By Beth Mellow

In a crowded upstairs room at Council House on West 72nd Street last Thursday evening, six Democratic candidates, and one Green party candidate for City Council, debated and discussed hotbed issues ranging from affordable housing to city taxes. The candidates are vying for an opportunity to secure the District 6 City Council seat vacated by Gale Brewer when she announced that she would run for Manhattan Borough President earlier this year. The Democratic primary for City Council will take place in September.
Candidates participating in last week’s meeting included (in alphabetical order) Ken Biberiaj, Debra Cooper, Noah Gotbaum, Marc Landis, Helen Rosenthal, Tom Siracuse, who is a Green Party member, and Mel Wymore. Although there were many nuanced differences, and a few larger divides, in the way candidates viewed topics, a belief that the community needed to secure more control over its destiny emerged as the central thesis of the evening. Time and time again, in regards to various municipal issues including education and housing, the candidates declared that the state government, or mayoral appointees, hold too much of the power in policy making.

In addition, each of the candidates also debated issues not only relevant to the Upper West Side community, but also the city at large, including Hurricane Sandy recovery. As one candidate, Debra Cooper, stated, “The Upper West Side is a specific geographic space but we have always been the leader on progressive issues affecting the rest of the city, state, and country.”

Last week’s event was hosted by the Social Action Committee of the National Council of Jewish Women, New York, West Side Federation of Neighborhood & Block Associations, and the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development. Here is a summary of how candidates weighed in on various topics.

Housing
While all seven candidates expressed concerned over rising rents on the Upper West Side and throughout New York City, each came to the topic with varying opinions on how to cap increasing housing costs. Some of the candidates mentioned problems surrounding the Urstadt law, which enables state government, instead of New York City, to set parameters for rent regulation, while others talked about the need to bring Mitchell-Lama style housing back for the middle class. See their opinions below:

Tom Siracuse: “I live in a rent control apartment, and if it weren’t for rent control, I wouldn’t be here today. Rent regulated apartments form the bedrock of working class and middle class people living in the city.”

Debra Cooper: “We need to repeal the Urstadt law. We can’t accomplish this without getting the Republicans out of control of the state senate. That will require some political organizing.”

Helen Rosenthal: “We have to work harder to connect with the community [on housing issues]. I worked with residents of Trinity House (a Mitchell-Lama building located on West 92nd street) to fend off a purchaser. They are now hoping to have a tenant buyout.”

Ken Biberiaj: “We have to support the young families that are living here and we have to hold HPD accountable to make sure that rent stabilized units are not deregulated.”

Mel Wymore: “Housing is a broken system in New York City because there are so many different programs between the city and the state working at odds with each other.”

Education
From overcrowded classrooms to free tuition at CUNY, all the candidates felt passionately about the state of education on the Upper West Side and throughout the city. Many of the candidates had personal experience with the New York City public school system, including Siracuse, who spent 29 years as a high school teacher; Landis, who helped establish Frank McCourt High School; and Gotbaum, who has been part of school boards and parent organizations over the past several years. Read what some of the candidates had to say about the current school system and how to improve it.

Marc Landis: “We need to give families options that don’t cost $40,000 a year.” He also stated, “I want to make sure the city council has more of a say on educational policies. It shouldn’t be only up to mayoral appointees.”

Noah Gotbaum: “I have fought against charter schools, high stakes testing, and demonizing teachers. The DOE right now doesn’t listen to parents and communities and are out to privatize our schools.”

Tom Siracuse: “We must restore free tuition at CUNY for students who graduate from New York City public schools.”

Debra Cooper: “We need to improve access to early childhood education. When you prepare kids as preschoolers, they do better once they get to grade school.” She added, “We need to work on classroom overcrowding too. The current elementary school bulge, will become a middle school bulge, which will in turn become a high school bulge.”

Ken Biberiaj: He believes it’s important to provide children with access to their local schools rather than sending them to other neighborhoods. “We’re zoned for P.S. 87 and we only have a four percent chance of getting our child into preschool there. When a school is right there, it doesn’t make sense that they won’t enroll your child.”

Mel Wymore: “We need to make sure that our resources are shared more effectively. There are some PTAs with million dollar budgets, while others have only $20,000.”

