Task Force Issues Partisan Redistricting Maps

The NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) has issued its proposed NYS Assembly and Senate maps. The maps, widely viewed as contorted, have joined criticism from all across the state. The shapes of some districts, the elimination of others, a 63rd Senate district, and the placement of sitting legislators in the same district have inspired citizens to attend public hearings and at least one rally in protest.
LATFOR is controlled by Senate Republicans and a Democratic Assembly. The Senate Republicans decided to place a 63rd Democratic Senate seat in the Capital region near Albany, instead of in New York City where there has been an increase in population over the past 10 years. That proposed Capital region Senate seat is being challenged because it is viewed as a ploy for Senate Republications to retain their 32-29 seat majority despite a decline in population upstate.
The proposed maps are also viewed as shortchanging NYC because Senate districts in the city are more than 3% larger than the average district size. Every district what the Westchester however, is more than 4.5% smaller than the average sized district. With such a wide spread in population size per district, the average Senate vote by cast upstate weighs 7.3% more than the average vote in New York City and surrounding regions.
There are some notable features of the GOP Senate proposal. The district formerly held by disgraced indicted former Sen. Carl Kruger has been eliminated. That district, covering Brighton Beach, Bergen Beach, and Mill Basin, would be split between State Senators John Sampson (D) and Marty Golden (R). New York City Councilman Lew Fidler and Brighton Beach attorney David Storobin are currently campaigning for Kruger’s seat and vowed to continue to do so even though the seat may be eliminated by year’s end.
State Sen. Eric Adams home was drawn out of his district by one block and placed in Sen. Velmanette Montgomery’s district, leaving Adams district with no incumbent. State Sen. Kevin Parker’s district has been pushed into Park Slope. The Borough Park and Midwood sections of Parker’s district have been formed into a new district that would concentrate Orthodox and Russian Jewish votes while creating a new Republican seat for those conservative voters.
The senate district currently held by Diane’s Savino is one of the LATFOR’s most oddly drawn districts. It would retain a large segment of Staten Island’s North Shore plus two separate pieces in Brooklyn. This district would most certainly be challenged because the NYS Constitution mandates that districts should be “compact” and consist of “contiguous territory.” Districts “shall contain as nearly as may be an equal number of inhabitants.”
For senate districts in Queens currently held by Democrats would be merged into two, pitting incumbents Michael Gianaris against Jose Peralta and Toby Ann Stavisky against first-term Tony Avella. The merger of Stavisky’s and Avella’s districts was purportedly done in order to create an Asian- majority district in Flushing.
LATFOR’s plan would create three Asian-majority districts – two in Queens and one in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn.
LATFOR has been holding public hearings on the proposed maps this week in every NYC borough and next week at various other locations around the state.
Although Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pledged to veto any “partisan” redistricting proposal, it remains to be seen if he will veto or negotiate with the legislature. A veto would take the matter out of legislator’s hands and place it in the courts.
Senate Democrats have already filed suit challenging the GOP increase of seats from 62 to 63 and the placement of that seat of state rather than in New York City that grew faster than any other part of the state. There are also lawsuits currently in the courts challenging the time delay in New York State’s redistricting process.
LATFOR is scheduled to issue NYC Congressional maps in March which will add tension to an already contentious process because the state is losing two congressional seats.
Last week U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe ruled that New York State Congressional primary will be held on June 26. The new date will have New York State in compliance with the federal military and overseas voter empowerment act, ensuring that absentee ballots from overseas military personnel will be sent and received in time. The law requires that ballots be sent out no less than 45 days before a general election for a federal position. Ballots for a primary to determine which candidates will be on that ballot must be sent 35 days before that deadline.
The federal ruling does not apply to New York’s state legislative primaries which are generally scheduled for the second Tuesday in September. The Republican presidential primary must take place on April 24. While assembly Democrats recommended the June 26 primary date, Senate Republicans are feeling pressure to hold the state legislative primary on the same date as the congressional primary as a cost-saving measure. Primaries for state offices are currently scheduled for September 11.

NYCHA development being privatized. Prospect Plaza residents need credit check to move back in

A Brownville public housing development, which displaced over 1,000 low-income residents nine years ago for alleged renovations, is now being slated for redevelopment as a mixed-income project with retail on the ground floor.
The Prospect Plaza Housing Development at 1773 Prospect Plaza was shuttered in 2003 by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) for planned renovations. This includes four 12- and 15-story buildings with 368 apartments, and the closing displaced 1,172 residents, who were told they could return upon completion.
However, in 2007 the project was suspended after it was determined that it was financially infeasible to renovate the towers.
Then this month NYCHA announced jointly with the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) that it issued a call for developers to design, construct and operate a mixed-use development that will result in a minimum of 80 NYCHA public housing units and 280 affordable housing units along with ground-floor retail, community facility space and open space.
“This is outrageous,” said Milton Bolton, former Prospect Plaza Tenant Association President who has been a long-standing supporter of making sure the Plaza’s status returns to the NYCHA residents. “All 360 units was supposed to be NYCHA housing”
Bolton noted that according to the new plans, only 22 percent of the units will be for NYCHA tenants and all future new applicants who choose to return to the new development will have to undergo a credit check as part of the application process.
“You do not do credit checks for people who are already in housing,” said Bolton. “They are trying everything to make this development private”.
NYCHA Spokesperson Zodet Negron responded that the agency is in contact with about 240 former Prospect Plaza households, most of which were relocated to other NYCHA public housing units in Brooklyn, with a large concentration in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community (Community Board 16).
“The Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) program will be used to finance the project and requires reasonable credit history, including a credit check, for all new residents of the development,” said Negron.
Meanwhile, Bolton said he is very disappointed in all the local elected officials in not coming to bat and dropping the ball since 2003 for their low-income constituents.
“They (elected officials) were supposed to see that this gets built and none of them did. I remember a City Council hearing about this several years and they all swore they would make it (renovations) happen, but it never did,” said Bolton.
Negron said the new development will be done in three phases with completion slated for 2017 – or 14 years after closing Prospect Plaza. By Stephen Witt And Diane Dixon

Charter High School Students Want Their School To Remain Open

The Williamsburg Charter High School, a new “State-of-the-Art” high school located on Varet Street in Brooklyn, has been put on probation and may have its charter removed at the end of this school year, forcing hundreds of children to have their education interrupted midway through their high school years. The New York City Department of Education is threatening to pull the schools charter for what they claim are fund discrepancies, fund misallocations and Board of Trustee members’ conflicts of interest. In a letter sent to the students, parents and posted on the WCHS Web site, the Principal of the school, Ms. Marsha Spampinato, stated:

