News: Retaining New York City's Black community

Monday, March 27, 2023

Retaining New York City's Black community

Mar 27, 2023

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Around 200,000 Black New Yorkers have left the five boroughs over the last decade — a population on par with the entirety of the city of Rochester — largely for better opportunities in the South.

At the same time, Black political power in New York has never been stronger, as it includes almost every leadership position save the governor’s office.

With those trends in mind, several Black officials sent a letter Friday to the governor and leaders of the Senate and Assembly outlining policies that could be included in the state budget with an eye toward stemming the out-migration. The signatories include City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and 11 Council members.

“This exodus negatively impacts our state’s tax base, economy and diversity,” the officials wrote. “It is imperative we take action to reverse this trend to ensure New York remains home to Black people in our city and state.”

The letter calls on state leaders to pass the Clean Slate Act, create the Housing Access Voucher Program and convene a task force to investigate the disproportionately high number of BIPOC women and girls who go missing each year. A number of doula initiatives were cited as a way to reverse the alarmingly high death rate among Black mothers during childbirth. And the officials also requested an increase in public school money, that Albany match the city’s annual contribution to NYCHA and additional help to cover rent shortfalls among public housing residents.

This is not the first time Black leaders convened with a specific focus on uplifting their communities. In January, top officials from the city and state gathered at the National Action Network to discuss potential changes to public safety policy. But in contrast to that meeting — where officials convened a press conference to, strangely, announce they would not be talking about the meeting — Friday’s letter included a detailed list of 17 priorities.

The Council speaker and public advocate are far down the pecking order of people able to influence the state’s $200 billion-plus spending plan. And some of the requests, like a pied-a-terre tax, have not been part of discussions and are extremely unlikely to be taken up as lawmakers and the governor dig in for what many expect to be tense negotiation period through this week — and likely beyond.

But the letter largely backs items already on the bargaining table, and by framing the issues as vital to the Black community from their respective bully pulpits, the group of officials could provide a boost to lawmakers negotiating with the governor.

“Black people in this country, state and city have often borne the worst impacts of racial disparities,” the officials wrote. “Our public policies and investments should reflect an honest recognition of this fact.”

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

WHERE’S KATHY? In Albany with no announced public schedule.

WHERE’S ERIC? In Albany for budget meetings and later holding a press briefing to talk about it.

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In Long Island where environmental protection has long been a winning issue for electeds from both sides of the aisle, Suffolk County and Brookhaven Town leaders stood together last week with environmental advocates, labor leaders and the local community to champion the clean energy, jobs and local investment that will result from Sunrise Wind. The offshore wind project being developed by Ørsted and Eversource will power more than 600,000 homes annually, create hundreds of jobs and fund local programming.

WHAT ALBANY'S READING

NEW SIENA: New York voters, nearly half of whom said they are tuning into the final days of state budget negotiations (wait, really?!), had mixed opinions on the major issues being debated in Albany around the state budget, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll released today.

Siena found that two proposals being negotiated had strong bipartisan support. One of those — raising income taxes for New Yorkers making at least $5 million — was backed by 76 percent of voters. Another, allowing more discretion for judges to set bail for those accused of serious crimes, had the support of 72 percent of voters. (The first proposal is supported by Democratic majorities in both state Senate and Assembly, but not Gov. Kathy Hochul. The second is supported by Hochul, but neither chamber in the Legislature. So that’s how that’s all going.)

The poll also found 58 percent of voters, including more than two-thirds of Democrats, back a ban on flavored tobacco that has divided elected Democrats and civil rights leaders. — Anna

“Kathy Hochul’s Plan to Force NYC Suburbs to Approve More Housing Sparks Battle,” by Wall Street Journal’s Jimmy Vielkind: “Backhoes are finally clearing the earth for the development of Matinecock Court, an affordable-housing complex in this Long Island suburb that was first proposed 45 years ago. To housing advocates, a multifamily project first floated when Jimmy Carter was president is the ultimate example of unreasonably restrictive suburban zoning and the reason for a push by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to change the rules. To Long Island officials, who have long been concerned about traffic and school crowding, Matinecock Court was a challenge to the inviolate need for local control over land-use decisions.”