City Council and the Mayor’s Office
All seven candidates agreed that there was a need for reform, or at least some improvement, in the functioning of City Hall and City Council. In fact, certain candidates believed that Speaker Christine Quinn’s relationship with Mayor Bloomberg had become too friendly, and as a result, is affecting proceedings at City Council. Additionally, others felt that Quinn’s leadership is skewed, claiming that she favors districts where council members are most helpful in pushing forth her agenda.

Noah Gotbaum: “City Council has become a lap dog. Christine Quinn and Bloomberg have gone together like this (shows crossed fingers to the audience). We need a strong City Council.”

Ken Biberiaj: “While I don’t agree with Bloomberg on everything that he has done, I believe that we have made progress on many fronts over the past few years.”

Marc Landis: “We need to break ties that bind in the council. I will only support a next speaker who will work on creating those reforms.”

Debra Cooper: She believes that Quinn favors some council members, and by extension, their communities, based on their loyalty to her. Cooper explained, “You shouldn’t have the power to punish those who do not support you.”

Tom Siracuse: “We need a city council that is not dominated by one party.”

City Taxation
The candidates also weighed in on city income tax. All believed that there were issues with the current system, with many citing the fact that the current tax laws impose the same percentage on all residents who earn more than $60,000 annually.
Ken Biberiaj: “We don’t have control of our destiny. We have a 70 billion dollar budget in New York City, but so much, including taxation, lies beyond our control.”

Marc Landis: “As a member of the Democratic party, I have been a proponent of the progressive tax through and through.”

Noah Gotbaum: “It was our own Democratic party that took a pass on the millionaire’s tax.”

Recovery from Super Storm Sandy
Although District 6 was minimally affected by the hurricane, recovery and future preparation was still important to many of the candidates.

Mel Wymore: “We need to re-design our drainage system because currently our drainage system and sewage system are connected [which creates a whole host of problems during and after a major storm].”

Helen Rosenthal: “We need to demand from the government that they issue bonds [to help with the recovery].”

Noah Gotbaum: “There was a shortsightedness in excluding the community from preparation. We had 20,000 New York Cares volunteers interested in helping out, but no way to get involved.”

By Jessica Mastronardi & Joanna Fantozzi

Brewer Cuts Ribbon on Hydroponic Farming Classroom

On Tuesday, February 12, Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer joined students at the Computer School on West 77th Street to cut the ribbon on a brand new hydroponic farming classroom. With the help of $35,000 of discretionary capital funding allocated by Brewer, the Computer School created the state-of-the-art classroom to enhance science learning and provide delicious produce.

A long-time supporter of hands-on science education and green initiatives, Council Member Brewer funded greenhouses at Manhattan School for Children and P.S. 199. Brewer was also instrumental in the creation and development of Urban Advantage, a program that collaborates with the Department of Education and the City’s museums, zoos and gardens to fully engage middle school students in the sciences both in and out of the classroom.

Broadway Scores for P.S. 84

Broadway stars are temporarily leaving their respective stages to gather for a good cause — to raise money for P.S. 84 The Lillian Weber School of Arts. Kerry Butler, Randuy Redd, Renee Elise Goldsbury, Erik Charlston, Mark Soskin and Joe Iconis and Family will be performing “Broadway Scores for P.S. 84 – A Celebration of Songs Featuring Kerry Butler and Friends” under the musical direction of Dan Elish. This event will be held on March 3rd at Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New York History Society, at 170 Central Park West.

Ticket’s to the show range from $50 to $150 and include access to the 7 p.m. cocktail hour and 8 p.m. performance and live auction.

Use code “Broadway” to get a 20 percent discount on tickets at ps84cabaret.eventbrite.com. All of the proceeds will be going towards P.S. 84 and the PTA’s enrichment initiatives.

ADA Lawsuits vs. UWS Merchants

Merchant owners on the Upper West Side are learning just how much it costs to disobey the Americans with Disabilities Act.  According to Crain’s New York, the Florida-based attorney Ben-Zion Bradley Weitz is on the hunt for UWS storeowners with storefronts that do not meet ADA standards, and charging them tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees while plaintiffs on average make $500. Many storeowners claim that abiding by ADA regulations and the regulations of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is nearly impossible to do. The changes the ADA requires they make interfere with the preservation of these historic landmarks.

Affected  merchants are joining together create a defense against Weitz’s acts of alleged extortion. Among the list of supporters for these merchants include Barbra Adler, the executive director of the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District and Peter Panken, a labor and employment attorney.