Today, the New York City Department of Education publicized their intent to revoke Williamsburg Charter High School’s operating charter at the end of the 2011-2012 school year based on the concerns regarding items such as the school’s organizational structure, Board of Trustees’ composition, and compliance with the school’s charter and applicable state law. Please note that none of the New York City Department of Education’s concerns relate to the school’s academic program.
Principal Spampinato went on to assure the parents and students that the WCHS will continue its commitment to the highest academic standard possible. The conflict began as the result of an NYCDOE audit of the WCHS. After the audit, the NYCDOE sent their “preliminary findings” to the WCHS. The findings listed approximately 25 discrepancies which required a written response from the WCHS. Out of the 25 questions, 14 of the findings were disputed, 3 were given an explanation and 8 (which do not appear to be criminal) were substantiated by the WCHS. None of the NYCDOE’s findings were against the school’s academic program. The WCHS was placed on probation in September of 2011 and was required to meet 9 conditions of a “Remedial Action Plan” outlined by the NYCDOE. One of the conditions the WCHS had to meet to avoid violating the terms of the Remedial Action Plan was to terminate its contract with the Believe High School Network, who manages the school. The Board of Trustees passed a resolution to sever its ties with the Believe High School Network as of January 31, 2012.
In a meeting called by the WCHS on Monday, the parents and children voiced their displeasure at the possibility of the school being closed at the end of the year and called on elected officials to step in and save the school for the students. Although not much was discussed about the conflict with the NYCDOE for legal reasons, there were many parents who believe that there are many in the NYCDOE, and possibly in the Bloomberg Administration, who believe that their children’s 30-million-dollar high-tech high school (which is equipped with “Smartboards,” “Elevators,” a Varsity Basketball team that made the playoffs and a “Rock-Climbing Wall”) is too good for Black and Hispanic children. The NYCDOE plans to meet with the WCHS on Friday to discuss the issue in more depth. For updates on the ongoing dispute, go to the Williamsburg Charter School’s Web site at: http://www.thewcs.org/

Kings County Politics: Barron likes chances in Bed-Stuy

If Bedford-Stuyvesant proves to be the bellwether district in deciding the 10th Congressional District race, then City Councilman Charles Barron likes his chances.
Barron, along with incumbent Rep. Ed Towns and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries are all vying for the seat in the district that covers a wide swath of Brooklyn. Pundits believe that if each candidate covers their base constituency then the vote in Bed-Stuy could decide the election.
“The people of Bed-Stuy need a voice in Washington to stand up to both the Democrats and Republicans. Both Towns and Jeffries say they are unifiers. But look what bipartisanship got us. It got us the Iraq War and lifted a cap on $3 trillion worth of services that cut Medicaid and Medicare,” said Barron.
Barron said while it is easy for both Towns and Jeffries to jump aboard the Obama bandwagon, he will question the president on why the unemployment rate for African-Americans is 16 percent – nearly double the national unemployment rate and what will he do to bring these numbers more in line.
“Obama will carry New York City so the question isn’t how much support are we going to give Obama. The question is how much is Obama going to support us?” said Barron.
While Barron said he likes his chances in Bed-Stuy, his campaign will be run on a relative shoestring. He said he expects to raise about $150,000 total – well below the expected large election war chests of both Town and Jeffries.
Then again, Barron narrowly lost to Towns in a three-way race in 2006, when former Assemblyman Roger Green played a spoiler role.
In that election Towns carried Bed-Stuy by about 200 votes in roughly 2,500 votes cast, according to Barron.
In this election, though, Jeffries is stronger than Green in that the former self-proclaimed reformer now has the backing of powerful Kings County Democratic boss Vito Lopez and his network of political clubs. This includes Bed-Stuy’s Vanguard Independent Democratic Association (VIDA) club.

VIDA tabs Cornegy President
Speaking of the Vanguard Independent Democratic Association (VIDA), the powerful Bed-Stuy political club picked Democratic District Leader Robert Cornegy as it’s new president – a move that several independent Democratic sources say is more like an “anointment”.
Cornegy was handpicked by City Councilman Al Vann several years ago when he suddenly dropped out of the Democratic Assembly District Leader race and appointed Cornegy to replace him without opposition.
Cornegy was also on the inside when Vann swapped his former state assembly seat with former City Councilwoman Annette Robinson when she was term limited out of office.
Now with strong rumors that Robinson is going to retire, Cornegy said he’s going to run for her 56th District Assembly seat.
While Cornegy has to be considered an early favorite, sources say several other people are considering throwing their hat in the ring. This includes Common Grounds Coffee Shop owner Tremaine Wright, Community Board 3 member Ella Joy Williams and Rep. Ed Towns’ liaison, Karen Cherry.
“I see the Assembly race as a wonderful opportunity for us as a community to elect a capable, dynamic and responsive elected official,” said Wright. “If Ms. (Annette) Robinson decides she’s retiring then a number of people will pop up who might not even be thinking of running and it would be a healthy race.”
One political source said Cornegy could be tested in the Assembly race.
“He (Cornegy) was definitely anointed and there’s definitely questions about his abilities,” said the source. “I don’t get the sense he has what it takes. There’s a place for political clubs, but there’s times when they are not in the best interests of the community.”
But Cornegy defended political clubs, saying they just have to be updated and that Central Brooklyn is suffering because of division from independent Democrats.
“Clubhouse politics have always been a rallying point and meeting point for getting things done,” said Cornegy. “The power of clubs is undeniable, but how the power is yielded has to be looked at.”

Odds and Ends
Olanike (Ola) Alabi, the 57th Democratic Assembly Female District Leader, will be fighting a war on two fronts in the September primary.
That after Parliament Democratic Club President and community activist Renée Collymore announced she will again take on Ola for the Female District Leader seat. Ola is also running against male Democratic District Leader Walter Mosley for the state Assembly seat that Jeffries must vacate to run for Congress.
Also announcing a run for office is longtime community activist Tony Herbert, who will run for William Boyland’s 55th District Assembly seat.
Boyland, while still in office, is facing felony charges of bribery and corruption and must step down if he is convicted.
While Herbert said he feels bad that “a brother” might be convicted, the upside is it can be an opportunity to transform the community.
“We’re supposed to be about the community and there’s been problems in the community for a long time,” said Herbert. “The Boylands have been about the family business and not the peoples’ business and that’s the issue.”

