrowth of executive power and a legislative assertion is legitimate and needed. But taking on the governor in the budget would be a better place to do it on substance."
The budget negotiations also involve Cuomo's second set of emergency pandemic powers. During last spring's peak, the state legislature took the unprecedented step of giving the governor the power to "withhold" portions of the budget as a way of avoiding permanent cuts in an uncertain year. An agency by agency breakdown of those withholdings have not yet been made public by the governor's office. Absent any federal aid to restore the Cuomo's "withholdings," the state legislature is essentially negotiating two budgets at once, last year's and this year's, all of which are due in April.
Just last week, Cuomo proposed a budget amendment that would essentially grant himself more power, by controlling all new revenues passed by the legislature in the upcoming budget.
"It does not make sense to wait. Waiting continues to further the unfortunate reality that we find ourselves in, in the legislature, which is really not being part of any process," Biaggi said, arguing for immediate repeal of the governor's March 3rd powers.
"Our constituents are looking to us, all of us, every member of the legislature for answers, and we should have those answers," Biaggi continued. "Whether it's school closings, vaccination sites, testing sites, sports in schools, pick a topic. These are things that people are going to look to us for answers on."
De Blasio's new 'Tale of Two Cities': Manhattan has more COVID vaccine sites than other boroughs
NY Post
Feb. 24, 2021
Bill de Blasio has been decrying a haves and have-nots, "Tale of Two Cities" New York ever since he first ran for mayor — but this is one chapter he may have written.
There are more vaccination sites in Manhattan than anywhere else in the Big Apple, despite Hizzoner's repeated promises that so-called "outer-borough" equity would sit at the center of his vaccine distribution strategy, data obtained by The Post reveals.
Manhattan is home to 125 sites where New Yorkers can receive the much-sought COVID-19 vaccination, substantially more than any other borough, an analysis of city records shows.
Brooklyn only has 91 jab sites despite being home to 2.6 million people — 1 million more than Manhattan. The situation is only moderately better in Queens, population 2.3 million, which has 106 vaccination locations spread across the city's largest borough by land area.
The Bronx — the city's poorest borough — has just 69 spots to receive the inoculation. That's half the number in Manhattan, despite having roughly the same population.
"This is shameful. This is ridiculous," said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
"This disparity has been a problem going back to testing sites," he added, referring to Post reporting last year that revealed much of the city's COVID testing during the early days of the pandemic was taking place in wealthy and white neighborhoods. "I would have hoped we would have learned a lesson about the lack of testing in these communities."
Staten Island, which has more than a million fewer residents than Manhattan, has 22 vaccination sites.
The Post obtained the list of the publicly and privately run vaccine spots on Feb. 12 — the date of the last major expansion of the city's distribution network — and then matched the ZIP codes for each of the 413 locations with the corresponding demographic information.
The findings come after the city's Health Department released data that showed the coronavirus vaccine rollout was having far more success in wealthy and white neighborhoods than working-class and minority parts of New York.
"We have a tendency to centralize everything into Manhattan and that's part of the problem. It moves forward the inequity," said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who represented Brooklyn's Flatbush on the City Council for years before his election to citywide office.
"It's frustrating to watch those things," Williams told The Post. "The system is not working and it's making inequity worse from infection to injection."
The paper's analysis revealed that vaccine access disparities are readily apparent inside Manhattan too.
More than three-quarters of the borough's vaccine spots are located in ZIP codes that include the largely white neighborhoods south of 110th Street, while only 26 of the 125 are in Harlem or other predominantly minority neighborhoods north of Central Park.
That holds citywide.
Half of the vaccine locations listed on the city's vaccine finder — 202 of the 413 — are in ZIPs that are in neighborhoods where whites are the largest group, even though they only account for 32 percent of the Big Apple's population.
De Blasio again reiterated his focus on borough fairness when it comes to vaccine distribution during his daily press briefing on Wednesday.
"When it comes to vaccination, we're focused on equity," he told reporters. "We're focused on making sure that people who have been in the neighborhoods that suffered the most from COVID, get access to the vaccination, get the support they need the information they need, the answers they need, the outreach they need."
Reached by The Post about the analysis, City Hall claimed the massive disparities in access were linked to decisions by state and federal officials to put private pharmacies like Duane Reade and CVS at the forefront of the mass vaccination effort.
Corporate and mom-and-pop drug stores accounted for 294 of the 413 locations listed in the city's data, records show.
"Chain pharmacies like Duane Reade, while critical to our vaccination effort, are overwhelmingly located in predominantly white and wealthy neighborhoods and reflect the broader disparities of our healthcare system," said de Blasio administration spokeswoman Avery Cohen.
She said the city has tried to improve access by opening nearly 50 vaccination sites across the five boroughs — including high profile setups at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, which is run in coordination with New York State and non-profit provider Somos Community Care.
Despite the effort, infuriated outerborough politicians said the stats show their neighborhoods are being left behind once again during the pandemic.
"During the height of the pandemic, Manhattan had a floating hospital that was nearly empty while people were dying in crowded hospital hallways in Brookdale and [SUNY] Downstate," said Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel (D-Brooklyn), who represents the hardscrabble Brownsville neighborhood. "This horrendous but not surprising information can certainly help explain some of the imbalance in vaccination."
Proposed Tweet
Feb. 24, 2021
Bill de Blasio has been decrying a haves and have-nots, "Tale of Two Cities" New York ever since he first ran for mayor — but this is one chapter he may have written.
There are more vaccination sites in Manhattan than anywhere else in the Big Apple, despite Hizzoner's repeated promises that so-called "outer-borough" equity would sit at the center of his vaccine distribution strategy, data obtained by The Post reveals.
Manhattan is home to 125 sites where New Yorkers can receive the much-sought COVID-19 vaccination, substantially more than any other borough, an analysis of city records shows.
Brooklyn only has 91 jab sites despite being home to 2.6 million people — 1 million more than Manhattan. The situation is only moderately better in Queens, population 2.3 million, which has 106 vaccination locations spread across the city's largest borough by land area.
The Bronx — the city's poorest borough — has just 69 spots to receive the inoculation. That's half the number in Manhattan, despite having roughly the same population.
"This is shameful. This is ridiculous," said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
"This disparity has been a problem going back to testing sites," he added, referring to Post reporting last year that revealed much of the city's COVID testing during the early days of the pandemic was taking place in wealthy and white neighborhoods. "I would have hoped we would have learned a lesson about the lack of testing in these communities."
Staten Island, which has more than a million fewer residents than Manhattan, has 22 vaccination sites.
The Post obtained the list of the publicly and privately run vaccine spots on Feb. 12 — the date of the last major expansion of the city's distribution network — and then matched the ZIP codes for each of the 413 locations with the corresponding demographic information.
The findings come after the city's Health Department released data that showed the coronavirus vaccine rollout was having far more success in wealthy and white neighborhoods than working-class and minority parts of New York.
"We have a tendency to centralize everything into Manhattan and that's part of the problem. It moves forward the inequity," said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who represented Brooklyn's Flatbush on the City Council for years before his election to citywide office.
"It's frustrating to watch those things," Williams told The Post. "The system is not working and it's making inequity worse from infection to injection."
The paper's analysis revealed that vaccine access disparities are readily apparent inside Manhattan too.
More than three-quarters of the borough's vaccine spots are located in ZIP codes that include the largely white neighborhoods south of 110th Street, while only 26 of the 125 are in Harlem or other predominantly minority neighborhoods north of Central Park.
That holds citywide.
Half of the vaccine locations listed on the city's vaccine finder — 202 of the 413 — are in ZIPs that are in neighborhoods where whites are the largest group, even though they only account for 32 percent of the Big Apple's population.
De Blasio again reiterated his focus on borough fairness when it comes to vaccine distribution during his daily press briefing on Wednesday.
"When it comes to vaccination, we're focused on equity," he told reporters. "We're focused on making sure that people who have been in the neighborhoods that suffered the most from COVID, get access to the vaccination, get the support they need the information they need, the answers they need, the outreach they need."
Reached by The Post about the analysis, City Hall claimed the massive disparities in access were linked to decisions by state and federal officials to put private pharmacies like Duane Reade and CVS at the forefront of the mass vaccination effort.
Corporate and mom-and-pop drug stores accounted for 294 of the 413 locations listed in the city's data, records show.
"Chain pharmacies like Duane Reade, while critical to our vaccination effort, are overwhelmingly located in predominantly white and wealthy neighborhoods and reflect the broader disparities of our healthcare system," said de Blasio administration spokeswoman Avery Cohen.
She said the city has tried to improve access by opening nearly 50 vaccination sites across the five boroughs — including high profile setups at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, which is run in coordination with New York State and non-profit provider Somos Community Care.
Despite the effort, infuriated outerborough politicians said the stats show their neighborhoods are being left behind once again during the pandemic.
"During the height of the pandemic, Manhattan had a floating hospital that was nearly empty while people were dying in crowded hospital hallways in Brookdale and [SUNY] Downstate," said Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel (D-Brooklyn), who represents the hardscrabble Brownsville neighborhood. "This horrendous but not surprising information can certainly help explain some of the imbalance in vaccination."