Upper West Side Community Cheers Fracking Delay

Environmental activists and anti-fracking New Yorkers cheered Governor Cuomo’s announcement that the issuance of the final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, which would determine the fate of hydraulic fracturing in New York State, will be delayed. The announcement has been counted as a victory by opponents of the controversial drilling practice in the on-going debate over the health and safety impacts of hydro-fracking.

“It is my sincere hope that the Administration would heed the warnings of public health and environmental experts to stop this process in its entirety until a comprehensive and wholly independent health study can be completed,” said Upper West Side Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal in a statement.

Once the health review is completed within the next few weeks, and if it has addressed each of these concerns, a permit to begin the hydro-fracking process could be processed within 10 days.

On Feb. 6, Councilwoman Gale Brewer honored the Martin Luther King High School Knights soccer team in a ceremony on the steps of City Hall. The varsity team won their 14th Public School Athletic League title in 17 years. The Knights finished their season with an almost perfect record of 21-1. Since 1994, the Knights have amassed an impressive record of 344-25-14, and this past year were ranked 10th in the country in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s final poll of the season.

“The lessons they’ve learned on the field, particularly teamwork and sportsmanship, will remain with these students throughout their entire lives,” Brewer said in a statement.

Mandated Physical Education

Pretty soon it might be mandatory for New York City schoolchildren to play that dreaded game of dodgeball, or some similar activity. On Thursday, Feb. 7, Council Members Melissa Mark-Viverito, Robert Jackson, Letitia James and Gale Brewer held a press conference on the steps of City Hall, with Women’s City Club and American Heart Association, urging the Department of Education to make physical education mandatory.  The Women’s City Club released a report that showed New York’s inadequacies with physical education classes in public schools, including a shortage of PE teachers. The Women’s City Club also recommends a plan of improvement by necessitating mandated PE time and space in school buildings.

Paying a Parking Ticket: It’ll Cost You!

Drivers beware: Without any apparent notice, the service charge for paying an average $115 New York City parking ticket online has increased from $2 to $2.86. According to driver-advocate and parking watchdog Glen Bolofsky, who runs parkingticket.com, that’s a 43 percent increase.

“In essence, the city is charging its citizens a premium for something that actually eases the city’s workload, streamlines costs and reduces man hours,” Bolofsky said in a statement.

Drivers who think they do not deserve a parking ticket can report it on parkingticket.com through “Worry Free Parking,” where users can contest tickets that they receive through the city.  It’s worth a try. Parkingticket.com guarantees that it can reduce or dismiss their customer’s tickets.

Speakers from the neighborhood addressed a range of local concerns, including environmental friendliness, bad landlords and gun control, which residents considered particularly important following the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

“I’m wondering why we can’t register and inspect every weapon that is not going to be under an assault rifle ban, and why we can’t insist upon some kind of liability for gun holders, just like we have for driving a car and driving a power boat,” said Joyce Silver, a Columbus Avenue resident. “And why don’t we have schools for people who have guns, so that they have to pass safety and handling regulations?”

New York state Sen. Adriano Espaillat was sympathetic to Silver’s worries about guns’ accessibility. He said that he and Brewer were pushing in City Hall to establish gun buyback programs in neighborhoods across the city. “I think that locally, at the ground level, we have to do the best we can to bring back every gun possible,” he said, mentioning that political debate was not enough. “We want to do this at the grassroots level and bring it from the bottom up. … Every community must do what they can to eradicate guns.”

He noted, “I don’t see why people should have a semiautomatic rifle in their closet. I just don’t understand. It’s not part of my psyche or my culture.”

Assembly Member Richard Gottfried also spoke out against lax gun laws, saying, “It is outrageous that it has taken such an escalated series of mass murders to apparently put this issue on the front burner. We hope that it will produce results.”

Brewer voiced her support of stricter gun regulation as well. In response to a question about funding a march in Washington, D.C., to lobby for change, though, she said that the approach had to be tactical: “If we went to Washington, we would have to make sure that it included people from other parts of the country where there is stronger NRA [National Rifle Association] support, even upstate. Sometimes I feel like we’re talking to ourselves. I obviously think it’s a good idea from my perspective. The question would be, if we could pinpoint what legislation we could pass to actually do the kinds of things that we’re concerned about.”

One of her main concerns, she said, was firearms getting into the hands of people with mental health conditions, like the mental and personality disorders Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza is rumored to have been suffering from. “That can be lethal,” Brewer said.

