News : POLITICO New York Playbook: Nursing homes to get vaccines — Probe finds NYPD botched protest response

Monday, December 21, 2020

POLITICO New York Playbook: Nursing homes to get vaccines — Probe finds NYPD botched protest response — City overhauls school admissions

Dec 21, 2020

By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio

New York nursing homes, places that have seen so much death during the coronavirus pandemic, are set to begin receiving the Covid-19 vaccine today. After frontline hospital workers began receiving their first shots last week, nursing home staff and residents will be inoculated at hundreds of facilities in the state, with CVS and Walgreens administering the first doses as part of a vaccination program.

Nursing homes saw some of the worst devastation as the disease spread among their vulnerable residents — causing a still unknown number of deaths, reported by the state as about 6,500 but perhaps as many as 11,000. And the vaccine may be key to protecting the elderly and fail nursing home population, since a report found that the facilities are still acutely vulnerable to the virus.

But after nursing homes, who should come next on the vaccine list? That's now the subject of a "big fight" among New York power brokers, the New York Times reports. The CEO of Uber wrote to Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ask for the company's drivers and food delivery workers to be prioritized. The influential Hotel Trades Council wants its workers high on the list. The union for grocery and retail workers has also reached out, landlords want building supers and maintenance staff to get vaccines quickly, and school bus companies want drivers prioritized. The list goes on.

The CDC offered some guidance on Sunday, saying that people 75 and older and frontline essential workers such as emergency responders, teachers and transit workers should together be in the next round. But those recommendations are nonbinding and details have to be filled in by states, so it will be up to New York to make the tough calls.

IT'S MONDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: EDurkin@politico.com and agronewold@politico.com, or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold

WHERE'S ANDREW? No schedule available by press time.

WHERE'S BILL? Holding a media availability, giving a thank you address to city employees, and appearing on NY1's Inside City Hall.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: New York Playbook will not publish from Thursday, Dec. 24 through Friday, Jan. 1. After the hiatus, we'll be back on our normal schedule on Monday, Jan. 4. Please continue to follow POLITICO New York.

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WHAT CITY HALL'S READING

THE NYPD'S AGGRESSIVE response to protests that swept the city after the death of George Floyd heightened tensions and undermined public trust in the ability of the police to protect the rights of citizens, a probe by the Department of Investigation has found . NYPD officers used "excessive enforcement" against protesters — including kettling, or hemming in a group of demonstrators, mass arrests, and employing batons and pepper spray, investigators wrote in a report released Friday morning. "The NYPD's use of force and certain crowd control tactics to respond to the Floyd protests produced excessive enforcement that contributed to heightened tensions," the report says, adding that the tactics "reflected a failure to calibrate an appropriate balance between valid public safety or officer safety interests and the rights of protesters to assemble and express their views." The NYPD's mishandling of the protests was not confined to misdeeds by individual officers, some of whom took actions that were "at a minimum, unprofessional and, at worst, unjustified excessive force or abuse of authority," the report finds. POLITICO's Erin Durkin

— "Its 115 pages read like a bad flashback to 2004. Here was the DOI detailing how cops had hemmed in and then arrested large groups of protesters — just like they did during the Republican National Convention of 2004. And here was the DOI, recounting how legal observers and journalists wrongfully wound up in police custody. Just like in 2004. 'It is deja vu all over again in some ways,' DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett acknowledged." The City's Greg B. Smith

"MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO announced on Friday major changes to the way hundreds of New York City's selective middle and high schools admit their students, a move intended to address long-simmering concerns that admissions policies have discriminated against Black and Latino students and exacerbated segregation in the country's largest school district... Middle schools will see the most significant policy revisions. The city will eliminate all admissions screening for the schools for at least one year , the mayor said. About 200 middle schools — 40 percent of the total — use metrics like grades, attendance and test scores to determine which students should be admitted. Now those schools will use a random lottery to admit students...In another major shift announced by Mr. de Blasio, New York will also eliminate a policy that allowed some high schools to give students who live nearby first dibs at spots — even though all seats are supposed to be available to all students, regardless of where they reside." New York Times' Eliza Shapiro

"NEW YORK CITY is finally moving ahead with plans to overhaul the deadly commercial waste collection industry after months of delays due to COVID-19, officials said Friday. The revamp approved by the City Council in 2019 will shift commercial trash collection to a zone-based system, cutting truck traffic in half, according to proponents. Carting companies can submit applications to serve specific zones as of Friday, the Department of Sanitation said in a statement. Responses are due in February." New York Post's Nolan Hicks and David Meyer

"IT WAS LAST MARCH 11: the day President Trump shut down travel from Europe and Tom Hanks announced he had coronavirus. The mayor of New York was warning people about the risks of leaving home. Bernice D. Siegal, a justice in the State Supreme Court in Queens, was not deterred. She climbed into her Ford Fusion and made the trip into Manhattan for a doctor's appointment. Justice Siegal was just a few months short of 70, the state's retirement age for judges. She could apply to continue serving, in two-year increments, until she was 76. But she first had to get medical clearance.