Labor and green groups look for another big win: Decarbonizing state buildings, by POLITICO’s Marie J. French: An alliance of unions and environmental groups has returned after scoring a victory last year with a new target: shovel-ready plans to decarbonize the biggest state-owned energy gobblers. The coalition has already made major progress by getting both the Assembly and Senate to include their proposal to require decarbonization of state-owned buildings in their one-house budget plans. That includes mandating the completion of shovel-ready plans to eliminate on-site fossil fuel use at the 15 biggest polluters by April 2025, with a focus on large-scale geothermal and other thermal energy networks.

ICYMI: “NY governor gets new list of chief judge candidates after nominee rejected,” by Reuters’ Daniel Wiessner

“Can Cannabis Class Help the Industry Legalize? Growers Are Doubtful,” by The New York Times’ Wesley Parnell: “While many states that legalized cannabis are losing revenue to illicit markets, New York aims to bring underground growers into the sanctioned market. The challenge is convincing a thriving industry, long distrustful of law enforcement and government, to embrace new regulations. So far, however, New York’s legalization effort has been slow and bumpy. And for legacy growers who signed up for the training program, it’s unclear if it will improve their chances of getting a license, leading to frustration for some.”

#UpstateAmerica: The town of Bethlehem is working to save an historic Route 9W dairy barn that needs… a lot of work.

JOIN POLITICO ON 4/5 FOR THE 2023 RECAST POWER LIST: America’s demographics and power dynamics are changing — and POLITICO is recasting how it covers the intersection of race, identity, politics and policy. Join us for a conversation on the themes of the 2023 Recast Power List that will examine America’s decision-making tables, who gets to sit at them, and the challenges that still need to be addressed. REGISTER HERE.

What City Hall's reading

ASAF ZAMIR, Consul General of Israel in New York, announced his resignation in a statement he posted on Twitter Sunday. He cited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire Israel’s defense minister and said he is becoming “increasingly concerned” with the policies of Israel’s government. “The past 18 months as Israel’s Consul General in New York were fulfilling and rewarding, but following today’s developments, it is now time for me to join the fight for Israel's future to ensure it remains a beacon of democracy and freedom in the world,” Zamir wrote. — Anna

... “Israel’s top diplomat in New York quits after firing of defense minister," by Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh

“Mayor Proposes First Composting Mandate in New York City,” by The New York Times’ Emma Emma G. Fitzsimmons: “The Adams administration will propose New York City’s first composting mandate on Monday — requiring that residents who have yards separate their leaves, flowers, twigs and grass clippings for compost. The new rules on yard waste would take effect over the next 18 months as the city also implements a voluntary curbside composting program across all five boroughs.”

WATCH: Mayor Adams sat down with Pix 11’s Dan Mannarino on Sunday to discuss how the city is preparing for the expected Trump indictment and how it's dividing up money to support asylum seekers.

“Fifteen Years and More Than 197 Crashes, 277 Injuries and 4 Deaths Later, the City Still Hasn’t Started to Fix This Bronx Corridor,” by THE CITY’s Jonathan Custodio: “A notoriously dangerous corridor of intersections in the West Farms neighborhood of The Bronx is also the site of one of the city’s longest delayed improvement projects.In 2008, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Design and Construction introduced a plan for improving safety in the corridor where there have been 197 car crashes, 277 injuries and four deaths since August 2011, according to NYC Crashmappers. Fifteen years after introducing that plan, DDC told THE CITY it’s hoping to start what it anticipates will be a three-year construction project to improve the streets around where East 177th Street, East Tremont Avenue and Devoe Avenue all intersect — in late 2024.”

“NYPD re-ups contract with Hollywood ad agency amid recruitment woes,” by New York Post’s Craig McCarthy: “The NYPD has quietly renewed a multi-million-dollar contract with a Hollywood ad agency in an effort to attract new cops — as the department struggles to increase recruitment levels while facing a mass exodus of officers. The Los Angeles-based firm, Walton Isaacson LLC, was awarded a $5 million two-year deal in November to continue advising on police recruitment and media strategies, according to city contracts.”