In addition to guns, many locals talked about rats. Residents from West 89th, 80th, 72nd and 60th streets complained about the creatures taking over parks and garbage receptacles, and worried that even with the city’s recent efforts to curb infestations—including the “West Side Rat Academy”—not enough has been done.

“We’re quite good at getting rid of rats when we have a specific situation,” said Brewer, noting that she and the Department of Health do building-specific walkthroughs and then collaborate with building owners to address problems. Department officials further stated that the city was installing many “rat-proof” trash compactors and improving garbage cleaning and collection efforts around the neighborhood to prevent rats from prospering in residential areas.

The final heavily discussed issue of the evening was what city officials were doing to reduce the neighborhood’s environmental impact. With urgent concerns about climate change in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, locals asked about ways of switching to alternative energies and reducing carbon emissions.

Brewer was optimistic that the City Council would begin tackling the issue. “The discussion of Hurricane Sandy is going to be formal,” she said. “I think we could use that as an opportunity to try to get other aspects of a more appropriate environmental approach involved. It would be like a whole series of hearings to be planned out on the hurricane, and the ways in which the energy situation should be addressed in every single building. I think that’s the way to approach it.”

She added that this improved environmental approach could be a “silver lining in a horrific situation.”

Midland Beach, New Dorp, Tottenville—these are neighborhoods few West Siders had ever visited, or perhaps even heard of, until last week. Few of us will ever forget them now—and not only for the suffering and devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy. We will remember because we made their names, along with Far Rockaway and Coney Island, our own.

The first few days reminded me of the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Life as we knew it had stopped, and everyone seemed to be in shock. The subway, the city’s lifeline, was crippled. We couldn’t get to work, or if we did, it was closed. School was out, and so the kids were home. Refugees from lower Manhattan began moving in with friends. Soon there was no bread, and before long, no gas. What we did have was a glut of television images of survivors pleading for help and of damage that seemed to dwarf the capacity of government to respond.

I believe it was in part those images of hungry, dispossessed people and shattered lives that inspired West Siders to do what comes naturally to us: lead, organize, network and donate what’s needed, but especially to give of ourselves. The problems weren’t all far away. Hundreds of people came to our neighborhood shelters seeking care. After a tour of the evacuation centers at IS 118/Joan of Arc School, Brandeis High School and John Jay College, I called Shelly Fine, head of the Upper West Side CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and he went into action, finding volunteers, locating dry clothing, delivering food and even getting sponsorship for a hotel room for two disabled seniors.

And then there were the donations of food, clothing and bedding that poured in from every part of the community. Members of the JCC of Manhattan were generous with contributions, and their lobby quickly filled. They found cars with gas and drove to where the need was. But then all West Siders wanted to donate, and they brought more supplies to JCC, so my office working with City Council colleagues in devastated communities organized truckloads to go to Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and downtown Manhattan. At the same time, a shout-out on Facebook for contributions to be dropped off at the Firehouse Restaurant brought supplies and a line of people to load them into trucks bound for the Rockaways. The Fourth Universalist Society collected donations and working with Congregation Rodeph Sholom brought them to Staten Island and the Rockaways. Congregation Ohab Zedek, Lincoln Square Synagogue, Advent Lutheran Church, Community Free Democrats and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun did the same, and there are more.

Fairway and Fresh Direct donated food, as did Carmine’s and the New York Hospitality Alliance, and trucks from the City of NY as well as Mel Wymore made deliveries. Bike and Roll is now doing the same.

We used social media to tell West Siders how they could volunteer. They went on Council-sponsored buses and on their own to clean up homes, visit seniors on high floors and give out supplies. When they were told that blankets, not clothes, were needed, they took it in stride and donated to the Salvation Army. Members of our local NYPD volunteered in their off hours. Staff at LaGuardia High School, where students come from all over, identified those families who no longer had a home, and found apartments and funded clothing and new books.

Riverside Park suffered serious flooding and tree loss, and the docks at the boat basin were damaged—luckily, everyone had evacuated. Riverside Park belongs to the West Side, and once word went out that it needed help, volunteers poured in: Community School District 3 families, Manhattan New York Temple of the Church of Latter Day Saints, teens from Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Hippo Playground families, gardeners, bicyclists, runners and neighbors—more than 1,000 people swept the park clean of debris and leaves from Riverside South to the “Great Gray Bridge.”

West Siders want to continue their support of the post Hurricane Sandy efforts, but they also want to know what are the lessons learned and what changes should be made to our infrastructure in the near future.