Proposed Tweet
If you want to understand health disparities in our City, look no further-- Manhattan has twice as many vaccine sites as The Bronx. Inexcusable.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/24/manhattan-has-more-covid-19-vaccines-than-nyc-other-boroughs/
Easy Vaccine Appointments Help Bridge Deadly Racial Gap for Elderly New Yorkers
Easy Vaccine Appointments Help Bridge Deadly Racial Gap for Elderly New Yorkers
The City
Feb. 24, 2021
Jeanne Hanley, a retired NYPD dispatcher and a resident of Concord Village in The Bronx, was initially apprehensive about the COVID-19 vaccine the same way she was with flu shots growing up.
But she had seen too many people killed by the coronavirus to skip getting inoculated. When she became eligible as a senior citizen to get a shot, she couldn't get an appointment — not through her primary care doctor, not through online sign-ups.
Then Miracle Revival Temple came through. Her church, in Mount Eden, had an in at Jacobi Medical Center.
"Pastor Gooding explained to me that there was someone making appointments for people who wished to get vaccinated," said Hanley.
That's Pastor Jay Gooding, who helped connect the dots for congregants.
Just a few days after sharing her information, Hanley received a call from Jacobi for an appointment. She received her second dose last Friday.
"I'm just so grateful to God," said Hanley.
Hanley got her COVID shots through a chain of connections that ran from Jacobi to a community board to a pastor and hundreds of Bronx senior citizens who otherwise would have been refreshing web browsers or stuck on hold.
It's an exception at a time when many local health care providers say they're being shunted aside despite their unique advantages in getting vulnerable communities vaccinated. And it's an exception at a time when Black senior citizens like Hanley are half as likely as their white counterparts to get COVID-19 shots.
Disparities by Neighborhood
Older people are the likeliest to die of COVID-19, and Black and Hispanic New Yorkers have died at far greater rates than white non-Hispanic or Asian New Yorkers.
As of Monday, 41,000 Black senior citizens ages 65 and over had received at least their first COVID shot, according to city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene records — roughly 15% of those eligible.
Among non-Hispanic white seniors, about 154,000 had been vaccinated, or 30%.
Numbers tracked by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene show that vaccinations so far have gone disproportionally to neighborhoods with relatively low rates of infections and deaths — and with high shares of white residents.
The Upper East Side, Upper West Side were among the top 10 neighborhoods or ZIP codes with the most number of vaccinated residents. The mostly white neighborhoods received 14% of the vaccines, while accounting for 6% of the COVID-19 fatalities.
More than a month after the elderly first became eligible, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a partnership with Black church leaders to get the word out about new mass vaccination sites in Brooklyn and Queens that opened Wednesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to deploying 250 neighborhood canvassers to set up appointments.
Both the mayor and governor have highlighted "vaccine hesitancy" and histories of distrust in the medical establishment among communities of color as explaining the disparities.
But part of the problem, say those working to get New Yorkers vaccinated, has been the expectation that people would seek out appointments and journey to wherever a shot might be available. Simply telling people what to do is not enough, advocates say.
"Word of mouth didn't save us when we were told to wear masks when this virus hit our communities, even when we saw people who were sick and who were hospitalized," said Ivelyse Andino, founder and CEO of the Bronx-based community health organization Radical Health. "And if we rely on word of mouth and telling communities, you know, 'Have at it,' you're leaving us out to dry."
Grassroots efforts have made headway in showing what works — provided appointments are available. Success, they've found, rests on intimate connections between local health care providers with direct access to appointments, trusted intermediaries and simple signups.
Scarce Shots
Operators of health care facilities serving communities of color say they've largely been sidelined in the vaccination rollout, which has so far centered on mass facilities such as those at the Javits Center, city and private hospitals, and drugstore chains.
The clinic network SOMOS Community Care can't give patients shots during a visit to their doctor. Instead, its staff directs patients to travel to other locations — in The Bronx, to the mass vaccination site the organization runs at Yankee Stadium.
"That's not enough. We have one million patients throughout the whole city," said Ramon Tallaj, the chairman of the SOMOS Community Care board.
The bulk of SOMOS' patients, including many Hispanic and Asian immigrants, come from medically underserved communities. "Surrogates that they can trust in their own languages" are the best way to get the vaccine to more people, Tallaj said.
"The Department of Health or whatever, they don't know who that person is," he said. "You use somebody they trust in the community and you give them the vaccine, you'll see the people coming to get vaccinated."
Community Healthcare Network executive Susan Yee jumped into action in December when she learned her dozen clinics would be receiving vaccine doses from the state.
Staff pulled patient records and made hundreds of calls to patients 65 and older.
The results varied.
"In East New York and South Bronx, it was a little bit easier in terms of the acceptance," said Yee. "Crown Heights, with a larger Caribbean patient community, was a little bit more hesitant."
Since then, she has seen more overall willingness among patients as the COVID-19 vaccine comes into wider use.
But getting allocations of the Moderna or Pfizer serum from the city and state has become more difficult. As of Feb. 15, eligibility expanded to include people with pre-existing health conditions as well as senior citizens and highly exposed workers.
Yee asked the state for more doses earlier this month — but was denied for two weeks in a row, she said. Two requests of 400 doses each finally arrived this week.
"When we first got the supply, we had 1,100 doses and we couldn't convince people to get it," Yee said. "And so now that we've got some momentum, and more people trusting it, and the word of mouth and more established organizations finding out that we can partner, there's a demand, but we don't have the supply."
Tunnel, then Light
Meanwhile, city numbers show that the whiter the neighborhood, the more likely residents have been vaccinated.
Two Queens neighborhoods highlight the disparities. In Breezy Point, where the entire senior citizen population is white and where many vaccine-eligible first responders live, nearly 40% have received at least one dose.
Meanwhile in Rosedale, where 95% of all seniors are Black, less than 6% of all residents received at least one dose, according to the city's data.
But Allerton, in The Bronx, is among the exceptions — with a 12.5% vaccination rate, which is higher than the city and borough average.
The 10469 zip code is 75% Black and Hispanic, and has lost 406 residents to COVID-19 — a higher share of its population than any other neighborhood in The Bronx.
Gooding of Miracle Revival Temple believes his efforts with Jacobi have something to do with it.
He recalled arranging at least five funerals for his members who died of COVID-19. Almost a year into the pandemic, he said, he is noticing the impact of vaccinations, social-distancing and people wearing masks.
"I do see the light at the end of the tunnel," said Gooding.
Gooding has referred dozens of his congregants, including Hanley, to Al D'Amagio, the chair of local Bronx Community Board 11.
"I've been disseminating the message in our Black and brown community and Al has been very instrumental in helping us," said Gooding.
D'Amagio, who also sits on the board of nearby Jacobi Medical Center, received a request from a hospital staff member to come up with a list of seniors in the neighborhood who might be willing to get vaccinated.
He reached out to senior centers, local churches and a mosque.
"I put it out to all the community leaders," said D'Amagio. "Anyone I knew, I let them know that if they needed this vaccine, please contact me."
It didn't take long for his list to grow 300 names long.
"Within a day or two, they were scheduled for an appointment, and then got their shots."
Lehman Organizes Vaccination Educational Session Amid Low Vaccination Rates in The Bronx
Feb. 24, 2021
Jeanne Hanley, a retired NYPD dispatcher and a resident of Concord Village in The Bronx, was initially apprehensive about the COVID-19 vaccine the same way she was with flu shots growing up.
But she had seen too many people killed by the coronavirus to skip getting inoculated. When she became eligible as a senior citizen to get a shot, she couldn't get an appointment — not through her primary care doctor, not through online sign-ups.
Then Miracle Revival Temple came through. Her church, in Mount Eden, had an in at Jacobi Medical Center.
"Pastor Gooding explained to me that there was someone making appointments for people who wished to get vaccinated," said Hanley.
That's Pastor Jay Gooding, who helped connect the dots for congregants.
Just a few days after sharing her information, Hanley received a call from Jacobi for an appointment. She received her second dose last Friday.
"I'm just so grateful to God," said Hanley.
Hanley got her COVID shots through a chain of connections that ran from Jacobi to a community board to a pastor and hundreds of Bronx senior citizens who otherwise would have been refreshing web browsers or stuck on hold.
It's an exception at a time when many local health care providers say they're being shunted aside despite their unique advantages in getting vulnerable communities vaccinated. And it's an exception at a time when Black senior citizens like Hanley are half as likely as their white counterparts to get COVID-19 shots.
Disparities by Neighborhood
Older people are the likeliest to die of COVID-19, and Black and Hispanic New Yorkers have died at far greater rates than white non-Hispanic or Asian New Yorkers.
As of Monday, 41,000 Black senior citizens ages 65 and over had received at least their first COVID shot, according to city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene records — roughly 15% of those eligible.
Among non-Hispanic white seniors, about 154,000 had been vaccinated, or 30%.
Numbers tracked by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene show that vaccinations so far have gone disproportionally to neighborhoods with relatively low rates of infections and deaths — and with high shares of white residents.
The Upper East Side, Upper West Side were among the top 10 neighborhoods or ZIP codes with the most number of vaccinated residents. The mostly white neighborhoods received 14% of the vaccines, while accounting for 6% of the COVID-19 fatalities.
