WFP Launches Campaign to Hold Bloomberg Accountable on Campaign Promise to Fix the MTA

by: DanLevitanWFP

Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 13:52:26 PM EST

Now that the MTA is literally more broken than ever, the Working Families Party is launching a grassroots campaign to hold the Mayor accountable to campaign pledge.

Here's action alert we sent to WFP supporters this morning:

Love New York? New York urgently needs your help.

Our city's transit system is in crisis. The cost of a monthly MetroCard could rise to over $100 next year. Service is being cut on dozens of bus and subway lines. Crucial upgrades are being neglected.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran for re-election last year on a promise to fix the MTA -- but since this crisis started, he's been missing in action.

We have to make sure the Mayor and other politicians get that slowly killing the MTA isn't an option. So today, we're launching an all-out grassroots campaign -- an emergency push to save the MTA, working with NYC students, our friends at NYPIRG's Straphangers campaign, and other groups who know how much our city needs transit.

Our goal is to get 50,000 signatures, comments and calls to Mayor Bloomberg by March 24, when the MTA is next expected to take action on service cuts and fare hikes.

If you've spoken out before, speak out again. If you haven't, now's the time to jump in. Tell Mike Bloomberg to Save the MTA right now by clicking here:

www.saveoursubway.org

Bloomberg Rejects Additional Food Stamp Funds in Stimulus Package, Public Advocate Gotbaum Objects

by: robinia

Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 14:32:29 PM EST

The NY Times shakes its editorial head at this unhelpful attitude on the part of the Mayor, which has the effect of impeding economic recovery for all, as well as limiting the nutrition of the poor in these hard times.

The federal stimulus plan allows one big category of food stamp recipients - able-bodied single adults without dependents - to remain eligible to receive stamps until Sept. 30, 2010. Present law limits these recipients to three months of food stamps in a three-year period.... Mr. Bloomberg insists that these recipients must, in effect, work for their supper. He is under no obligation to extend benefits to anyone not enrolled in the city's workfare program, which offers some training, some internships and some low-level work.

States and cities are allowed to require recipients to participate in such programs. But forcing people to take make-work jobs to qualify for food assistance takes valuable time away from the search for a real job. That's counterproductive.

Moreover, by limiting eligibility, the city also reduces the amount of money it receives from Washington - a decrease of $750,000 a year, by the city's estimate. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum puts the loss far higher - in the millions of dollars over the next 17 months.  

Does he not understand that a lot of people are having trouble finding work?  At least there is some push-back coming from Public Advocate Gotbaum.  She posted this footage from a rally to urge the Mayor to change his mind and get with the program for economic recovery.  You can see this on the Public Advocate's YouTube channel.

Having just finished listening to another year's brilliant Homelessness Marathon, I find myself incredulous that the Mayor of NY could be so totally out of touch with the needs of the people. You can hear them on radio, if you don't want to go look in the streets.  What is it you NYC folks see in Bloomberg, anyway?

More Disclosure Not Less

by: TruBlu

Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 22:19:15 PM EDT

Yes, I found this article profoundly disturbing. What is Bloomberg thinking? Roll back term limits and decrease transparency. What a winning combination.

This article says

Among the proposed changes, public servants would no longer have to provide dollar amounts or ranges on outside income. In addition, they would need to report only gifts (worth at least $50) they received from people who did business with the city, not all gifts larger than $1,000, as is the current law.

We should be moving in the direction of more disclosure at all levels of government, public authorities which are quasi-government, and the private sector.

Bloomberg Signs E-Waste Measure

by: robert.harding

Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 21:44:23 PM EDT

From the New York Times:

Under the legislation that passed, electronics manufacturers will devise and run programs that could include curbside pickups, neighborhood collections and returns by mail and in stores. Consumers would be required to participate, and by 2010 would face a $100 fine for throwing old computers, televisions and other gadgets into the trash. Manufacturers who fail to recycle returned merchandise could be fined $1,000 for each violation. The programs would require Department of Sanitation approval.

Still uncertain are the collection standards, which would require manufacturers to take back a stated tonnage of equipment or face fines, an element that has angered suppliers, who say it would be hard to track sales in the city.

Twelve states have already adopted electronic waste laws. New York City is the first municipality to do so, the mayor said.

Apparently Bloomberg will veto the aforementioned collection standards.

This is a very good law for numerous reasons. Many people cannot dispose of their old computers and televisions so they usually end up in the garbage. Recycling these products would be very good for the environment and prove to be very useful.  

Bruno, Bloomberg, Best Friends Forever

by: simonstl

Sat Mar 01, 2008 at 08:52:49 AM EST

A few days ago ago I said nice things about Mayor Bloomberg for his congestion plan.