Gale Brewer is the City Council Member representing District 6, which includes the Upper West Side and Clinton.

Those who have worked closely with her slip easily into hyperbolic statements attesting to this uncanny ability, but many people are unaware that Brewer has managed to do this while helping to raise dozens of children.

Brewer, 61, has taken in many foster children with her husband, Cal Snyder. They’ve had 35 kids over the years and have adopted several children, now grown. Brewer said that’s one of the reasons she feels so connected to the community.

“I have a long history with all kinds of people,” she said. “I know all the young people. That gives me entree into a whole group of people and their families. [My former foster children] all live on the West Side, most of them, still.”

“I’ve always thought of Gale Brewer as a magical force,” said Mel Wymore, former chairperson of Community Board 7. “She can be in five places at the same time, pass groundbreaking bills while responding to thousands of constituents each day, and she seems to know every person—and pet—on the planet.”

“She is everywhere, managing to appear at, and contribute to, more meetings in an evening than most of us can squeeze into a month,” said Mark Diller, the current chair of the board.

The exaggeration is only slight. Brewer regularly appears at community board meetings, town halls, nonprofit events, fundraisers, artistic gatherings and parties. Where some would send staff members in their stead, Brewer goes herself, often simply to make announcements, say hello and listen to constituents before moving on to the next event (or staying until well past 10 p.m. to hear the results of a vote).

She even comes to events during which she remains entirely out of the spotlight. At a recent presidential debate viewing party hosted by the Community Free Democrats at an Upper West Side bar, Brewer arrived too late to snag a table and perched instead on the stairs, ordering a drink and watching the TV screens, her presence unannounced and largely unnoticed. She wasn’t there for show. She was there because she considers it her job.

“It is a 24/7 job. If anybody thinks less, they’re wrong,” Brewer said in a recent interview.

The fruits of her constant efforts over the past 11 years in office are myriad. Brewer has written and passed dozens of bills, but she points to a few of them as her greatest accomplishments.

“I would say the Open Data Bill [is one of them]. We’ll see what happens, but just the fact that the bill exists, there’s now a technical manual, the city’s taking it seriously,” Brewer said, referring to the law that requires city agencies to post all public information in an easily accessible online portal. The mayor signed it into law this year, and it’s slated to become fully enacted by 2018.

“That’s nerdy, that’s techy, but it’s exciting,” she added. “To me, city data is yours—the public’s—and it should be available.”

Brewer said that she and her staff had attended hundreds of meetings over many years, working with information officers from the former Clinton administration and national experts on open-data laws to craft the bill and push it forward. She served as the chair of the Committee on Technology in Government for seven years and now heads the Committee on Governmental Operations—she’s a self-professed policy wonk and loves getting into the nitty-gritty of city operations.

Accessibility is important to Brewer, and she often attributes her own accessibility to her staff, crediting them with keeping her district office a bustling and welcoming place for constituents. The Columbus Avenue storefront is packed with flyers and brochures and staffed with the help of a team of 30 to 40 student interns. Residents know that if they stop in at the office, they’ll get a response to their question or help with their problem.

Another of Brewer’s proudest and most hard-won accomplishments is passing the retail rezoning law for the Upper West Side that is designed to preserve “mom and pop” local businesses. Maintaining the character of the neighborhood has been a key fight for Brewer, who also has worked often with preservation groups to expand historic districts and designate new landmarks.

While Brewer has lived on the Upper West Side since 1969, she credits her in-depth knowledge of the neighborhood to working for former City Council Member Ruth Messinger in the 1990s before Messinger became borough president and ran for mayor.

“I worked for Ruth for a long time,” Brewer said. “That’s how I know this neighborhood, and I really owe everything to her. Everything.” The two now co-teach a course on public policy at Hunter College.

She also said that several positions she held before running for office have been instrumental in helping her now.

“In the Dinkins administration, I was the director of the federal office,” Brewer said. “[That deals with] how many grants you get, what’s the markup like, how much highway money do you get versus pubic transit money, all of the environmental stuff, what agencies apply for federal grants. That was an eye-opener. That has helped me immensely today talk about policy and issues.”

She also studied nonprofits and worked for a time for a private real estate development company, helping craft a complex deal to build new affordable housing units in Far Rockaway, Queens, which she said has helped her in working with developers and residents on housing issues on the Upper West Side.