"Yet a few months later, she received bad news: The court administration, citing the need for deep budget cuts, rejected applications from 46 of 49 older judges who wanted to keep working. It said the decision would save $55 million over two years. 'I was outraged,' Justice Siegal said. 'I wasn't ready to retire. I had not planned for this.' So Justice Siegal did something judges almost never do: She and nine other judges joined in two lawsuits against the state's chief judge , Janet DiFiore, and an administrative board that had voted unanimously to let the older judges go. The suits charged the judges had been victims of age discrimination. As a practical matter, Judge DiFiore's decision means the state courts in New York City are losing an enormous number of their most experienced jurists at a time when the system is already struggling with backlogs created by the pandemic." New York Times' Benjamin Weiser

"AFTER YEARS of steady decline, the city's jail population started going up this year. More than 4,700 people were in jail in November, compared to 3,800 at the end of April, based on the latest complete data available from the city. The majority are people who've been accused of a crime but were not able to pay bail while waiting for their cases to play out in court. That's still much lower than the nearly 7,000 people in jail at the end of 2019. But it's not what was expected in the year when New York enacted a groundbreaking new bail reform that prohibited judges from setting bail on most offenders, except those charged with violent felonies. The law was intended to reduce the number of people spending time in jail simply because they couldn't afford bail, a disproportionate number of whom are Black and Latino." Gothamist's Beth Fertig

WHAT ALBANY'S READING

"ADVOCACY GROUPS said they are disappointed that the New York state Capitol remains closed to the general public on the eve of a legislative session where lawmakers will consider raising taxes, adjusting the state budget and legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with the support of Democratic leaders of the state Assembly and Senate, closed the Capitol to visitors on March 14 after two state legislators tested positive for the coronavirus. Access restrictions have remained in place since the spring, and both chambers of the Legislature passed resolutions allowing members to cast their votes remotely. The halls of the Capitol — normally crowded with besuited lobbyists, chanting protesters, bustling bureaucrats and lawmakers—were quiet this year, as officials enacted a $178 billion budget and passed laws overhauling policing practices. The Democratic governor and legislative leaders said in recent weeks that there are no plans to reopen the Capitol, citing the continuing pandemic. Groups who traditionally advocate have had to shift their plans and said they hope officials will invest in digital tools to increase participation." Wall Street Journal's Jimmy Vielkind

"DUE TO A NEW STRAIN OF CORONAVIRUS that appears 70 percent more transmissible, the federal government should step in to ban travel from the United Kingdom or require passengers from those countries to test negative for COVID-19 before traveling to the U.S., Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a Sunday afternoon conference call with reporters. 'The virus is an evolving situation, right? And the circumstances change and the virus changes,' Cuomo said. There are six flights a day arriving into New York from the United Kingdom, Cuomo said. A number of other countries have already banned travel from the U.K., Cuomo said, and 120 around the world have required U.K. travelers to test negative for the respiratory virus before takeoff. The U.S. should consider joining those other countries with those restrictions, Cuomo said." Times Union's Edward McKinley

"THE DEBATE over legalizing marijuana for adult, recreational use in New York has been brewing for the last two years after Democrats took control of the state Legislature, but disagreements on the issue coupled with a global pandemic have kept it out of reach for lawmakers. That could change next year as the Legislature returns to Albany, but Democrats still remain divided on certain aspects of the issue that are likely to complicate negotiations. Chief among them is what the state will do with the tax revenue from the marijuana industry, which is expected to generate around $300 million annually when the program is stabilized, according to projections from the state.

Democrats leading negotiations on the issue in the Legislature have backed a bill, called the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, that would earmark half that revenue to be invested in communities where the state's drug laws have been enforced at higher rates. The legislation is sponsored by two of the most influential Democrats in the state Legislature: Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Erie, and State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee." Dan Clark for the Times Union

"THE STATE is considering 'some alternatives and ideas' and is comparing the Bills' plan to plans implemented at other league stadiums of similar size. So what might it take to get fans in the seats? The answer depends on two independent factors: How strong is the Bills' plan to keep fans safe if they're allowed in? And how good or bad will Western New York's infection and hospitalization rates be in early January? The first part is easier to answer. Many other NFL franchises permit some stadium fan seating, offering some insight into what health safety measures would be enacted to safeguard public health. But guessing at the infection and hospital capacity levels two to three weeks into the future is much more difficult. Although positive test rates recently have been falling in Erie County and Western New York, the Christmas and New Year's holidays are still ahead and could bring another surge in positive test rates and hospital admissions." Buffalo News' Sandra Tan

#UpstateAmerica: Thousands turned out to meet the victorious Bills at the airport , testing the theory that the liquor in those bowling ball shots renders fans impervious to the coronavirus.