View From Here: An American Tragedy Revisited

If you’re not apprehensive about the candidates running for the Republican nomination, then you haven’t been paying attention. All talk about being in a post-racial society has to be seen now as hopelessly naïve and dangerous to health and liberty.
Former Congressman Rick Santorum got the ball rolling when he said he didn’t want to give Black people other people’s money, and his campaign enjoyed a nice little surge in the polls. Then there is Newt Gingrich, perhaps seeing the surge in Santorum’s campaign after he played his race card, declaring that if invited to the NAACP convention, “I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps”. And then at a recent Republican debate, when FOX correspondent Juan Williams bravely asked questions about Gingrich referring to President Obama as a “food stamp” president, and other Gingrich comments about African-Americans, he was raucously booed and Gingrich received a “whoop and holler” standing ovation for taking the race cards and doing tricks with the deck, answering “Juan” in the most condescending way possible. As Yvette Carnell put it on Your Black World Web site, “We’re in the middle of the greatest downturn since the Great Depression, engineered mostly by the clever and cunning miscreants on Wall St., and all Republicans can say is: ‘Look! There goes a Negro with a welfare check!’”
These are the people who are going to select the Republican nominee. They are the ones passing laws to suppress voter participation by nonwhite people, they are the ones who say they want to “restore America”, glorify the “Founding Fathers”, “take our country back.” There are those of us who don’t want to go back. They’re talking about times that were not very pleasant for African-Americans at all.
And they will have as their eventual candidate, Mitt Romney, of whom Lee Siegel writing in the New York Times Op-Ed, “The simple, impolitely stated fact is that Mitt Romney is the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory.”
So the Republican strategy is to make both the overt and covert campaigns about skin color and stay away from what’s been done to the economy and the standard of living of the 99% of Americans. If they are able to get away with that argument, and have whites vote color rather than their economic interests, seeing in the ever-changing Mitt Romney that one undeniable constant, his whiteness, then President Obama will have a very hard time being a two-term president.
And the danger here is not so much Romney, he’s been on both sides of so many issues we don’t know where he’s going to stand on any issue at any time, the danger is in the people who come in with him. They are not confused. They want to “take the country back,” and will use race as a lever to do just that. And of course, thanks to President Obama’s signing of the Defense Authorization Act, they will have the power to indefinitely detain American citizens who object to a repressive state and who claim it’s their country, too. And if you don’t think that’s possible in the good old U.S., then you haven’t been paying attention.

Comptroller John Liu Meets with Our Time Press publishers

At a time when the Bloomberg Administration is closing after-school programs to save $20 million in a $68 billion budget, the tens of millions of dollars that Comptroller John Liu has been finding in city agency accounts is very meaningful. The comptroller has also created a transparency to the city’s finances that is unprecedented. A visit to the My Money NYC Web site (www.comptroller.nyc.gov/mymoneynyc) allows the examination of city agency expenditures and shows that MWBE businesses received only 2.9% of the city budget, and that the percentage to African-Americans was less than 2%.
We had the opportunity to speak with the comptroller when he met with Our Time Press at Rowe’s Restaurant on Tompkins Avenue January 5. Over a shared plate of okra, saltfish and white rice, he spoke with us about the first half of his term in office and why he seems to work at it with such obvious enthusiasm.

Our Time Press: How’s it going in the comptroller’s office?
John Liu: In a couple of days it’s going to be halfway through and it has gone by so quickly. I remember giving my first speech like yesterday, and the swearing in and boom!, half the term is over. It’s been exciting, no question.
Aggressively pursuing our responsibilities, and some may say, “Maybe you don’t have to pursue it so vigorously”, but I have a job that the people put me in this office to do. And it’s a job that requires independence from other elected officials, especially City Hall. I’m the 43rd person to have the privilege of holding this office. And through auditing and contracts and making good investments, those are responsibilities I take very seriously. Especially in a time when City Hall talks about service reductions and layoffs, one of my main focus points has been on the outside contracting, where it seems too often the reductions of service and layoffs of city employees are kind of at the top of the list of options and somehow the outside contracting escapes the list of options. Maybe we can’t afford all those outside contractors.

Our Time Press: What’s been your “highlights,” major accomplishments, halfway through?
John Liu: Very proud of the transparency we’ve introduced to city government; for example, mymoneynyc.com, and you can get to it through the comptroller’s office. It’s an online tour that allows the public access to everything that is happening with the public’s money. It’s literally the city’s checkbook. You can see every expenditure paid. By agency, by purpose, the date, the amount, you can sort and download, it’s literally like going to a bank and signing onto your own checking account. It’s the city’s checking account, and in fact, it is your account. It’s an unprecedented level of transparency, not only here in New York City, but all across the country. And in fact, we’ve gotten many calls from other states and cities asking us about how we implemented something like this.
We looked at a number of large contracts, City Time being one of them, but other ones too, a project called ECTP, a 911 call system, projects that have been years delayed and suffered severe cost overruns. We’ve been able to, in the case of City Time, put a stop to additional money and additional contact being related to that contract, and in other cases, greatly pared down the amounts of the monies that are being spent on those contracts.

Our Time Press: I saw an article in the Daily News the other day about your office finding $17 million being held by an agency. What happens when you find that money? Does it just go into the general fund? Can it be earmarked for programs, job programs?
John Liu: My office does not have the power of the purse. The power of the purse lies with the City Council and the mayor. When we find money that’s being inappropriately kept or used, the agency has to turn that money back into the city’s treasury, so it does go into the general fund, at which point, through the normal budgetary process, it gets allocated.

Our Time Press: It just seems like you were finding significant amounts of money, $20 million, $17 million, sooner or later you’ve got a pile there.
John Liu: It adds up very quickly, and many of these are several millions if not in the tens of millions-dollar range. The biggest one being an audit we did of the Economic Development Corporation, which netted $125 million dollars. This is money that, we’re not saying that anyone is doing anything improper or stealing. It’s just that no agency gets to say, “We’re going to keep this money on the side and withdraw it as we need.” You have to go through the normal budget process. And when you think of the scale, we have a $70 billion dollar budget, think of how the mayor spoke of closing 105 senior centers earlier 2011, the price tag, or the cost savings of that was $27 million dollars. So the $27 million dollars cost for that versus finding $17 million here, finding $10 million there, it adds up pretty quickly.