“I always know the brownstone crowd, and the co-op crowd, and the rich crowd and the middle-class, Mitchell-Lama crowd. You have to be someone who is comfortable in all of those crowds,” Brewer said.

With her city council term set to end in 2013, Brewer could be looking ahead to a more relaxed existence, although that’s pretty unlikely. (Asked about her free time, she is hard-pressed to remember the last time she took a vacation, although she recalled a time she jetted over to Europe to see relatives for dinner—and then immediately flew home.) She is planning to run for Manhattan borough president, though she has yet to put together a campaign staff. Before that, however, she’s focused on finishing out her third and final term on a strong note.

“My dream would be to pass some version of the paid sick leave. You can’t imagine how hard we have been working on that bill,” Brewer said of the bill that she authored requiring businesses to give workers paid sick days. “You don’t actually often get a chance, with one piece of legislation, to take care of half a million or a million people’s real basic needs. People really do get fired for being sick, and they’re not people who speak up a lot.”

She would also like to help lay out a framework for the next administration to address the pressing issues of job creation and housing, and to continue her work making the Upper West Side safer and more senior-friendly.

“I’d love to figure out a way that the skills and the knowledge that I’ve accumulated is put to good use for the city of New York,” Brewer said of her possible next steps. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”

Wight seized on a statement that Maloney made during a rally protesting the presence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, at the United Nations.

“In the last year, Iran has grown ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon—we’re no longer talking about ‘if’—instead we’re wondering ‘when,’” Maloney said at the event. “Just last week, Iran’s vice president and head of its nuclear program admitted in an interview given to Al-Hayat that Iran gave foreign officials misleading facts about the state of their nuclear progress.”

Maloney went on to outline the reasons she believed that the UN should reject Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy at the assembly.

Her opponent was apparently riled by her statement and issued one of his own, saying that he has a much clearer and better plan for Israel.

“Carolyn Maloney is emboldening Iran and sending conflicting messages to the international community,” Wight said in a statement. “Instead of insisting that the U.S. stand by our policy of not allowing a nuclear Iran, Maloney conceded that it is only a matter of time.”

CONTRACTOR NAMED FOR MARINE TRANSFER STATION
The Department of Design and Construction awarded a contract to rebuild the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station, a project the city continues to move forward with even as residents and lawsuits attempt to throw up delays and roadblocks. The DDC announced that it will give the $181,640,000 contract to a joint venture between construction companies Skanska and Trevcon. A spokesperson reiterated that this is the first step in a process to retain final approval for the contract. It must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget and then move to the Comptroller’s office to be registered.

Meanwhile, local groups are keeping up the fight. On Thursday, Oct. 18, at 7 p.m., the East Side Democratic Club is hosting a meeting at Brown Gardens Community Room, 225 E. 93rd St., with Assembly Member Micah Kellner and attorney Albert Butzel to inform residents about the lawsuit Kellner has brought against the MTS plan. For more information, call 212-861-2014 or email esdemclub@gmail.com.

GARODNICK PROPOSES SICK LEAVE COMPROMISE
Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer has been pushing to pass the paid sick leave bill that she authored, but has been thwarted thus far by Speaker Christine Quinn’s refusal to bring the bill to a vote. Mayor Bloomberg has made it clear that he would veto it, citing a negative effect on small businesses.

But now a new version may make its way to the floor of the council and could win over critics. Council Member Dan Garodnick proposed four amendments to the bill that so far have been well received, as the New York Times reported last week.

The biggest change would be to lower the number of paid sick days required for businesses with 20 or more employees. Currently, the bill requires businesses with more than five employees to provide five paid sick days annually, and businesses with 20 or more employees to provide nine paid sick days. Garodnick’s amendment to “remove the cliff” and simply require all businesses with over five employees to give five days quells small businesses’ concerns that the higher number would keep businesses from hiring more workers to avoid bumping up to nine days.

Garodnick also proposed exempting seasonal employees, allowing employees in the service sector to swap shifts if they’re sick without having to utilize a paid sick day, and limiting the time in which an employee could sue for paid sick leave benefits.

Fairway responded by calling the incident “unconscionable” and launching a rodent investigation along with renovations that the store says are costing them thousands of dollars. Management has suggested that the nearby construction is the source of the rat problem. Upper West Side shoppers may have some sympathy for Fairway, as residents have been dealing with an influx of the furry pests throughout the neighborhood.