More than a month after the elderly first became eligible, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a partnership with Black church leaders to get the word out about new mass vaccination sites in Brooklyn and Queens that opened Wednesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to deploying 250 neighborhood canvassers to set up appointments.
Both the mayor and governor have highlighted "vaccine hesitancy" and histories of distrust in the medical establishment among communities of color as explaining the disparities.
But part of the problem, say those working to get New Yorkers vaccinated, has been the expectation that people would seek out appointments and journey to wherever a shot might be available. Simply telling people what to do is not enough, advocates say.
"Word of mouth didn't save us when we were told to wear masks when this virus hit our communities, even when we saw people who were sick and who were hospitalized," said Ivelyse Andino, founder and CEO of the Bronx-based community health organization Radical Health. "And if we rely on word of mouth and telling communities, you know, 'Have at it,' you're leaving us out to dry."
Grassroots efforts have made headway in showing what works — provided appointments are available. Success, they've found, rests on intimate connections between local health care providers with direct access to appointments, trusted intermediaries and simple signups.
Scarce Shots
Operators of health care facilities serving communities of color say they've largely been sidelined in the vaccination rollout, which has so far centered on mass facilities such as those at the Javits Center, city and private hospitals, and drugstore chains.
The clinic network SOMOS Community Care can't give patients shots during a visit to their doctor. Instead, its staff directs patients to travel to other locations — in The Bronx, to the mass vaccination site the organization runs at Yankee Stadium.
"That's not enough. We have one million patients throughout the whole city," said Ramon Tallaj, the chairman of the SOMOS Community Care board.
The bulk of SOMOS' patients, including many Hispanic and Asian immigrants, come from medically underserved communities. "Surrogates that they can trust in their own languages" are the best way to get the vaccine to more people, Tallaj said.
"The Department of Health or whatever, they don't know who that person is," he said. "You use somebody they trust in the community and you give them the vaccine, you'll see the people coming to get vaccinated."
Community Healthcare Network executive Susan Yee jumped into action in December when she learned her dozen clinics would be receiving vaccine doses from the state.
Staff pulled patient records and made hundreds of calls to patients 65 and older.
The results varied.
"In East New York and South Bronx, it was a little bit easier in terms of the acceptance," said Yee. "Crown Heights, with a larger Caribbean patient community, was a little bit more hesitant."
Since then, she has seen more overall willingness among patients as the COVID-19 vaccine comes into wider use.
But getting allocations of the Moderna or Pfizer serum from the city and state has become more difficult. As of Feb. 15, eligibility expanded to include people with pre-existing health conditions as well as senior citizens and highly exposed workers.
Yee asked the state for more doses earlier this month — but was denied for two weeks in a row, she said. Two requests of 400 doses each finally arrived this week.
"When we first got the supply, we had 1,100 doses and we couldn't convince people to get it," Yee said. "And so now that we've got some momentum, and more people trusting it, and the word of mouth and more established organizations finding out that we can partner, there's a demand, but we don't have the supply."
Tunnel, then Light
Meanwhile, city numbers show that the whiter the neighborhood, the more likely residents have been vaccinated.
Two Queens neighborhoods highlight the disparities. In Breezy Point, where the entire senior citizen population is white and where many vaccine-eligible first responders live, nearly 40% have received at least one dose.
Meanwhile in Rosedale, where 95% of all seniors are Black, less than 6% of all residents received at least one dose, according to the city's data.
But Allerton, in The Bronx, is among the exceptions — with a 12.5% vaccination rate, which is higher than the city and borough average.
The 10469 zip code is 75% Black and Hispanic, and has lost 406 residents to COVID-19 — a higher share of its population than any other neighborhood in The Bronx.
Gooding of Miracle Revival Temple believes his efforts with Jacobi have something to do with it.
He recalled arranging at least five funerals for his members who died of COVID-19. Almost a year into the pandemic, he said, he is noticing the impact of vaccinations, social-distancing and people wearing masks.
"I do see the light at the end of the tunnel," said Gooding.
Gooding has referred dozens of his congregants, including Hanley, to Al D'Amagio, the chair of local Bronx Community Board 11.
"I've been disseminating the message in our Black and brown community and Al has been very instrumental in helping us," said Gooding.
D'Amagio, who also sits on the board of nearby Jacobi Medical Center, received a request from a hospital staff member to come up with a list of seniors in the neighborhood who might be willing to get vaccinated.
He reached out to senior centers, local churches and a mosque.
"I put it out to all the community leaders," said D'Amagio. "Anyone I knew, I let them know that if they needed this vaccine, please contact me."
It didn't take long for his list to grow 300 names long.
"Within a day or two, they were scheduled for an appointment, and then got their shots."
Lehman Organizes Vaccination Educational Session Amid Low Vaccination Rates in The Bronx
Norwood News
Feb. 23, 2021
Despite measures taken in recent weeks to increase the pace of the roll-out of the various COVID-19 vaccines across New York State, some residents still have questions about the different vaccines, and in some cases, they are still reluctant, skeptical and concerned about getting vaccinated. In the Bronx, the percentage of adults vaccinated to date varies per zip code and no one zip code has had more than 15 percent of adults fully vaccinated to date. Listed further below is a breakdown of adult vaccinations per zip code.
In order to address the matter, Lehman College will be holding an educational session with healthcare hero, Sandra Lindsay, a Lehman College nursing grad from the Class of '2010, Lehman College president, Daniel Lemons, Nursing Department chairwoman, Dr. Alicia Georges and CUNY Institute of Health Equity Director, Maria-Isabel Roldós-Prosser, followed by a live Q&A discussion that is open to the public on Friday, Feb. 26, at 12:30 p.m.
As reported previously by the Norwood News, following the disclosure of the disproportionate number of deaths as well as those who contracted the coronavirus among people of color, the City had made a concerted effort to ensure equitable vaccine distribution, with the creation of the Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity. The team announced on Sunday, Jan. 31 a new phase of its "Vaccine for All" effort, releasing demographic information of vaccine recipients.
With an expanded list of 33 neighborhoods identified by the taskforce as being priority neighborhoods, the City planned to use this data to broaden its outreach and education to address vaccine hesitancy, prioritize appointments, add new vaccine sites, and improve the scheduling website to ensure the pace of vaccination was consistent throughout the city.
The City also arranged for seniors to get free transportation to vaccination sites to make the process easier for them.
As also reported by the Norwood News, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden, and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has joined trusted medical leaders from specific communities during various virtual sessions to answer questions from different communities about the COVID-19 vaccination.
On Tuesday, Feb. 23, Insider reported that Fauci announced that new CDC rules will be available in the near future for people who have been fully vaccinated. He told CNN he thought the agency would soon "relax the stringency of the recommendations," and said he would be "comfortable" letting vaccinated households mix.
Yet, despite these efforts to ensure fairness, and these indications of perhaps a more relaxed atmosphere in the future, and while acknowledging that New York State has experienced low stocks of the vaccine at certain stages since COVID-19 vaccinations first began to be administered, as of Feb. 23, citywide, only 1,547,983 vaccine doses have been administered so far. Of these, 893,201 were first doses and 501,464 were second doses. Meanwhile, over 2 million doses have been delivered to New York City to date.
At state level, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Feb. 23 that as of 11 a.m. on Feb. 23, 91 percent of first doses allocated to the state have been administered. "This represents 2,252,945 first doses administered of the 2,477,825 first dose allocations received from the federal government. So far, 1,183,999 second doses have been administered out of the 1,390,250 second doses received.
Listed below are all Bronx zip codes and the percentage of adults vaccinated within each one, from the lowest to the highest percentage. Norwood, Fordham, University Heights and Kingsbridge average somewhere around the mid to low range.
In Bronx zip code 10474 which covers Hunts Point, just 4 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 2 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10458 which covers Belmont, Fordham University and Kingsbridge, 4 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Montefiore Family Health Center and Rite Aid Store vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10466 which covers Edenwald and Wakefield, 4 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In Bronx zip code 10460 which covers Charlotte Gardens, Tremont, Van Nest and West Farms, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. VIP Community Services, Metro Community Health Center and Statcare 174th St. vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10457 which covers Belmont, Claremont, Tremont and Mount Hope, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Bathgate Postal Station mass vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10453 which covers Morris Heights, Mount Hope and University Heights, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Morris Heights Health Center and Walton Family Health Center vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10454 which covers Mott Haven and Port Morris, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Gotham Health, Belvis and Essen Health Care, Metro Urgicare vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10472 which covers Soundview, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10455 which covers Mott Haven, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Sun River Health, The Hub and Essen Health Care, Metro Urgicare vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10456 which covers Morrisania and Claremont, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. NYC Health department, Morrisania Clinic vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10467 which covers Norwood, Allerton, Pelham Parkway and Williamsbridge, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 5 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. North Central Bronx vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10468 which covers University Heights, Kingsbridge and Fordham, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. St. James Rec. Center and Walton Educational School vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10452 which covers Concourse and Highbridge, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Gotham Health, Morrisania and Sun River Health Inwood vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10459 which covers Charlotte Gardens and Hunts Point, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Montefiore South Bronx Health Center and Montefiore South Bronx at 890 vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10470 which covers Wakefield and Woodlawn, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 7 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10469 which covers Allerton, Baychester, Pelham Gardens and Williamsbridge, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 7 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In Bronx zip code 10473 which covers Castle Hill, Clason Point and Soundview, 7 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 5 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Stevenson Family Health Center vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10475 which covers Edenwald and Co-op City, 7 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 6 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Co-op City and Statcare, Bartow vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10462 which covers Parkchester, Pelham Parkway, Van Nest and Westchester Square, 7 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 6 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Montefiore Castle Hill Family Practice vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10451, which covers Concourse and Melrose, 8 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. The Yankee Stadium and Montefiore Comprehensive Health Care Center, and Essen Health Care; Metro Urgicare vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10465 which covers Country Club and Throgs Neck, 8 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 8 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In Bronx zip code 10461 which covers Morris Park, Pelham Bay and Westchester Square, 8 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 11 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Jacobi Medical Center vaccination site is based in this zip code.
Mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia discusses food insecurity in the south Bronx
Feb. 23, 2021
Despite measures taken in recent weeks to increase the pace of the roll-out of the various COVID-19 vaccines across New York State, some residents still have questions about the different vaccines, and in some cases, they are still reluctant, skeptical and concerned about getting vaccinated. In the Bronx, the percentage of adults vaccinated to date varies per zip code and no one zip code has had more than 15 percent of adults fully vaccinated to date. Listed further below is a breakdown of adult vaccinations per zip code.
In order to address the matter, Lehman College will be holding an educational session with healthcare hero, Sandra Lindsay, a Lehman College nursing grad from the Class of '2010, Lehman College president, Daniel Lemons, Nursing Department chairwoman, Dr. Alicia Georges and CUNY Institute of Health Equity Director, Maria-Isabel Roldós-Prosser, followed by a live Q&A discussion that is open to the public on Friday, Feb. 26, at 12:30 p.m.
As reported previously by the Norwood News, following the disclosure of the disproportionate number of deaths as well as those who contracted the coronavirus among people of color, the City had made a concerted effort to ensure equitable vaccine distribution, with the creation of the Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity. The team announced on Sunday, Jan. 31 a new phase of its "Vaccine for All" effort, releasing demographic information of vaccine recipients.
With an expanded list of 33 neighborhoods identified by the taskforce as being priority neighborhoods, the City planned to use this data to broaden its outreach and education to address vaccine hesitancy, prioritize appointments, add new vaccine sites, and improve the scheduling website to ensure the pace of vaccination was consistent throughout the city.
The City also arranged for seniors to get free transportation to vaccination sites to make the process easier for them.
As also reported by the Norwood News, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden, and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has joined trusted medical leaders from specific communities during various virtual sessions to answer questions from different communities about the COVID-19 vaccination.
On Tuesday, Feb. 23, Insider reported that Fauci announced that new CDC rules will be available in the near future for people who have been fully vaccinated. He told CNN he thought the agency would soon "relax the stringency of the recommendations," and said he would be "comfortable" letting vaccinated households mix.
Yet, despite these efforts to ensure fairness, and these indications of perhaps a more relaxed atmosphere in the future, and while acknowledging that New York State has experienced low stocks of the vaccine at certain stages since COVID-19 vaccinations first began to be administered, as of Feb. 23, citywide, only 1,547,983 vaccine doses have been administered so far. Of these, 893,201 were first doses and 501,464 were second doses. Meanwhile, over 2 million doses have been delivered to New York City to date.
At state level, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Feb. 23 that as of 11 a.m. on Feb. 23, 91 percent of first doses allocated to the state have been administered. "This represents 2,252,945 first doses administered of the 2,477,825 first dose allocations received from the federal government. So far, 1,183,999 second doses have been administered out of the 1,390,250 second doses received.
Listed below are all Bronx zip codes and the percentage of adults vaccinated within each one, from the lowest to the highest percentage. Norwood, Fordham, University Heights and Kingsbridge average somewhere around the mid to low range.
In Bronx zip code 10474 which covers Hunts Point, just 4 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 2 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10458 which covers Belmont, Fordham University and Kingsbridge, 4 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Montefiore Family Health Center and Rite Aid Store vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10466 which covers Edenwald and Wakefield, 4 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In Bronx zip code 10460 which covers Charlotte Gardens, Tremont, Van Nest and West Farms, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. VIP Community Services, Metro Community Health Center and Statcare 174th St. vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10457 which covers Belmont, Claremont, Tremont and Mount Hope, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Bathgate Postal Station mass vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10453 which covers Morris Heights, Mount Hope and University Heights, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Morris Heights Health Center and Walton Family Health Center vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10454 which covers Mott Haven and Port Morris, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Gotham Health, Belvis and Essen Health Care, Metro Urgicare vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10472 which covers Soundview, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10455 which covers Mott Haven, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Sun River Health, The Hub and Essen Health Care, Metro Urgicare vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10456 which covers Morrisania and Claremont, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. NYC Health department, Morrisania Clinic vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10467 which covers Norwood, Allerton, Pelham Parkway and Williamsbridge, 5 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 5 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. North Central Bronx vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10468 which covers University Heights, Kingsbridge and Fordham, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. St. James Rec. Center and Walton Educational School vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10452 which covers Concourse and Highbridge, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Gotham Health, Morrisania and Sun River Health Inwood vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10459 which covers Charlotte Gardens and Hunts Point, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Montefiore South Bronx Health Center and Montefiore South Bronx at 890 vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10470 which covers Wakefield and Woodlawn, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 7 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10469 which covers Allerton, Baychester, Pelham Gardens and Williamsbridge, 6 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 7 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In Bronx zip code 10473 which covers Castle Hill, Clason Point and Soundview, 7 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 5 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Stevenson Family Health Center vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10475 which covers Edenwald and Co-op City, 7 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 6 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Co-op City and Statcare, Bartow vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10462 which covers Parkchester, Pelham Parkway, Van Nest and Westchester Square, 7 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 6 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Montefiore Castle Hill Family Practice vaccination site is based in this zip code.
In the Bronx, Zip code 10451, which covers Concourse and Melrose, 8 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 4 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. The Yankee Stadium and Montefiore Comprehensive Health Care Center, and Essen Health Care; Metro Urgicare vaccination sites are based in this zip code.
In Bronx zip code 10465 which covers Country Club and Throgs Neck, 8 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 8 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
In Bronx zip code 10461 which covers Morris Park, Pelham Bay and Westchester Square, 8 percent of adults are partially vaccinated and 11 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Jacobi Medical Center vaccination site is based in this zip code.
Mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia discusses food insecurity in the south Bronx
Bronx Times
Feb. 24, 2021
As COVID-19 Food Czar, Kathryn Garcia helped provide more than 130 million meals in 2020 and has done her best to keep stomachs full throughout the pandemic.
However, the former sanitation commissioner and mayoral candidate has noticed that while Hunts Point serves as the distribution hub for the rest of the city's food, the Bronx continues to suffer the most from food insecurity.
In her role as Food Czar, Garcia worked with Hunger Free America to set up an office in the south Bronx.
She recently laid out a plan that will help those struggling with food insecurities, especially those in the south Bronx.
Key points include:
She told the Bronx Times that even before the coronavirus countless people in the south Bronx waited on long lines at food pantries, lacked Wi-Fi and were unemployed. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem.
During the past year, Garcia has seen firsthand how difficult it is to survive in the south Bronx and access food. With the highest diabetes rates in the city and very few quality supermarkets, she knows things must change.
Garcia explained that not only needs to be more food pantries and farmers markets, but better employment opportunities.
"Why can't you afford to buy the food you need to buy?" she said. "It's because you don't have the income to support that."
According to Garcia, revitalizing the south Bronx and solving their food insecurity will not happen overnight and will take outside of the box thinking.
The mayoral candidate understands this is a digital age and people should be learning how to do jobs on computers such as programming and coding. Every public school should have access to laptops or Chromebooks every year, not just due to the pandemic, she said.
"We can't be the wealthiest city in the country and allow this (high food insecurity) to be true," she stressed. "How do we fix it and make it so people aren't waiting on long lines. How do we make it so they can get access to food?"
Two-thirds of New York City's arts and culture jobs are gone
Feb. 24, 2021
As COVID-19 Food Czar, Kathryn Garcia helped provide more than 130 million meals in 2020 and has done her best to keep stomachs full throughout the pandemic.
However, the former sanitation commissioner and mayoral candidate has noticed that while Hunts Point serves as the distribution hub for the rest of the city's food, the Bronx continues to suffer the most from food insecurity.
In her role as Food Czar, Garcia worked with Hunger Free America to set up an office in the south Bronx.
She recently laid out a plan that will help those struggling with food insecurities, especially those in the south Bronx.
Key points include:
- Fund fresh and culturally relevant food—not just canned goods. Garcia will expand the emergency food (EFAP) program to provide fresh food for the most vulnerable New Yorkers.
- Fight food waste. Garcia will incentivize donating unsold food—and levy fines for non-compliant businesses.
- Support and grow urban agriculture. From rooftop gardens and hydroponic systems to schoolyard green spaces and production farms, New York City will need a resilient urban agriculture system that provides opportunities for green infrastructure, green jobs, stewardship and education.