Our Time Press: That’s why I asked if it could be earmarked, because it seems every summer that comes around, there’s never enough money for the teenage jobs and you’re only talking about relatively small amounts of money.
John Liu: That’s right. All these millions they add up and the goal is, and this is why the contracts and the auditing has been a primary focus for me. I knew when I took office, I was coming from the City Council, I knew that we were in very tough fiscal times, and for years the mayor’s been saying we need to have reduction in services and layoffs of city workers. We pointed out that it wasn’t that inevitable, because there was still pockets of waste that could be recovered so that those services could be protected.

Our Time Press: Looking in other areas for a moment, if you were mayor what would you do differently in education and health?
John Liu: I would do a lot differently. First, big picture. A fundamental problem of our schools our days is that they have become statistic-generating factories. No longer places of learning. I think we have to restore the learning atmosphere. As opposed to the test-taking, numerical- performance generating, and in many cases, a highly policed atmosphere where none of those things are conducive to proper learning. So we have to restore the learning atmosphere in the schools. That’s going to require a reduction in the emphasis on these once-a-year high-stakes tests. There’s going to be an emphasis on the overcrowding, because the over-crowding in some of these schools leads to a great deal of tension. Not only among students, but among anybody else. That then requires the DOE to flood the schools with a high concentration of police officers and school safety agents, it’s not conducive to learning. Also, paying more attention to what the teachers are saying. So I think the teachers have been pushed to the side in terms of determining how best to educate the kids. It’s all about management and statistics, and the teachers are not being given the opportunity to suggest how better to educate kids. For example, I actually believe there should be more testing. But the testing I’m talking about is not these once-a-year high-stakes standardized tests. We should go back to the days when I went to school when we got pop tests once a week. And you didn’t know what was going to be on the test. But that requires the DOE to treat teachers as professionals. As people who know what they are doing.
Another big area is the idea of co-location of schools. I think the way it’s been executed has been terrible. Has been overly divisive and controversial. I don’t know what the value is in closing a school, and some of these schools have been around for a hundred years with generations of alumni who now have Alma Mater to point to. And replacing these schools with half-a-dozen different management units we now call schools, I’m not sure what the value of that is. Or the value of sticking a new school into a building that has another school, very divisive and unnecessarily so.
So in terms of the learning atmosphere, the reduction of emphasis on the high stakes testing, giving teachers more latitude and relying on them as professionals, reducing the police presence and structuring the schools in a way that’s less divisive. Those are the things that I would do very quickly if I had a chance to.

Our Time Press: Any thoughts on curriculum?
John Liu: I think there needs to be some more emphasis on career and technical education, which is something that has been expanded in recent years, but we need to do more. I’ve been very involved, for example, in Transit Tech, which is a high school in East New York which trains students to maintain subway cars, in getting subway cars to work on. That’s a great school and gives students choices. Many of the students, we want to prepare them to go to college. Some students realize that college is not a part of their immediate goals, let’s get them ready for something else. And these career and technical education schools are there for them. The gifted or talented programs are all concentrated in Manhattan. In Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, there aren’t any of these or not nearly enough to satisfy the demand and the need. So we have to provide more choices and providing more choices doesn’t always require closing down schools and opening new schools.

Our Time Press: The work you’ve done with the private equity firms in terms of leveling the playing field, how would you expand that in other government agencies?
John Liu: That’s my prime directive. To level the playing field in this city, and as far beyond as I can. Certainly in the city of New York, where we draw people from around the world, it should be a place of opportunity. And I feel that it is not a place of equal opportunity yet. We have to work towards that goal.
You know what we were able to do last year in terms of some big bond deals. Instead of having the same old people take their turn at selling the city’s bonds, we opened up the process and by doing so, we attracted more offers, got better results for the taxpayers and we were able to have a company that would not have been a part of the process get in the door.
This year we’ve focused on another part of the investment banking world, which is the management of our pension funds. We’re looking to build that kind of capacity among money managers, and as part of that program, we are increasing the piece of the pie that is directed toward developing emerging managers, specifically MWBE’s. We put out an RFP and in this case, Vista Equities. We’ve had experience with Vista and they were able to show great results in the past, and they were able to trade on their great track record and deliver superior results for our city. And your question is how do we get other government agencies to do this.
The playing field has been very un-level for a very long time. It’s hard to change that overnight. It can’t be changed overnight. In fact, it requires a concerted effort. If you look at what we did in my office, that did not come easily. We could have done the easy thing and just do the same-old, same-old; instead, there was a substantial amount of work , it requires a lot more work. I thinks agencies need to step up the effort. They have to make the effort and that has to come from the top. If it does not come from the top, there is no incentive to go the extra mile to level the playing field. And that’s something that I do criticize this administration for. Because notwithstanding all the sweet talk out there, the tone has not been set at the top. You can see it not only in the results of contracting, you can see it in the upper ranks of the administration, you can see it in who is walking in and out of City Hall itself, and all of that translates into the ongoing disparity that we have in unemployment. It’s all connected. Minority entrepreneurs have the strongest track record of creating the jobs and hiring people in the neighborhoods where those jobs are needed the most. And so to me, we have billions of dollars of purchasing power in the city of New York.

Our Time Press: Could you just explain minorities having the strongest track record?
John Liu: It’s been well-documented and is a lesson that Carl McCall taught me some time ago. If the city continues to give these big contracts to the same old big companies, they’re not necessarily hiring from the communities that need it the most. A big company can be hiring from everywhere–NJ, Conn., from all over the place. But if you’re hiring locally, whether an Asian-owned business in Flushing or a Black-owned business in Bed-Stuy, or an Hispanic business in Washington Heights, that’s where they’re going to be hiring people from. And those are the places where the jobs are needed the most. That’s what I mean about a strong track record. Just out of practical reasons. The minority businesses hire from where they are.

Our Time Press: Regarding the city agencies, the DOE increased their book vendor qualification levels to something like $5 million…
John Liu: And that cut out a lot of minority vendors.