LOCAL PARENT GRILLS ROMNEY
Upper West Side parent and vocal public education advocate Noah Gotbaum attended an Education Nation forum with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week and was one of the few audience members able to ask him a question about his education policy ideas. After asking Romney about choice in public schools, Gotbaum said, “The parents here support the union to protect our kids three-to-one over the mayor and the chancellor. That’s a recent poll. So, to say that the unions are holding back our kids, as a parent and as parents in polls said, it’s the opposite.”

Gotbaum was citing a Quinnipiac poll released in February. The poll asked New Yorkers whether Mayor Bloomberg or the teachers’ union could be trusted more to protect the interests of public school students. Sixty-nine percent of respondents who have children in public school chose the teachers’ union, versus 22 percent who picked Blooomberg.
But Romney wasn’t interested in the poll numbers, apparently, and told Gotbaum, “I don’t believe it for a minute,” suggesting that the poll numbers could be manipulated.
“Having looked at schools, I know that the teachers’ union has a responsibility to care for the interests of the teachers,” Romney continued.

Gotbaum said in an email after the event that he felt Romney’s attitude was indicative of the bigger problems in public education.

“Romney’s dismissal of parents’ views and inability to handle the truth reflects the much larger problem in which education policy in this country is made largely by a small group of businessmen and corporate-backed elected officials and foundations who mostly send their kids to private schools yet brook no dissent whatsoever from public school parents, teachers, principals, students and educators who live in the system,” Gotbaum wrote.
GARODNICK PROPOSES SICK LEAVE COMPROMISE
Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer has been pushing to pass the paid sick leave bill that she authored, but has been thwarted thus far by Speaker Christine Quinn’s refusal to bring the bill to a vote. Mayor Bloomberg has made it clear that he would veto it, citing a negative effect on small businesses. But now a new version may make its way to the floor of the council and could win over critics. Council Member Dan Garodnick proposed four amendments to the bill that so far have been well received, as the New York Times reported last week.

The biggest change would be to lower the number of paid sick days required for businesses with 20 or more employees. Currently, the bill requires businesses with more than five employees to provide five paid sick days annually, and businesses with 20 or more employees to provide nine paid sick days. Garodnick’s amendment to “remove the cliff” and simply require all businesses with over five employees to give five days quells small businesses’ concerns that the higher number would keep businesses from hiring more workers to avoid bumping up to nine days. Garodnick also proposed exempting seasonal employees, allowing employees in the service sector to swap shifts if they’re sick without having to utilize a paid sick day, and limit the time in which an employee could sue for paid sick leave benefits.

The DOT has been conducting a series of forums to educate restaurant owners and delivery cyclists on existing laws (Administrative Code 10.157) that have been enforced sporadically. The rules governing commercial cyclists, which are different than for commuters or casual bikers, come from both the DOT and the police, and the DOT is planning on stepping up enforcement of the areas within their purview starting in January.

They’re first targeting the Upper West Side, and will next move to the Upper East Side, because of the high numbers of complaints the city and the local community boards have received over dangerous and illegal practices by delivery cyclists, who flout the laws in favor of quicker routes (and thus more tips).

While the NYPD is responsible for ticketing moving violations—running red lights or riding the wrong way down a one-way street, for example—the DOT is going to be focusing on restaurant owners and hitting them where it hurts when their employees don’t follow the rules.

“It’s really going to be your job to educate your cyclists,” said Kim Wiley-Schwartz, DOT’s assistant commissioner of education and outreach, at the presentation.

The law requires that employers provide helmets and upper body apparel with their business’s name and the bicyclist’s unique three-digit identification number clearly visible. The workers must also carry a business ID card with their photo. On their bikes, they must have bells or other noise-making devices, a white front headlight and a red taillight (used from dusk to dawn), reflectors on the wheels, and brakes—a requirement that some laughed at as obvious, but Wiley-Schwartz said she’s seen many cyclists just use their feet as brakes. Owners are also responsible for posting safety laws and regularly training their workers on how to follow them.

Some business owners griped at the extra expense of providing these items to their workers; others commented that it’s just one more way the city is nickel-and-diming small businesses. When Wiley-Schwartz said that the fines for breaking these laws would be levied solely on the business owners and that they are currently in the range of $100-300, the room was audibly agitated.