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FROM THE DELEGATION

"LAWMAKERS STRUCK a deal Sunday on a $900 billion stimulus package that includes emergency COVID-19 relief checks for Americans in dire need of economic relief caused by the pandemic. Speaking from the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said a deal had finally been reached after much negotiating from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle...The bill is expected to deliver $600 direct payments to most U.S. taxpayers and provide a federal $300-per-week bonus to millions of unemployed workers, half of what Americans were given in aid during the last stimulus package in March…[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer told the Daily News the package includes more than $4 billion in relief for the MTA. The city's transportation agency received the same amount through the CARES Act, but it dried up late July. Transit officials say they need $12 billion more in the coming years to stabilize their finances. 'We would have had dramatic cutbacks to service. It was urgent to get this money. But when Biden becomes president, we should have more coming because he's so pro-transit,' Schumer said." New York Daily News' Michael McAuliff, Clayton Guse and Molly Crane-Newman

"HE'S A PROGRESSIVE Democrat, but he won't be signing up with the Squad. Ritchie Torres, going to Washington next month to represent the South Bronx in Congress, says you won't see him paling around with Democratic Socialists — and cited his strong support for Israel as a primary distinction between them and true progressives like himself. 'I came to observe that there are activists who have a visceral hatred for Israel as though it were the root of all evil,' Torres, 32, told The Post. 'The act of singling out Israel as BDS [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] has done is the definition of discrimination.'" New York Post's Jon Levine

"A NUMBER OF New York lawmakers received their first dose of the recently approved Pfizer vaccine, many taking to Twitter to announce their inoculation and encouraging others to do so when it becomes more widely available. At least seven of the state's lawmakers between the Senate and House have received the vaccine since Friday. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she took the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Friday and expects to get the second shot in January...Representatives John Katko and Antonio Delgado also received their first vaccine dose on Friday, they announced on Twitter. Senator Chuck Schumer and House members Gregory Meeks, Nydia Velazquez and Tom Reed said they got their shot on Saturday." NBC New York

AROUND NEW YORK

— Assemblymember Demond Meeks was arrested Friday in Rochester after joining protesters at the forced eviction of a local woman.

— It's the end of an era for Betty Little.

— Restaurants were briefly barred from allowing outdoor dining patrons to use their bathrooms, or customers to pick up takeout orders inside, but the rules were quickly reversed after an outcry.

— A determined state trooper found a driver whose car had been buried in a snowbank.

— The FInger Lakes Land Trust acquired 68 acres near Skaneateles Lake.

— Alternate side parking is suspended all week.

— More than a dozen senior managers have retired or resigned from the MTA in recent months.

— A correction officer suffered a broken nose and a concussion in an attack by an inmate on Rikers Island.

— The city's new acting Sanitation Commissioner grew up wanting to be a garbageman like his father and worked his way up the ranks.

— City sheriffs busted an illegal nightclub "dangerously crowded" with at least 164 maskless people in Queens.

— The Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation is wondering why murals Cuomo promised honoring the tribe's culture haven't yet been installed on Exit 3.

— A man smoking on the subway stabbed two passengers who confronted him.

— Straphangers protested planned MTA fare hikes outside Cuomo's office.

— The Working Families Party plans to endorse Public Advocate Juamaane Williams in his reelection and City Councilman Brad Lander in the race for City Comptroller.

SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN

MAKING MOVES — Mike Bloomberg will be leaving his role as chief of staff to Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse and joining the Urban Tech Hub at Cornell Tech.

MEDIAWATCH — " The Journalist and the Pharma Bro: Why did Christie Smythe upend her life and stability for Martin Shkreli, one of the least-liked men in the world?"

REAL ESTATE

"FOR MARK THOMAS, Christmas really is toast this year. No turkey. No mashed potatoes and gravy. No sweet potato pie, his favorite. His cooking gas is off — and has been for almost three months. All he has is a hot plate and a slow cooker. Thomas and about 100 of his neighbors in the Housing Authority's Brownstones have been without their stoves for nearly three months, getting by on takeout, sandwiches, and anything that can be nuked or toasted. 'It's not going to be much of a Christmas,' Thomas, 62, told The Post...The Brownstones, 36 buildings on the Upper West Side, has a history of gas leaks. One leak in 2018 hobbled two of the walk-ups for much of the year. This time, ConEd had to shut off the gas trunkline to 11 buildings, lined up on West 91st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue." New York Post's Melanie Gray