- Construct the GrowNYC Regional Food Hub to provide much-needed modern and energy efficient cold storage to serve local food distribution.
- Encourage the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing program across the region and fund the New York State Farm to School Purchasing Incentive.
She told the Bronx Times that even before the coronavirus countless people in the south Bronx waited on long lines at food pantries, lacked Wi-Fi and were unemployed. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem.
During the past year, Garcia has seen firsthand how difficult it is to survive in the south Bronx and access food. With the highest diabetes rates in the city and very few quality supermarkets, she knows things must change.
Garcia explained that not only needs to be more food pantries and farmers markets, but better employment opportunities.
"Why can't you afford to buy the food you need to buy?" she said. "It's because you don't have the income to support that."
According to Garcia, revitalizing the south Bronx and solving their food insecurity will not happen overnight and will take outside of the box thinking.
The mayoral candidate understands this is a digital age and people should be learning how to do jobs on computers such as programming and coding. Every public school should have access to laptops or Chromebooks every year, not just due to the pandemic, she said.
"We can't be the wealthiest city in the country and allow this (high food insecurity) to be true," she stressed. "How do we fix it and make it so people aren't waiting on long lines. How do we make it so they can get access to food?"
Two-thirds of New York City's arts and culture jobs are gone
Crain's
Feb. 24, 2021
New York City museums, sports arenas and entertainment venues are slowing coming back to life. But the sector has contracted dramatically under the pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report from the state Comptroller's Office.
Jobs in arts, entertainment and recreation fell by 66% last year from 2019, the largest decline among the city's economic sectors, erasing a decade of gains in what was one of New York's most vibrant industries, the report said.
The business district that includes Chelsea and Midtown was the hardest-hit area of the city, accounting for 46% of all jobs in the sector.
"The Covid-19 outbreak has had a profound and negative impact on the industry," Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Wednesday in a statement. "It has forced facilities to close, thrust thousands into unemployment and pushed businesses to the brink of collapse."
Before the pandemic, the city drew 67 million tourists each year to take in Broadway shows, Yankees games and Madison Square Garden concerts, generating $70 billion of economic activity. This month Gov. Andrew Cuomo took steps to reopen movie theaters, amusement parks, sports arenas and other venues at limited capacity, but job growth and tourism remains stunted.
As of Feb. 4, 59% of arts and entertainment businesses and 63% of sports and recreation venues in New York City have shut down altogether since the beginning of March, according to software and business-services provider Womply.
Arts, entertainment and recreation in the city accounted for 93,500 private jobs at 6,250 establishments in 2019, the comptroller said. More than half of the workers are men, and 56% are white, compared with 50% of the city workforce who are men and 35% who are white.
Direct relief from the federal government, as well as state and local programs to create safe venues for artists and entertainers, are steps in the right direction, but more help is needed "to keep the lights on," DiNapoli said.
More than 60% of arts and entertainment companies in the city received loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. A new federal relief package provides $15 billion nationally for shuttered live venues.
City Council Speaker Defends His Comprehensive Planning Bill in First Public Hearing
Feb. 24, 2021
New York City museums, sports arenas and entertainment venues are slowing coming back to life. But the sector has contracted dramatically under the pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report from the state Comptroller's Office.
Jobs in arts, entertainment and recreation fell by 66% last year from 2019, the largest decline among the city's economic sectors, erasing a decade of gains in what was one of New York's most vibrant industries, the report said.
The business district that includes Chelsea and Midtown was the hardest-hit area of the city, accounting for 46% of all jobs in the sector.
"The Covid-19 outbreak has had a profound and negative impact on the industry," Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Wednesday in a statement. "It has forced facilities to close, thrust thousands into unemployment and pushed businesses to the brink of collapse."
Before the pandemic, the city drew 67 million tourists each year to take in Broadway shows, Yankees games and Madison Square Garden concerts, generating $70 billion of economic activity. This month Gov. Andrew Cuomo took steps to reopen movie theaters, amusement parks, sports arenas and other venues at limited capacity, but job growth and tourism remains stunted.
As of Feb. 4, 59% of arts and entertainment businesses and 63% of sports and recreation venues in New York City have shut down altogether since the beginning of March, according to software and business-services provider Womply.
Arts, entertainment and recreation in the city accounted for 93,500 private jobs at 6,250 establishments in 2019, the comptroller said. More than half of the workers are men, and 56% are white, compared with 50% of the city workforce who are men and 35% who are white.
Direct relief from the federal government, as well as state and local programs to create safe venues for artists and entertainers, are steps in the right direction, but more help is needed "to keep the lights on," DiNapoli said.
More than 60% of arts and entertainment companies in the city received loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. A new federal relief package provides $15 billion nationally for shuttered live venues.
City Council Speaker Defends His Comprehensive Planning Bill in First Public Hearing
City Limits
Feb. 24, 2021
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson took up a defensive strategy during the first public hearing about his comprehensive planning legislation on Tuesday, responding to dozens of residents and community groups that raised questions about, or spoke out in opposition to, the proposal.
Johnson introduced his "Planning Together" proposal back in December, which would amend the City Charter to require a long-term comprehensive plan overhauling the city's existing land use planning processes. Johnson says the legislation — which would require the city to implement a ten-year planning framework, starting in 2022 — would streamline the current piecemeal approach to city planning, bringing several agencies in line with a larger agenda to bring equitable growth to neighborhoods across the five boroughs.
He presented a chart to the virtual hearing's attendees, outlining things he said are "false" and "true" about his proposal. He said it was false to assume the bill would amend or change the city's zoning resolution, trigger rezonings or upzonings, propose or support the elimination of single family zoning, or eliminate the role of community boards in future rezonings. Instead, he says the plan would provide community boards with more resources to plan for their neighborhoods, direct growth in communities vulnerable to sea-level rise and displacement risks, identify and prioritize community budget needs and encourage rezoning tools on the community level.
But officials from the Department of City Planning (DCP) and other city agencies testified against the legislation. They included DCP Director and City Planning Commission Chair Marisa Lago, who questioned the bill's feasibility and effectiveness.
"We do not believe it's feasible to achieve all of the bill's goals through a single, one-size fits all process. Not without glossing over key priorities and short-changing key community impact. To attempt to do so would cost an incredible amount of money," said Lago in her testimony.
She pointed to one aspect of the bill that would require community boards, borough presidents and a newly-created "Long-Term Planning Steering Committee" to submit separate land use proposals for each of the city's 59 community districts during years three and four of Johnson's 10-year proposal –– a whopping 177 plans over a nearly 10-month period. She said this "top-down approach" would make it impossible to provide the in-depth planning efforts and engagement needed to meet "every inch of the city."
"We are concerned that the ultimate impact of that time and money would be counter to our shared goals—that it would make it more difficult, not easier, to build affordable housing or site essential city facilities if these priority projects were subjected to an additional layer of bureaucracy," she continued. "The practical effect of the bill would be to reinforce the political incentives to inaction that exist today and that drive exclusionary and inequitable outcomes."
Lago also argued that another aspect of the plan — which would require a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for each community district over a ten-year period — would cost an estimated $500 million, at time when the city is under a hiring freeze and grappling with a pandemic-related economic crisis.
Johnson, however, defended the plan and characterized Lago's cost estimate as inaccurate. He and other councilmembers questioned Lago and other city officials about the de Blasio administration's own legacy of trying to eradicate "the tale of two cities," asking if the city has examined its planning decisions and how those may have furthered racial and socio-economic disparities, which have became more evident during the pandemic. The speaker defended his legislation as an important solution for New York's land use future, saying the city's current policies do not work to address the city's inequities.
Several housing and land use advocacy groups also spoke in support of Johnson's plan, though said they want to see more details on how it would be implemented and how communities would be engaged.
"Comprehensive planning is about moving away from our current, inequitable approach to planning towards one centered on advancing racial and socioeconomic equity," said Barika Williams, executive director at Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD).
However, ANHD and other members of the grassroots Thriving Communities Coalition made several recommendations for how they think bill could be strengthened, saying it should include language to focus on reducing segregation, addressing access to different types of housing, budget transparency, fully including NYCHA residents during the planning process, centering environmental justice and climate resiliency, among many others.
The director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, Adam Friedman, said the city desperately needs a fair and inclusive process to simultaneously address climate change, racial and economic disparities and the "sheer complexity of running a city with 9 million people." Friedman said the city's current and past planning practices have failed to look at the big picture, giving the example of the Jerome Avenue rezoning in the Bronx, where the local auto repair industry lost a chunk of industrial space and local small businesses suffered displacement.
Other elected officials and advocacy groups, however, raised concerns about whether the proposal includes adequate input from community boards. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said she opposes the legislation, saying that while it could achieve some of its goals holistically, it lacks community engagement.
"It doesn't put communities at the center of the land use process," she said, saying her office has been involved in 171 ULURP applications (Urban Land Use Review Procedure, the city's public land use review process) since taking office in 2014. "We see how important it is to have community input––to analyze and provide constructive comments––they can't be sidelined."