Our Time Press: Exactly. Those contract elements, are they under mayoral control and how can those systems be changed?
John Liu: Yes, they are and we first look within our own agency. And the contracts that we do the most are the bond contracts and the pension investment contracts. And we’re trying to pry all those open from within my office. When you look at the other agencies, first and foremost, you have to tell it like it is. For a long time, and I was hearing this all the years I was on the City Council, I kept hearing, “The city’s doing much more business with minority vendors”. And for years I was hearing this and I would ask, “Well, how much more business are we doing” and I could never get the answer. Now as comptroller, we’re still asking City Hall for that information. And all of last year we kept getting stonewalled. They have a report, they just didn’t want to release it to us. So at that point, we just decided, you know what, since we pay all the bills, we know where the money is actually going, and we started tracking what money actually ends up in the hands of minority contractors. And that’s why we developed the MWBE report card. Which is continuously updated, and it reflects the percentage of money that’s actually winding up with minority entrepreneurs as well as with women entrepreneurs. And the statistic is shockingly small. But at least the first step is just laying it out, bit by bit, so that people could start to understand why the problem is persisting and not improving. Identify that this is an issue, that 2% is going to minority businesses is woefully inadequate. That gives city agencies the added incentive to go the extra mile so that their own statistic can improve. And we also help them understand what barriers are existing that make it hard for minority entrepreneurs.

Our Time Press: What kind of barriers have you found?
John Liu: We’ve interviewed dozens of minority entrepreneurs and asked them about the kinds of problems they face doing business with the city. Bonding requirement are one of them. That’s been a big one. Another is that for some of these small companies the threshold is set too high to participate. A company can handle a 100K but may not ber able to handle a $500,000. Another issue “retainage”, where the city holds back 15% even after the job is completed. This can severely impact a small company.
A number of issues have come out regarding procurement rules and we’re looking to make changes in those rules. Now, how to get agencies to perform: Number one, lay it bear so that agencies are, for want of another term, embarrassed. I don’t believe there is actual intent, I think it just has to be demonstrated what the problem is. Secondly, change some of the rules that are impediments. Set a tone from the top that says go the extra work and you will get recognized for it. Why will they do it if they’re not going to be recognized for it.

Our Time Press: In that 2%, any breakdown in terms of ethnicity?
John Liu: Yes, African-American, Hispanic, Asian and women. Those are the four breakdowns. And there are disparities within each of these subgroups. But the disparities are tiny amounts.
The city touts that fact that they do $400 million in business with minorities. That’s in a budget with $18 billion in contracts which is a little over 2%. Which is completely unacceptable and does not reflect the skills and talents of minority entrepreneurs. What it does expose is an ongoing system bias that makes it difficult for minority entrepreneurs.
Our Time Press: What about the Occupy Movement?
John Liu: The Occupy Movement is something that we all have to take very seriously. I see it as a spontaneous outcry not different from the outcry from the general public. The rich keep doing far better and everybody else is being left behind. The fact that they were seemingly not organized. Not that much different from what the general public was thinking. I think it was just wrong to send in police with riot gear in the middle of the night.
Our Time Press: Is there anything else you would like our readership to know?
John Liu: Well, there is an investigation into my campaign financing.
Our Time Press: That was our next question.
John Liu: One guy did the wrong thing. And the FBI complaint clearly states that he lied to my campaign. He actually asked the undercover to tell lies to my campaign staff so that we would not be suspicious. There is an investigation going on, we’re fully cooperating. I want them to get as much done as possible. At the end of the day, I’m proud of the fund-raising we’ve been doing. It is mostly from a community that has not had a voice before and people are proud to be participating. Nonetheless, none of this is going to slow me down from what I’m doing as comptroller, and also getting ready for any options that may lay ahead in a couple of months.
At this point, where I am today is far beyond anything I could have imagined growing up in New York City. Every additional day I’m in office is a bonus for me.

Disabled Women at Lexington Ave. Shelter Face Deferred Dreams and Violations

Maria Antonellis found herself transferred to a “punishment shelter” after a series of mishaps at the BRC Women’s Shelter at 85 Lexington Ave.
Each week she was required to see her case manager to sign an Independent Living Plan (ILP). Because her case worker did not keep regularly scheduled appointments, Maria was issued an undated “violation” for failure to keep her appointments.
She was given a warning stating a second violation would lead to her being “Next Stepped,” and transferred to a “punishment shelter” with an 8pm curfew, and where there is a 2-roll a-month allotment of toilet paper and none in the bathrooms.
Despite living with a heart murmur and osteoporosis, using her own initiative Maria found a job. After working a couple of weeks, Maria found herself displaced by students at a nursing school and unemployed. Homeless shelter clients are required to save 60% of their earnings via Postal money order. “I was working 8 days, and got two checks. Next thing you know, they are looking for my 60%,” said Maria. In total, Maria earned approximately $300. After paying back loans from friends, she had no money. Maria offered to give 60% of her EBT payment ($32.40), which the shelter accepted.
Maria was given a second “violation” and at 9pm that evening, Maria was ordered out of the shelter and given 15 minutes to leave and no carfare. She was told to go to Plaza Next Step Women’s Shelter at 555 W 174th St. in Manhattan. She went to a fair hearing on Sept. 28 where her violation was rescinded the same day. 85 Lexington was ordered to allow Maria to return. Each time Maria called, she was told there were no beds available.
Barbara Gonzalez walks with a cane after having surgery on her foot due to a car accident a few months ago. She needs additional surgery on her foot as well as surgery on her back. As a result of her various conditions, Barbara needs to take medication. Protocol at 85 Lexington is during intake on list of the client’s medications is generated. Barbara takes medication for high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, and pain in her foot and back. She says clients are allowed to keep their medications with them unless they are controlled substances. Barbara says one day someone went into her locker without consent. She suspects it was shelter staff that entered her locker because clients are required to use shelter locks that staff has recorded the combinations. The next day shelter staff demanded a search of Barbara’s locker and pocketbook. Barbara’s medication was confiscated. According to Barbara, when staff returned her medication bottles three weeks later, some of the pills are missing. During that time, Barbara had no access to her medication.
Barbara says shelter staff accused her of taking drugs. She was given a urine test which came out positive. Barbara says, “According to them, I was positive for every drug known to man. I have never taken drugs in my life. My medications may give a false positive.” Barbara says she rarely takes the medication because after she does so she needs to rest and there is no place to rest at the shelter. “Ms. Calloway, the director accused me of using drugs and being in a methadone program. I asked, ’OK, where did you get this information?’” When Barbara demanded the source of the information and threatened to sue, staff retracted the charge of a positive urine test and returned her meditation. Barbara took her prescribed pills to her friend’s house and never brought them back to the shelter. When she needs a pain medication she goes to a friend’s house 2 buses and 40 minutes away and takes it there. “I only go when the pain becomes unbearable,” said Barbara. “They promised me an apology letter, but I have never received it.”
In addition, Barbara receives $22 from public assistance every two weeks. The shelter is demanding 60% to hold as savings. Barbara says this is impossible because the co-pay or one of the medications is $10.
Since these incidents have occurred, Barbara has been moved from the medical dorm. “They say the medical room does not exist. It does exist; they call it the CCP room” where clients are allowed to stay all day as long as they are dressed by 11 AM.
Margie Roldan is completely blind, has MS, lupus and has had a disk removed from her spine. Margie said during her stay at 85 Lexington she was constantly harassed by staff who did not believe she is blind. One day, she was given a 2 hour notice that she had to leave 85 Lexington shelter and go to Susan’s Place, a specialized shelter in the Bronx. She had 4 suitcases and $2,984 in cash. She had called the facility prior to leaving 85 Lexington and asked if she could be accepted with her 4 suitcases. “The people had no idea who I was. They had no transfer papers for me,” said Margie.
According to Margie she was being transferred because 85 Lexington was not suitable for her based on her disability. Yet she had been at 85 Lexington for 15 months. 85 Lexington staff offered to take Margie to Susan’s Place in their van, but refused to take her 4 suitcases. She was forced to take a cab to Susan’s Place, but because they had no documentation of Margie, she was not accepted at that time. to a hotel, where she spent 4 days at a cost of $150 per day. Margie had to pay someone to stay with her because the hotel would not allow her to stay there by herself. For three days Margie took a cab from the hotel to Susan’s Place at a cost of $60 each way. Each time she was turned away because documentation Ms. Calloway gave Margie was an inadequate blank form with Margie’s name on it. 85 Lexington was forced to allow Margie to return where she stayed for a week until the transfer to Susan’s Place was finalized.