“I’m struggling right now, so I’m really enraged,” said Francesca Vaquero, who owns a restaurant on the Upper East Side and came to attend the session. “I think it’s a great idea, but what about regular cyclists who break laws outside my business? Isn’t the city just kicking it to small businesses?”

Dimitrios Vezyrakis owns Caesar’s Palace, a pizza restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue that employs several delivery cyclists. He said that following the laws can make everyone safer, but it will also make his deliveries slower.

“You’re delivering 20 blocks and stopping at every light, it’s going to add 15 minutes,” Vezyrakis said after the presentation.

He asked that the DOT try to educate the general public about the necessary safety laws so that they don’t expect food they ordered to arrive in five or 10 minutes.

“My main problem is the customers need to know this,” Vezyrakis said, noting that some online ordering systems like Seamless Web allow businesses to give accurate delivery times and adjust them if necessary. “If you know when to expect it, you’re going to be patient.”

For now, the DOT is focusing on educating the owners before they begin sending their special enforcement team out to issue violations. The inspectors will watch businesses and write tickets when they see a consistent pattern—for example, if one cyclist forgets his helmet one time, that might not result in a violation. If all delivery cyclists are forgoing helmets, however, the business will be held responsible.

“I think people want to know the facts, and they appreciate the education before tickets,” said Council Member Gale Brewer, who sponsored the event and works regularly with bicycle issues through her office.

Brewer said that while she believes that business owners have been aware of the laws regarding commercial cyclists, the people who actually work with them aren’t always as clear.

“When I went door to door with the police—actually, I went with the cops way before any of these programs—I learned that the managers sometimes aren’t sure what the law is, and then they can’t communicate it to the workers,” she said. “Then the manager says, ‘I tell the workers but they don’t do it.’ So the fact that the workers showed up today, that’s fantastic.”

Neufeld Playground

“This playground was originally built in 1937,” Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said at the ceremony. “By the 1990s it had fallen into disrepair, and [Henry Neufeld] stepped forward, and as one of his last acts of philanthropy, he funded the reconstruction and provided the endowment. That was 20 years ago; it’s amazing what can happen to a playground that gets heavy use in 20 years, and it needed another fix-up.”

The biggest change to the playground was the installation of new play equipment, which has already proven popular with local kids. There are separate sections, designed for toddlers and for older children, as well as a space in the middle with benches that surround the park’s iconic elephant statues that spray water from their trunks, allowing parents and nannies to keep an eye on both areas of “Elephant Playground.” The department added a ledge surrounding the giant sandbox so kids and parents can sit on it, as well as a handicap-accessible sand table so that disabled children can get into the sand too. There is also an ADA-accessible swing on the new swing set, new safety surfacing, and new plantings in the gardens surrounding the equipment.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose office allocated $500,000 in capital funds for the renovation, praised Benepe and the Riverside Park Fund for pushing for the revitalization of the park and getting it done.

“I went this past weekend to P.S. 199 to the playground with my wife and my little guy, 8-month-old Max, and for the first time put Max on the swing in the park, and it was this overwhelming experience,” said Stringer. “It really is an amazing experience when you realize that this really matters to kids and parents, because, let’s face it, we live in this big urban center.”

Council Member Gale Brewer, who channeled $400,000 of funding to the renovation, hailed the project’s landscape architect, Margaret Bracken, for designing such a beautiful new play area.

“Every dollar of your money … that we can allocate to Riverside Park is well spent, because it is thoughtful, it has soul and commitment and it’s something that we can be proud of for generations to come,” Brewer said.

Bracken said that when she was redesigning the playground, she wanted to preserve some original elements like the giant leafy trees that shade the toddler area, and pay homage to long-lost parts of the original design.

“In the early designs from the 1930s and 1940s, those Moses-era playgrounds, they actually had little playhouses in them,” Bracken said, explaining why she decided to include a modern playhouse in the toddler section.

For the older kids, parent feedback drove her to create a more inventive structure.

“The unit that was there before wasn’t really challenging enough,” Bracken said. “Parents now become very involved in the selection of the units, and they wanted something that had a lot more climbing, swinging, upper body components, as well as, of course, good slides and all the traditional elements.”

Benepe, who paused frequently during speaking to joke with the kids at the playground, is leaving his post as commissioner to become the Urban Programs Director at the Trust for Public Land. He acknowledged this was most likely his last ribbon cutting as parks commissioner and said he’ll miss events such as this.

“What I do love about this job is that I have a great excuse to go hang out in playgrounds,” Benepe said.