Eva Hanhardt testified on behalf of the Collective for Community, Culture and Environment, a women-owned consulting business. While the group has been advocating for a comprehensive, community-based plan for the last 20 years, they are concerned about Johnson' legislation and "the haste with which it was being proposed."
Andrea Goldwyn, director of public policy at the New York Landmarks Conservancy, said the bill was well-intentioned but there were too many unanswered questions, such as how the city will deal with the existence of as-of-right development. She recommended that the City Council present Johnson's plan before all community boards and consider making amendments before any vote takes place.
"We urge the Council to reject this proposal," she said. "New York needs comprehensive planning, but not this plan."
Both Manhattan Community Board 8 Chair Russell Squire and Community Board 2 Chair Carter Booth said the City Council had conducted little to no outreach to their groups about the bill, and said residents have many questions about its feasibility and community engagement strategy. Queens community boards 8, 11 and 13 — boards that are home to significant numbers of single-family homeowners — have also been vocal in their opposition to the plan, according to news reports and community sources.
Without the support of the de Blasio administration, Johnson would need a minimum of 36 councilmember votes to pass the legislation.
Opinion: Raise the corporate tax rate to save New York
Feb. 24, 2021
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson took up a defensive strategy during the first public hearing about his comprehensive planning legislation on Tuesday, responding to dozens of residents and community groups that raised questions about, or spoke out in opposition to, the proposal.
Johnson introduced his "Planning Together" proposal back in December, which would amend the City Charter to require a long-term comprehensive plan overhauling the city's existing land use planning processes. Johnson says the legislation — which would require the city to implement a ten-year planning framework, starting in 2022 — would streamline the current piecemeal approach to city planning, bringing several agencies in line with a larger agenda to bring equitable growth to neighborhoods across the five boroughs.
He presented a chart to the virtual hearing's attendees, outlining things he said are "false" and "true" about his proposal. He said it was false to assume the bill would amend or change the city's zoning resolution, trigger rezonings or upzonings, propose or support the elimination of single family zoning, or eliminate the role of community boards in future rezonings. Instead, he says the plan would provide community boards with more resources to plan for their neighborhoods, direct growth in communities vulnerable to sea-level rise and displacement risks, identify and prioritize community budget needs and encourage rezoning tools on the community level.
But officials from the Department of City Planning (DCP) and other city agencies testified against the legislation. They included DCP Director and City Planning Commission Chair Marisa Lago, who questioned the bill's feasibility and effectiveness.
"We do not believe it's feasible to achieve all of the bill's goals through a single, one-size fits all process. Not without glossing over key priorities and short-changing key community impact. To attempt to do so would cost an incredible amount of money," said Lago in her testimony.
She pointed to one aspect of the bill that would require community boards, borough presidents and a newly-created "Long-Term Planning Steering Committee" to submit separate land use proposals for each of the city's 59 community districts during years three and four of Johnson's 10-year proposal –– a whopping 177 plans over a nearly 10-month period. She said this "top-down approach" would make it impossible to provide the in-depth planning efforts and engagement needed to meet "every inch of the city."
"We are concerned that the ultimate impact of that time and money would be counter to our shared goals—that it would make it more difficult, not easier, to build affordable housing or site essential city facilities if these priority projects were subjected to an additional layer of bureaucracy," she continued. "The practical effect of the bill would be to reinforce the political incentives to inaction that exist today and that drive exclusionary and inequitable outcomes."
Lago also argued that another aspect of the plan — which would require a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for each community district over a ten-year period — would cost an estimated $500 million, at time when the city is under a hiring freeze and grappling with a pandemic-related economic crisis.
Johnson, however, defended the plan and characterized Lago's cost estimate as inaccurate. He and other councilmembers questioned Lago and other city officials about the de Blasio administration's own legacy of trying to eradicate "the tale of two cities," asking if the city has examined its planning decisions and how those may have furthered racial and socio-economic disparities, which have became more evident during the pandemic. The speaker defended his legislation as an important solution for New York's land use future, saying the city's current policies do not work to address the city's inequities.
Several housing and land use advocacy groups also spoke in support of Johnson's plan, though said they want to see more details on how it would be implemented and how communities would be engaged.
"Comprehensive planning is about moving away from our current, inequitable approach to planning towards one centered on advancing racial and socioeconomic equity," said Barika Williams, executive director at Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD).
However, ANHD and other members of the grassroots Thriving Communities Coalition made several recommendations for how they think bill could be strengthened, saying it should include language to focus on reducing segregation, addressing access to different types of housing, budget transparency, fully including NYCHA residents during the planning process, centering environmental justice and climate resiliency, among many others.
The director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, Adam Friedman, said the city desperately needs a fair and inclusive process to simultaneously address climate change, racial and economic disparities and the "sheer complexity of running a city with 9 million people." Friedman said the city's current and past planning practices have failed to look at the big picture, giving the example of the Jerome Avenue rezoning in the Bronx, where the local auto repair industry lost a chunk of industrial space and local small businesses suffered displacement.
Other elected officials and advocacy groups, however, raised concerns about whether the proposal includes adequate input from community boards. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said she opposes the legislation, saying that while it could achieve some of its goals holistically, it lacks community engagement.
"It doesn't put communities at the center of the land use process," she said, saying her office has been involved in 171 ULURP applications (Urban Land Use Review Procedure, the city's public land use review process) since taking office in 2014. "We see how important it is to have community input––to analyze and provide constructive comments––they can't be sidelined."
Eva Hanhardt testified on behalf of the Collective for Community, Culture and Environment, a women-owned consulting business. While the group has been advocating for a comprehensive, community-based plan for the last 20 years, they are concerned about Johnson' legislation and "the haste with which it was being proposed."
Andrea Goldwyn, director of public policy at the New York Landmarks Conservancy, said the bill was well-intentioned but there were too many unanswered questions, such as how the city will deal with the existence of as-of-right development. She recommended that the City Council present Johnson's plan before all community boards and consider making amendments before any vote takes place.
"We urge the Council to reject this proposal," she said. "New York needs comprehensive planning, but not this plan."
Both Manhattan Community Board 8 Chair Russell Squire and Community Board 2 Chair Carter Booth said the City Council had conducted little to no outreach to their groups about the bill, and said residents have many questions about its feasibility and community engagement strategy. Queens community boards 8, 11 and 13 — boards that are home to significant numbers of single-family homeowners — have also been vocal in their opposition to the plan, according to news reports and community sources.
Without the support of the de Blasio administration, Johnson would need a minimum of 36 councilmember votes to pass the legislation.
Opinion: Raise the corporate tax rate to save New York
Crain's
Feb. 24, 2021
Absent new tax revenues, Gov. Andrew Cuomo likely will manage a $15 billion budget shortfall by cutting billions of dollars from essential government services.
Economic inequality—already at historical levels before the pandemic—has only grown since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis.
The federal government has provided only limited relief to individuals, but it created a $500 billion slush fund for large corporations, while the Federal Reserve funneled $4.5 trillion to support corporate bond purchases.
Those dynamics have resulted in a "K-shape" economic recovery. Corporate titans, investors and elite professionals continue to generate profits while the vast majority of working people face unemployment, food insecurity and even homelessness. In the Assembly district I represent, food lines have wrapped around blocks as immigrant and low-income communities have struggled to survive.
The origins of the economic inequality predate the pandemic. One of the root causes was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Now the U.S. has one of the lowest corporate tax rates among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. The TCJA also provided a 20% tax cut, known as a pass-through deduction, for limited-liability companies and partnerships—which NYU tax expert Daniel Shaviro described as the "worst provision ever even to be seriously proposed in the history of the federal income tax." In the years from the time Congress passed the Trump tax law until Covid-19 arrived, the majority of corporate profits flowed into shareholder payouts, one-time bonuses, and CEO salary increases. Meanwhile, job growth and wages remained stagnant.
The solution to that giveaway to billionaires is simple: New York must reverse the cuts on the state level with a surcharge. The corporate tax portion of the Invest in Our New York Act would levy a surcharge so that large corporations would pay the same corporate tax as they did in 2017. Opponents of the proposed tax increase, as opponents of all taxes do, are sure to claim that such a move would drive business away from the Empire State, but that's not true.
First, New York's corporate tax is unusually low given the size and dynamism of our economy, the 10th largest in the world. New Jersey and Pennsylvania tax corporate profits at almost double New York's rate. Secondly, much like millionaires, who rarely migrate for tax reasons, big corporations face similar constraints. New York provides a labor market rich in skilled professionals, advanced (if underfunded) infrastructure and sophisticated commercial networks. Businesses could pay fewer tax dollars by leaving the state, but only at the cost of losing even greater profits, as their commercial success relies upon the local connections they have built up, their client base, their reputation and their community.
Fortunately, New York is wealthy enough to finance a full recovery from the pandemic, but only if we can summon the political courage to raise taxes on the wealthy and big business. With just weeks left in state budget negotiations, New Yorkers face the very real prospect of historic cuts to public services as well as massive job losses. We must make those who have profited off our work and our suffering for years pay their fair share to fund the recovery we all need. Our working-class communities deserve not just the ability to survive but to live, work and raise their families with dignity.
Jessica González-Rojas represents the 34th Assembly District, which encompasses Corona, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Woodside in Queens.