Cuomo calls to end fingerprinting for food stamps – Governor and Mayor at odds over issue

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday called for the end of the controversial Bloomberg administration policy of fingerprinting all food stamp applicants.
New York City and the state of Arizona are the only municipalities in the country that follow this procedure.
“There is never an excuse for letting any child in New York go to bed hungry. Statewide, 1 in 6 children live in homes without enough food on the table. Yet 30 percent of New Yorkers eligible for food stamps — over 1.4 million people —do not receive them, leaving over $1 billion in federal funds unclaimed every year,” said Cuomo in his State of the State speech.
“We must increase participation in the food stamp program, remove barriers to participation, and eliminate the stigma associated with this program. And we must stop fingerprinting for food. No child should go hungry in the great State of New York and we will do all that we can to prevent it,” he added.
The state previously fingerprinted all state residents applying for food stamps, but outlawed it. However, Bloomberg asked for and a received a waiver from the law for the city from former Gov. Elliot Spitzer.
The Bloomberg administration, which did not have comment on Cuomo’s statement at press time, has long maintained the finger imaging prevents and deters food stamp fraud.
“Some may be inadvertent and some may be an attempt to take advantage of the system, but with a savings of $5.3 million in 2010 alone, and at a cost of $183,000, the benefit of finger imaging to the taxpaying public is clear,” Bloomberg spokeswoman Samantha Levine told Our Time Press in a previous story on the issue printed a month ago.
Cuomo’s announcement also comes as the city dropped about 13,000 New Yorkers from the federally funded food stamp program in November.
The reported drops come after several city council members have been lobbying the Bloomberg administration to do away with fingerprinting.
“The Bloomberg Administration must explain not only this drastic decline, but its overall management of the food stamp program, which has seen enrollment fluctuations over the last year and still requires applicants to be fingerprinted,” said City Councilman Al Vann.
“It is deeply disturbing that approximately 13,000 New Yorkers were dropped from the food stamp program in the same month as Thanksgiving, and when hunger and poverty remain at near record levels in our city,” he added.

People line up in the cold outside housing court

It was 10 am Tuesday, and the bitter cold on the first official business day of the new year didn’t diminish the long line standing outside the housing court building at 141 Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
“They want their rent money, but they don’t want to fix or repair anything,” said Shakia Sease, a single mother of four children ages 17, 14, 12 and 9 who lives in Canarsie’s Breukelen Houses, which is a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) development.
Sease said she has put work orders into management of the Breukelen Houses to get her apartment fixed and repair people say they came and the work is done, but they never showed up to do the work.
Among this work that still needs to be done includes radiator maintenance, a hole in the ceiling above the shower pipe and the need for a new front door, she said.
“I’m not behind on my rent and I brought documentation to prove it but they (NYCHA) say I am behind so they’re taking me to court.”
Once in the building, the housing court is in Room 202, it is packed with people. This includes young children – some of whom are sleeping on the hard, wooden benches – and others who are standing as all the seats are taken. Meanwhile, the line to the information counter is snaked around the wall outside the room leading to the elevators.
“If you have an emergency you can ask for representation and the landlord almost always has an attorney on their behalf and they’re (landlords) not usually here. So you just deal with their attorney,” said Julio Pacheco, who lives near Brooklyn College and is currently three months behind in his $1,000 per month one-bedroom apartment.
“I had a situation where I owed money for school loans and I got backed up after the state threatened to garnish my wages,” said Pacheco, who is a maintenance worker for Columbia University.
Pacheco said his landlord filed to evict him and he was in housing court to get an extension to pay his back rent.
One woman with three young children who gave her name only as Nicole, was facing eviction from her one-bedroom apartment at NYCHA’s Boulevard Houses in East New York.
“I’ve seen four people from my building here today and we all got served with eviction notices on New Year’s Eve,” she said.
Nicole said her apartment was also in disrepair and has never been fixed.
“I’ve been looking for another apartment and applied for Section 8 (a federal housing subsidy) but I got frozen out after the city ran out of vouchers,” Nicole said.
Nicole said she attends school and works full-time at a hospital on the night shift, but between rent and medical bills she is having trouble keeping a roof over her and her children’s heads.
“They cut me off of Medicaid because they look at your gross and not your net. But a lot of the money I make pays for babysitters while I’m working or going to school,” she said.
According to the supervising court interrupter, who has been in his position for the past 12 years, housing court cases have doubled or tripled in volume over the past year. At the same time, the state has ordered cutbacks in his department, forcing him to lay off one worker.
The supervisor said workers in his department interpret for both landlords and tenants if need be.
Many knew immigrants buy a three- or four-family house and then they get into problems with tenants that are unable to pay the rent.
“About 10 percent of all the eviction cases end up with people being thrown out on the street,” said the supervisor. “They say the economy is getting better, but not here.”