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TRUMP'S NEW YORK

Trump attorney says he will not ‘defend or condemn’ Trump’s rhetoric toward Manhattan DA, by POLITICO’s Kelly Garrity: Joe Tacopina, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, on Sunday called Trump’s social media attacks on the officials involved in New York’s hush-money probe “ill-advised,” but declined to directly condemn the posts. “I’m not his social media consultant,” Tacopina said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in discussing Trump’s posts, one of which warned of “death and destruction” should he face a criminal indictment.

— Andrew Cuomo, who has identified as a Democrat, was on the radio bashing Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg — and other Democratic prosecutors he doesn’t like — for going after Donald Trump.

FROM THE DELEGATION

"The Dual Education of Hakeem Jeffries," by The New York Times' Nicholas Fandos: "Three decades later, accounts of Mr. Jeffries’s history-making ascent have largely focused on his relative youth and his time as a House impeachment manager. But to fully understand how he claimed power and might wield it as the first person of color to lead a party in Congress, it is instructive to retrace the divergent experiences that fueled his rise from Brooklyn to Washington, as described in dozens of interviews with friends, allies and adversaries."

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AROUND NEW YORK

— The city’s massive curbside composting program starts today in Queens.

— A State Education Department advisory group has decided school team names like Raiders, Warriors, or any referring to Indigenous people, need to be changed.

— A union representing ferry workers says a fire that broke out on a Staten Island ferry in December was the result of staffing shortages and “haphazard training.”

— A bipartisan group of City Council members wants CUNY to lift its vaccine requirement for students.

— Experts aren’t clear why there have been so many whale deaths near New York and New Jersey.

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SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rob Nabors of the Gates Foundation … Walt Mossberg … NBC/MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff …

... former Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) … Edelman’s Erin Schwille … Yuriy Bash … (was Sunday): Bob Woodward … CBS’ Margaret Brennan … Shahid Naeem of the American Economic Liberties Project … Carlos Mark Vera of Pay Our Interns … Vivian Yee … Katie Janov … Phil Chui … Erica Jong ... Nancy Snyderman … Miriam Warren …

… (was Saturday): Bari Weiss … Avi Heller … Casey Neistat … AP’s Steven Sloan … Fox News’ Nick Kalman … Fox News’ Pat Ward … Gene Shalit (97) ... Michael Ortiz of Sequoia Capital Partners … Gloria Steinem … BCW’s Erica Cooke … Emily Schillinger of the American Investment Council … Chas Danner … Rachael (Baitel) Greenberg … Andrew Revkin … Suzanne Helman … (was Friday): Martha Hollander … Laura Spitzer

— Jon Reinish has been promoted to becoming a partner of Mercury. He most recently was a managing director at the firm and is an alum of SKDK and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). … Matt McNally is now an SVP for Rasky Partners. He previously was chief of staff for former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) and is a Jeff Merkley alum.

THE PARTY YOU WISH YOU WERE AT — Darren Walker, Laurie Tisch and Holly Peterson hosted a gathering on Friday night at an Upper East Side apartment for close friends from New Jersey and New York of Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to meet art world and NYC friends of his new girlfriend Sarah Lewis, a professor of art and architecture and African and African American studies at Harvard and the founder of the civic initiative Vision & Justice. Booker and Lewis made remarks to the crowd, who enjoyed passed hors d’oeuvres and a buffet dinner of vegan food featuring lentils, Brussels sprouts and stuffed peppers, plus salmon, steak and lamb chops. The couple met through mutual friends. Pic of Booker and Lewis at the party

SPOTTED: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Drew Faust, Yara Shahidi, Emily Tisch Sussman and Kevin Craw, Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, Nell Irvin Painter, Carrie Mae Weems, Veronica Duron, Hank Willis Thomas, Agnes Gund, Jelani Cobb and Jordan Castel.

FOR YOUR RADAR — “Steve Cohen’s Amazin’, Maddening, Money-Losing Bid to Own New York,” by The New York Times’ Matt Flegenheimer and Kate Kelly: “Once a symbol of Wall Street excess, Cohen has invested lavishly in the Mets, becoming the most beloved billionaire in Queens. Is that enough to reverse team history?”