Commissioner Dermot Shea Apologizes for Systemic Racism in the NYPD
Feb. 24, 2021
Absent new tax revenues, Gov. Andrew Cuomo likely will manage a $15 billion budget shortfall by cutting billions of dollars from essential government services.
Economic inequality—already at historical levels before the pandemic—has only grown since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis.
The federal government has provided only limited relief to individuals, but it created a $500 billion slush fund for large corporations, while the Federal Reserve funneled $4.5 trillion to support corporate bond purchases.
Those dynamics have resulted in a "K-shape" economic recovery. Corporate titans, investors and elite professionals continue to generate profits while the vast majority of working people face unemployment, food insecurity and even homelessness. In the Assembly district I represent, food lines have wrapped around blocks as immigrant and low-income communities have struggled to survive.
The origins of the economic inequality predate the pandemic. One of the root causes was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Now the U.S. has one of the lowest corporate tax rates among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. The TCJA also provided a 20% tax cut, known as a pass-through deduction, for limited-liability companies and partnerships—which NYU tax expert Daniel Shaviro described as the "worst provision ever even to be seriously proposed in the history of the federal income tax." In the years from the time Congress passed the Trump tax law until Covid-19 arrived, the majority of corporate profits flowed into shareholder payouts, one-time bonuses, and CEO salary increases. Meanwhile, job growth and wages remained stagnant.
The solution to that giveaway to billionaires is simple: New York must reverse the cuts on the state level with a surcharge. The corporate tax portion of the Invest in Our New York Act would levy a surcharge so that large corporations would pay the same corporate tax as they did in 2017. Opponents of the proposed tax increase, as opponents of all taxes do, are sure to claim that such a move would drive business away from the Empire State, but that's not true.
First, New York's corporate tax is unusually low given the size and dynamism of our economy, the 10th largest in the world. New Jersey and Pennsylvania tax corporate profits at almost double New York's rate. Secondly, much like millionaires, who rarely migrate for tax reasons, big corporations face similar constraints. New York provides a labor market rich in skilled professionals, advanced (if underfunded) infrastructure and sophisticated commercial networks. Businesses could pay fewer tax dollars by leaving the state, but only at the cost of losing even greater profits, as their commercial success relies upon the local connections they have built up, their client base, their reputation and their community.
Fortunately, New York is wealthy enough to finance a full recovery from the pandemic, but only if we can summon the political courage to raise taxes on the wealthy and big business. With just weeks left in state budget negotiations, New Yorkers face the very real prospect of historic cuts to public services as well as massive job losses. We must make those who have profited off our work and our suffering for years pay their fair share to fund the recovery we all need. Our working-class communities deserve not just the ability to survive but to live, work and raise their families with dignity.
Jessica González-Rojas represents the 34th Assembly District, which encompasses Corona, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Woodside in Queens.
Commissioner Dermot Shea Apologizes for Systemic Racism in the NYPD
NY1
Feb. 24, 2021
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Tuesday apologized for systemic racism in the NYPD.
"These many years of racist policies and practices have caused — and, more importantly, continue to cause — immeasurable harm," he said at an event hosted by the Harlem Chamber of Commerce and the City University of New York (CUNY).
The commissioner also said that unfair and racist policing have been going on for centuries in our country, dating back to slavery.
"Whether it was arresting runaway slaves, or enforcing unjust Jim Crow laws, it's been a stain on law enforcement's rich history. That is stained nevertheless," he added. "We have to acknowledge this truth. And I do. And we must also acknowledge the NYPD's historical role at times in the mistreatment of communities of color. And I do as well, and I'm sorry for that."
According to Shea, a lot needs to be done to repair the relationship between police and communities of color.
He says the department is working on programs and training to address and prevent systemic racism in the NYPD, He is also encouraging people of color to join the department to help make change they want to see.
The Most Ambitious Effort Yet to Reform Policing May Be Happening In Ithaca, New York
Feb. 24, 2021
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Tuesday apologized for systemic racism in the NYPD.
"These many years of racist policies and practices have caused — and, more importantly, continue to cause — immeasurable harm," he said at an event hosted by the Harlem Chamber of Commerce and the City University of New York (CUNY).
The commissioner also said that unfair and racist policing have been going on for centuries in our country, dating back to slavery.
"Whether it was arresting runaway slaves, or enforcing unjust Jim Crow laws, it's been a stain on law enforcement's rich history. That is stained nevertheless," he added. "We have to acknowledge this truth. And I do. And we must also acknowledge the NYPD's historical role at times in the mistreatment of communities of color. And I do as well, and I'm sorry for that."
According to Shea, a lot needs to be done to repair the relationship between police and communities of color.
He says the department is working on programs and training to address and prevent systemic racism in the NYPD, He is also encouraging people of color to join the department to help make change they want to see.
The Most Ambitious Effort Yet to Reform Policing May Be Happening In Ithaca, New York
GQ
Feb. 22, 2021
It's been nine months since the George Floyd protests thrust "Defund the Police'' and other abolitionist rhetoric into mainstream political discourse, yet the results have been meager so far. While some municipalities have sliced significant chunks from their police budgets—$150 million in both Los Angeles and Austin, Texas—a Bloomberg News review found that about half of the nation's largest cities saw their 2021 police budgets either increase or stay the same. Of those departments that have cut back police funding, the Associated Press found, defunding has been modest, not monumental.
Yet even as mainstream political operatives have declared the concept a political loser—just last week President Biden reiterated his opposition to defunding during a CNN town hall—a handful of cities have significantly reexamined the role of their police. In Berkeley, Ca., armed officers no longer conduct traffic stops or respond to mental health and homelessness calls. Portland ended the deployment of "school resource officers," long linked to the criminalization of Black and brown youth and the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.
And now, in a proposal announced today, the mayor of Ithaca, NY will attempt the most radical reimagining of policing in the post-George Floyd era so far: abolishing the city's police department as currently constructed and replacing it with a reimagined city agency.
In a nearly 100-page report obtained by GQ, Mayor Svante Myrick will propose replacing the city's current 63-officer, $12.5 million a year department with a "Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety" which would include armed "public safety workers" and unarmed "community solution workers," all of whom will report to a civilian director of public safety instead of a police chief. Under the proposal, all current officers would have to re-apply for a position with the new department.
"IPD currently spends one third of its time responding to calls for service that essentially never lead to arrests," Myrick writes in the report's introduction. "Those calls, as well as a majority of patrol activity, can and should be handled by unarmed Community Solution Workers well trained in de-escalation and service delivery. This will allow our new Public Safety Workers to focus on preventing, interrupting and solving serious crime."
If the proposal is approved, calls for service will be evaluated to determine whether an armed or unarmed respondent is necessary, or another public agency altogether would be best to respond. Mental health calls would be outsourced to a standalone unit of social workers based on the CAHOOTS program pioneered in Eugene, Oregon. The goal, ultimately, is to have far fewer encounters between citizens and armed government agents.
"Everyone wants the police to perform better when they show up, everybody wants that. What this plan is saying is that we also want the police to show up less—and that's a radical thing for a city and a mayor to do." Myrick, 33, told me in an interview Sunday. While it may have been possible to push for similar reforms within the current department, Myrick said the entrenched culture would make them impossible to fully implement. In recent years, the city has battled with the police union over discipline for problem officers, including one officer who was caught on body camera bragging about dragging a handcuffed suspect down a set of stairs and another who was found to have inadequately investigated hundreds of crimes assigned to her over the course of a decade.
"This is my 10th year overseeing this department. And at times I feel like I'm managing a fish tank that somebody dumped a bunch of red dye in," he said. "When that happens, you have to scoop a gallon of water out, and put fresh water in, and the tank becomes a little less red with each gallon. This is a way of starting over with a fresh tank."
Myrick first came to Ithaca a decade and a half ago to attend Cornell University. Initially he planned to become a journalist, but before long he was working as the assistant to a member of the city's Common Council. He'd long been fascinated by the concept of public service. His family had been in and out of homeless shelters during his childhood, and his mother often worked multiple jobs to keep them afloat, so he vowed to learn more about the role the government played—or should play—in helping people like him. When his boss retired in 2007, Myrick, still an undergraduate student, was elected to replace him on the Council. In 2011, he was elected mayor—the city's first Black mayor and, at 24-years-old, the youngest mayor in state history. A decade later, he's been re-elected twice by wide margins.
Now, he's investing his political capital in a plan that would remove armed officers from most civilian interactions, which he said should free those who remain to fully investigate and solve serious crimes. "The investigators are going to be focused on the shooting last Tuesday, they will have nothing on their plate except finding that gun, finding that shooter and taking them off the street," he said. "They won't be pulled away from that work by a motor vehicle crash on 3rd Street or a welfare check on Madison."
In order to move forward, Myrick's plan will have to be approved by the city council, which is expected to debate and vote on it by the end of March. The mayor believes his proposal is likely to gain council support, yet it remains to be seen how much opposition it may face from the city's police union, which has publicly sparred with Myrick previously and has gone nearly a decade without a contract. "I do think it will be a big battle," Myrick told me, adding that he aspires to have the re-envisioned department up and running by Summer 2023: "Fox News will lose their shit."