2011 in Review By The Our Time Press Staff

January
Medgar Evers College restrained from evicting Center for NuLeadership
The new administration of Medgar Evers College got into a heated debate with several elected officials and community leaders after it decided to evict the Center for NuLeadership.
The Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions is a public policy, research and advocacy academic center that assists with entry into college for those with involvement in the criminal justice system.
In an effort to force the center off the campus, President William Pollard and Provost Howard Johnson blocked the center’s funds and refused to approve a $2.4 million grant that would have given first-time nonviolent offenders a second chance by sentencing them to college rather than prison.
The Supreme Court granted a temporary restraining order to prevent its eviction.
The matter was finally resolved in March when Our Time Press learned that NuLeadership will accept an offer from the State University of New York.

Cathie Black Becomes Schools Chancellor
Former media executive Cathie Black was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as the city’s new chancellor of the Department of Education.
Black promptly showed she had neither the experience or understanding for the job, sparking lawsuits and an outcry from the African-American political leadership – particularly after she issued insensitive slurs about residents needing more birth control to ease overcrowding.
“We are calling for her resignation. We don’t believe she should have been selected in the first place,” said City Councilman Charles Barron.
Councilwoman Letitia James offered a reasoned response to Ms. Black’s comments on school overcrowding.
“Apparently, within a week of Cathie Black taking over for former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, she has already shown her lack of experience in the field. Students have a right to a public school education, and overcrowding is not a funny subject,” said James.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE:
Focus of African-American and African Diaspora Studies Conference
This past week, scholars came to New York City from around the country and eight nations to take part in an historic conference on the state of African-American and African Diaspora Studies. The theme that ran throughout the conference was the need to bring the studies out of the ivory towers and into the streets, the hearts and minds of the masses of people of African descent.

February
Charter versus Public Schools
At an emotional and passion-fueled public hearing held recently by the Department of Education, parents and children turned out in large numbers to give their opinions and to have their voices heard.
The hot-button topic for discussion was the proposed site of a new public charter school; the co-location of the Teaching Firms of America Charter School into existing neighborhood Public School 308 (Clara Cardwell), located at 616 Quincy Street.
The community centered their objections to the proposed charter school around the issue of teaching space available. The parents advocated for their children’s right to have an “optimum learning environment” and grew frustrated as the children chanted “No Charter”– making their voices heard.

Wal-Mart Issue
The New York City Council hosted a raucous hearing on the potential entry of Wal-Mart into the city market.
The hearing was hosted by the Committee on Community Development, chaired by Council member Al Vann, jointly with the Committees on Small Business and Economic Development.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio submitted a report on Wal-Mart’s Economic Footprint in collaboration with the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development.
The report found “Wal-Mart depresses area wages and labor benefits contributing to the current decline of good middle-class jobs, pushes out more retail jobs than it creates, and results in more retail vacancies.”

March
Von King Cultural Center hours cut
The city has quietly cut the hours of a popular park cultural center in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant that serves dozens of young kids, teens and seniors – helping some with homework, providing a computer lab for others and involving many with arts programming.
Parents were notified Feb. 8 that the Herbert Von King Cultural Center’s hours would be reduced from 10 am to 9 pm on weekdays to 10 am to 7 pm.
“I’m infuriated that the Parks Department didn’t even consider having a dialogue with the people this affects,” said Lydia Temples, whose nine-year-old daughter, Nia Temples-Orr, goes to the cultural center after school.
The center, a former public library, is located in the popular eight-acre Herbert Von King Park, bounded by Greene, Lafayette, Tompkins and Marcy Avenues. It includes an amphitheater, a computer lab and a homework room. The indoor/outdoor amphitheater also hosts popular concerts in the summer.

Boys & Girls repeats as boys basketball champs
The road to New York City high school basketball glory once again runs through
Bedford-Stuyvesant.
That after Boys & Girls High School successfully defended their Public School Athletic League Class AA title in beating Coney Island’s Lincoln High School 62-55.
The championship game, played at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, featured the two top-ranked public high school teams in the city. In the past seven years, either Lincoln or Boys & Girls have won the championship.
“The first one (last year’s championship) was more of pressure, more of getting that monkey off your back,” Boys & Girls Coach Ruth Lovelace told reporters. “This one, I was a little bit more calm. I didn’t sleep (Saturday) night, but I did feel good. I told the guys in pregame talk that I really felt good about this one.”

April
NYCHA goes commercial
The cash-strapped New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is laying the groundwork for going into the commercial real estate business in Bedford-Stuyvesant, this paper has learned.
Several sources confirmed NYCHA has been meeting with stakeholders from both the Sumner and Tompkins Houses to discuss its preliminary plans to add hundreds of housing units to both developments with retail on the ground floor.
The Housing Authority ran a $19 million operating deficit for fiscal year 2010.
“NYCHA is looking for ways to generate income and is looking to put retail in both the Sumner and Tompkins Houses,” said a source involved in the discussions. “They were saying they want to add over 100 units to both of those housing developments.”

City looks to cut 17,000 child care slots
Kevin Gillespie stood in the drizzle outside the Tabernacle Church of God Day care Center with his three young children and contemplated his family’s future.
“Both my wife and I work, and we need day care,” said Gillespie. “Now one of us will have to stay at home and it will cut back on our money because one of us will be forced to stay home.”
Gillespie is one of thousands of working parents citywide who’s facing the same prospect as the Bloomberg Administration readies to cut some 17,000 day care slots.
The impact is particularly great in Brooklyn’s neighborhoods of color. For instance, in the City Council districts of members Al Vann and Darlene Mealy, which represents the bulk of Bedford-Stuyvesant, 534 children will lose their day care slots, which is more than half of the 794 children that have vouchers.

May
Boys & Girls gets money
Boys & Girls High School is in line for an infusion of several million dollars but school administrators, parents, clergy and other stakeholders in Bedford-Stuyvesant want to know the catch.
Their concern comes after the Department of Education (DOE) last week applied for federal funding to improve the 2,000-student school at Fulton Street and Utica Avenue under the condition it partners with an educational partner organization (EPO).
“We have tons of questions that need to be answered,” said Boys & Girls High School Principal Bernard Gassaway. “Such as how much will the EPO get funded, where it comes from and who makes the final decisions on school policy and practices.”

Bed-Stuy sanitation garage on hold
Bedford-Stuyvesant residents, which have been asking and pleading for a sanitation garage for 25 years, will have to wait at least another year.
That after the city pulled the money for the project out of the fiscal year 2011-12 budget and put it towards two other projects that distribute garbage more equally around the city.
“Obviously, it’s a total disrespect to our community,” said Community Board 3 Chair Henry Butler. “The Department of Sanitation gave no explanation as to why they took money from our project and gave it to other projects.”

June
Bed-Stuy youth wins national chess tourney
It’s morning at I.S. 318 on Walton Street in Williamsburg and James Black, Jr., 12,
looked across the chessboard at his opponent, coach Elizabeth Vicray, and hit the timer with his right hand.
“Checkmate,” he said, smiling.
And so went another chess victory for Black, Jr., a Bedford-Stuyvesant resident who is determined to become the youngest grandmaster in the United States.
Black, Jr. recently led the school’s team to the national championships in both the K-8 and K-9 divisions. He is only seven points away from the 2,200 needed to be named a master by the United States Chess Federation.

Unions Protest Bloomberg Budget Cuts
As New York City’s July 1 budget deadline looms, Mayor Bloomberg has proposed cutting
4,000 teachers, day care closures and the elimination of 22 firehouses.
Meanwhile, week after week municipal workers have been staging large protests, joined by hundreds of city residents who will be impacted by the cuts.
Last week, DC 37 became one of the latest unions to stage a public protest to Bloomberg’s proposals.
DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts “served notice on the Bloomberg Administration and the City Council that they cannot balance the budget on the backs of city workers.”

July
MoCADA gets money
The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) received a $2.5 million allocation from the recently passed 2011-12 city budget.
The money came through the strong lobbying efforts of City Council member Letitia James along with help from Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
Laurie Cumbo, founder and executive director of MoCADA, said the money comes as a major step in her ultimate goal to develop and own a museum that brings cultural diversity to downtown Brooklyn.
The museum is located at 80 Hanson Place in Fort Greene.

CBA for East New York
A detailed Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) has emerged between the local East New York community and Related Cos., the developer of Gateway Center Properties Phase ll.
The CBA’s purpose is “to provide benefits in conjunction with the development of Gateway Center ll, and to ensure the viability of this economic resource” in a manner “that is advantageous to both the neighborhood and surrounding communities.”
The Gateway ll CBA calls for job training and development, business development, environmental sustainability, enforcement of developer obligations, and accountability.

August
Mayor deflects questions on opportunities for people of color
City officials last week remained tight-lipped on its plans to increase employment and business opportunities for people of color in downtown and Central Brooklyn.
The issue came up at a press conference where Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz announced that United American Land would develop 49,000 square feet of retail space in the city-owned Brooklyn Municipal Building at 210 Joralemon Street across the street from Brooklyn Borough Hall.
Bloomberg got testy when asked what plans are in place to ensure that jobs and business development will come to communities of color and in Downtown Brooklyn, where many African-Americans and Hispanics shop?

Bloomberg’s $127M Young Men’s Initiative
Where’s the money going?
That’s what some African-American-run community-based organizations (CBO) want to know about Mayor Bloomberg’s recently announced three-year $127 million Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) to improve the futures of young black and Latino men by systematically targeting the areas of greatest disparity.
“Nobody approached us,” said James Caldwell, president of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), which has a database of about 5,000 people from the targeted initiative community looking for work and opportunities. Under the initiative, Bloomberg will put in $30 million, hedge fund billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundations are putting in $30 million and the city will allocate $67.5 million.

September
Troy Davis Executed Supreme Court Denies Last Appeal
On the streets, in churches and in homes, vigils were held waiting on the slow-motion lynching that was the killing of Troy Anthony Davis by the state of Georgia. After the execution hour had passed we learned of a last appeal to the Supreme Court. Three hours later we were told that the Justices had denied Davis’ appeal, the death warrant was enforced and Troy Davis was executed September 21, 2011 at 11:08pm.

NYPD Detains Councilman Williams
The heat on the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk initiative targeting mainly black and Hispanic young men was turned up several degrees Monday when cops handcuffed and detained two black city officials at the West Indian Day Parade along Eastern Parkway.
“It is a reflection of a culture which includes stop-and-frisk protocol that I hope after this incident will finally end based on how unfairly it targets innocent black and Latino young men,” said Williams at a press conference concerning the incident.

October
Move to end food stamp fingerprinting
The City Council is trying to end the city practice of requiring federal food stamp applicants to submit to fingerprinting to receive benefits.
Under the legislation that will be introduced next week, the city’s Human Resources Administration must submit an annual report to the Council on the amount of money spent on finger-imaging each year, and the number of fraudulent cases detected and referred to for criminal prosecution as a result of the practice.

Von King Park goes wireless
Bedford-Stuyvesant residents can now launch with their smartphones, tablets, laptops and other WiFi-enabled devices for free at Von King Park.
The launch is part of a five-year digital city initiative to provide free WiFi at 26 locations in 20 New York City parks across the five boroughs.
Other locations are expected to come online over the next several months.

November
From Brownsville to Wall Street
Several hundred marchers came from Brownsville to Wall Street last Saturday to protest the result of economic inequities and to speak on the many connections between the targets of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the situation of African-Americans.
Not forgotten is that the 1% got to be the 1% by first stealing the labor of African-American ancestors and using it as “starter capital” to clear the land, build the roads, and plant and harvest the crops. To load ships with slave-produced goods, and then use the unloaded ballast as cobblestones on New York streets.
The march was organized and led by Mr. A. T. Mitchell and his community empowerment organization, Man Up!, known for working in the hard world where the results of economic violence are everyday affairs and where the people were saying they were sick of it.

December
Occupy Our Homes
Rain did not deter 500 “Occupy Our Homes” protesters who marched the streets of East New York on Tuesday.
The group took a tour of foreclosed homes in the area and supported one family who “liberated” a foreclosed home on Vermont Avenue.
Chants ranged from, “All day, all week, Occupy East New York;” “We are the 99%,” “the people united will never be defeated;” “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out;” “Get up, get down, there’s revolution in this town.” The crowd flowed from the sidewalks to the streets, at times blocking traffic. As the drivers drove by, they honked in solidarity.

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