And the proposal will provide new fodder for the national semantics over policing, even as the plan itself lays bare how undercooked public perceptions are around much of the terminology. Depending on your rhetorical goals, it's possible to argue that the Ithaca plan would mean the police department is being "abolished," or policing in the city is being "reformed" and "reimagined," or armed government response to public safety is being partially "defunded." Myrick notes that the new department would likely result in more city money being spent on public safety—while the specifics are yet to be finalized, he envisions the combined staffs of the department's unarmed and armed workers exceeding the city's current number of police officers. He admitted he's yet to decide whether he'll use the term "abolish" when discussing the proposal: "This plan would abolish the police department while not abolishing policing," he said.
The proposal is part of a report Ithaca and surrounding Tompkins County intend to send to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who last June signed an executive order requiring local governments to conduct comprehensive reviews of their police departments. With the help of the Center for Policing Equity, officials conducted a community engagement survey, held a series of town halls and public forums, and convened 21 targeted focus groups that included members of law enforcement, the formerly incarcerated and homeless citizens.
According to the report, community members said they often feel disrespected by police during interactions and questioned whether local police officers knew how to properly deescalate situations. As a result, respondents told city officials, they were hesitant to turn to the police for intervention. During the law enforcement focus group, police officers and sheriff's deputies said they don't believe the public understands what their jobs entail. They think the department is understaffed and under resourced; and called for better coordination between police and other public service agencies. "Few people who participated in the Reimagining Public Safety trust the process," the report notes. "Both targeted focus groups and law enforcement think the other needs education. Both respondents from targeted focus groups and law enforcement agree that the lack of trust is a major issue that needs to be addressed."
Yet even with the public and law enforcement in agreement that the status quo is lacking, it remains to be seen if everyone will be on board with such a radical reimagining of public safety. While Myrick's recommendations are based on the thematic feedback collected during community meetings and forums, the specifics of the proposal have yet to receive public feedback and direct input.
Often, Myrick noted, change is more risky than doing nothing, even if the results stay the same. He gave the example of a citizen who has their bike stolen. Today, perhaps they blame that on the police, or on him as mayor, or on society as a whole. "If you announce this new change, and then the bike gets stolen, you wonder 'was the bike stolen because the criminals are emboldened?"
Still, he said, it's clear that the system is not working as is and he'd rather try to find the solution than continue to kick the can. "Once you can fully imagine an alternative response agency," Myrick told me. "It's hard to defend what exists currently."
Feb. 22, 2021
It's been nine months since the George Floyd protests thrust "Defund the Police'' and other abolitionist rhetoric into mainstream political discourse, yet the results have been meager so far. While some municipalities have sliced significant chunks from their police budgets—$150 million in both Los Angeles and Austin, Texas—a Bloomberg News review found that about half of the nation's largest cities saw their 2021 police budgets either increase or stay the same. Of those departments that have cut back police funding, the Associated Press found, defunding has been modest, not monumental.
Yet even as mainstream political operatives have declared the concept a political loser—just last week President Biden reiterated his opposition to defunding during a CNN town hall—a handful of cities have significantly reexamined the role of their police. In Berkeley, Ca., armed officers no longer conduct traffic stops or respond to mental health and homelessness calls. Portland ended the deployment of "school resource officers," long linked to the criminalization of Black and brown youth and the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.
And now, in a proposal announced today, the mayor of Ithaca, NY will attempt the most radical reimagining of policing in the post-George Floyd era so far: abolishing the city's police department as currently constructed and replacing it with a reimagined city agency.
In a nearly 100-page report obtained by GQ, Mayor Svante Myrick will propose replacing the city's current 63-officer, $12.5 million a year department with a "Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety" which would include armed "public safety workers" and unarmed "community solution workers," all of whom will report to a civilian director of public safety instead of a police chief. Under the proposal, all current officers would have to re-apply for a position with the new department.
"IPD currently spends one third of its time responding to calls for service that essentially never lead to arrests," Myrick writes in the report's introduction. "Those calls, as well as a majority of patrol activity, can and should be handled by unarmed Community Solution Workers well trained in de-escalation and service delivery. This will allow our new Public Safety Workers to focus on preventing, interrupting and solving serious crime."
If the proposal is approved, calls for service will be evaluated to determine whether an armed or unarmed respondent is necessary, or another public agency altogether would be best to respond. Mental health calls would be outsourced to a standalone unit of social workers based on the CAHOOTS program pioneered in Eugene, Oregon. The goal, ultimately, is to have far fewer encounters between citizens and armed government agents.
"Everyone wants the police to perform better when they show up, everybody wants that. What this plan is saying is that we also want the police to show up less—and that's a radical thing for a city and a mayor to do." Myrick, 33, told me in an interview Sunday. While it may have been possible to push for similar reforms within the current department, Myrick said the entrenched culture would make them impossible to fully implement. In recent years, the city has battled with the police union over discipline for problem officers, including one officer who was caught on body camera bragging about dragging a handcuffed suspect down a set of stairs and another who was found to have inadequately investigated hundreds of crimes assigned to her over the course of a decade.
"This is my 10th year overseeing this department. And at times I feel like I'm managing a fish tank that somebody dumped a bunch of red dye in," he said. "When that happens, you have to scoop a gallon of water out, and put fresh water in, and the tank becomes a little less red with each gallon. This is a way of starting over with a fresh tank."
Myrick first came to Ithaca a decade and a half ago to attend Cornell University. Initially he planned to become a journalist, but before long he was working as the assistant to a member of the city's Common Council. He'd long been fascinated by the concept of public service. His family had been in and out of homeless shelters during his childhood, and his mother often worked multiple jobs to keep them afloat, so he vowed to learn more about the role the government played—or should play—in helping people like him. When his boss retired in 2007, Myrick, still an undergraduate student, was elected to replace him on the Council. In 2011, he was elected mayor—the city's first Black mayor and, at 24-years-old, the youngest mayor in state history. A decade later, he's been re-elected twice by wide margins.
Now, he's investing his political capital in a plan that would remove armed officers from most civilian interactions, which he said should free those who remain to fully investigate and solve serious crimes. "The investigators are going to be focused on the shooting last Tuesday, they will have nothing on their plate except finding that gun, finding that shooter and taking them off the street," he said. "They won't be pulled away from that work by a motor vehicle crash on 3rd Street or a welfare check on Madison."
In order to move forward, Myrick's plan will have to be approved by the city council, which is expected to debate and vote on it by the end of March. The mayor believes his proposal is likely to gain council support, yet it remains to be seen how much opposition it may face from the city's police union, which has publicly sparred with Myrick previously and has gone nearly a decade without a contract. "I do think it will be a big battle," Myrick told me, adding that he aspires to have the re-envisioned department up and running by Summer 2023: "Fox News will lose their shit."
And the proposal will provide new fodder for the national semantics over policing, even as the plan itself lays bare how undercooked public perceptions are around much of the terminology. Depending on your rhetorical goals, it's possible to argue that the Ithaca plan would mean the police department is being "abolished," or policing in the city is being "reformed" and "reimagined," or armed government response to public safety is being partially "defunded." Myrick notes that the new department would likely result in more city money being spent on public safety—while the specifics are yet to be finalized, he envisions the combined staffs of the department's unarmed and armed workers exceeding the city's current number of police officers. He admitted he's yet to decide whether he'll use the term "abolish" when discussing the proposal: "This plan would abolish the police department while not abolishing policing," he said.
The proposal is part of a report Ithaca and surrounding Tompkins County intend to send to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who last June signed an executive order requiring local governments to conduct comprehensive reviews of their police departments. With the help of the Center for Policing Equity, officials conducted a community engagement survey, held a series of town halls and public forums, and convened 21 targeted focus groups that included members of law enforcement, the formerly incarcerated and homeless citizens.
According to the report, community members said they often feel disrespected by police during interactions and questioned whether local police officers knew how to properly deescalate situations. As a result, respondents told city officials, they were hesitant to turn to the police for intervention. During the law enforcement focus group, police officers and sheriff's deputies said they don't believe the public understands what their jobs entail. They think the department is understaffed and under resourced; and called for better coordination between police and other public service agencies. "Few people who participated in the Reimagining Public Safety trust the process," the report notes. "Both targeted focus groups and law enforcement think the other needs education. Both respondents from targeted focus groups and law enforcement agree that the lack of trust is a major issue that needs to be addressed."
Yet even with the public and law enforcement in agreement that the status quo is lacking, it remains to be seen if everyone will be on board with such a radical reimagining of public safety. While Myrick's recommendations are based on the thematic feedback collected during community meetings and forums, the specifics of the proposal have yet to receive public feedback and direct input.
Often, Myrick noted, change is more risky than doing nothing, even if the results stay the same. He gave the example of a citizen who has their bike stolen. Today, perhaps they blame that on the police, or on him as mayor, or on society as a whole. "If you announce this new change, and then the bike gets stolen, you wonder 'was the bike stolen because the criminals are emboldened?"
Still, he said, it's clear that the system is not working as is and he'd rather try to find the solution than continue to kick the can. "Once you can fully imagine an alternative response agency," Myrick told me. "It's hard to defend what exists currently."
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