Today, we need to remember that despite the Mayor's occasional flashes of smarts, his political judgment remains strange.  Bloomberg and Bruno, sitting in a tree...

It's an interesting contrast to Darth Rudy's endorsement of Mario Cuomo way back in 1994 - but I suspect it will work about as well.

Mayor Bloomberg's New Poverty Policy Should Include Charity AND Empowerment

by: ElanaDMIBlog

Thu Sep 06, 2007 at 09:56:06 AM EDT

WNYC's Beth Fertig reported on a new pilot program to fight poverty in NYC that is being launched.  Mayor Bloomberg raised $53 million from private funds to be able to distribute conditional cash to 2500 poor families.  Community organizations and charities are submitting names of eligible people and those chosen to participate would for example get $25 for their kid's good school attendance, $100 for going to doctor's appointments and a few other categories. 

In the radio interview Linda Gibbs, NYC Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services notes how difficult living in poverty is for families and suggests the money is helpful to poor parents and their children.  She says, "It can be really tough to do the right thing when you're living in a poor household in a poor community and every day a choice of one right thing compromises another right thing. And the family members that I talk to, I think, actually felt more respected and acknowledged for the difficulty of their situation rather than insulted."

Gibbs point hits home to low-income and poor women and families and yet her words seem at odds with policy.

Here at Hunter College it is back to school for everyone.  Parents who are raising young children and going to school at the same time started the crushing schedule of getting their children to school and themselves to class and work prepared and on time. Most of the women I work with are receiving welfare and going to college.  They talk about getting up at 5 am to get themselves dressed before waking their children and supervising their dressing, breakfast and trip to school.  It is extraordinary effort that allows them to accomplish their tasks and without any cash to spare.  The welfare cash benefit for a family of 3 is $291 a month.  All transportation, clothes and school supplies come from that cash allotment.  It is shamefully inadequate.

Today, Roxanna Henry Welfare Rights Initiative's (WRI) Legal Advocacy Organizer is testifying at a public hearing on the adequacy of the public assistance grant in New York State conducted by the Assembly Committee on Social Services.

WRI and other organizations of the Empire State Economic Security Campaign are calling for the state to raise the welfare grant.  Mayor Bloomberg's private funds can be helpful to a small group of families but policy changes on the state and city level can have a whopping positive affect on all poor families.

What Bloomberg is doing is charity that has the ability to help empower by making choices easier but lasting empowerment comes from policies that aid people receiving welfare to get family sustaining jobs.  However, just increasing the grants alone is not adequate and the Bloomberg administration needs to stop harassing people in welfare out of going to class. Mayor Bloomberg's current welfare policy insists that people need to take dead-end workfare jobs instead of getting training and education.  Preventing access to the skills that get good jobs is disempowering and bad policy.

Charity vs. Empowerment is a false choice.  We need and have both and government needs to pick up its end.

NYC would do well to get out in front of the welfare grant increase and speak to the Governor and get it done. 

In addition, Gibbs' acknowledgment about poor families with children being strained to accomplish everything they need to accomplish speaks right to the heart of government lagging in policy.  As Deputy Mayor, Gibbs can work to direct HRA to adhere to the federal welfare guidelines which require 20 hours of workfare for families with children under the age of six whereas in NYC families with young children must perform 35 . 20 is the federal law and in NYC it should be our law.

The poverty discussion and projects coming from Mayor Bloomberg's office are encouraging and we look forward to his team hitting the solution mark closer and closer to the problem.

When Infrastructure Attacks! (a special you won't see on Fox)

by: ElanaDMIBlog

Thu Jul 19, 2007 at 18:48:27 PM EDT

As you've all heard the explosion wasn't caused by terrorism, it was an underground steam pipe constructed in 1924 that had too much cold rain water leaking on it, causing it to explode like Old Faithful-- except flinging more mud and some asbestos into the air. I know that the air has been declared clean but the dust and debris spat out from the explosion do contain asbestos and what with air movement and you know, gravity, I can image that the carcinogenic dust will get air-born and be inhaled endlessly till it's cleaned up.  Remember when the EPA told the public that the air around Ground Zero was safe to breath - when it actually wasn't? You'll have to excuse me for being a bit concerned over whether the same thing will happen here.

I should probably explain this blog post's title. When chasms in the earth open up near Grand Central the media tends to report it. Even Fox. But what you won't see in the media by and large is a discussion of  why it is that these accidents take place. Sure they'll explain how the explosion was caused by water hitting an antediluvian steam pipe but they just won't make the connection between the lack of investment in our country's infrastructure and things going kablooie. You see it takes money to keep any locality running. And localities get that money through our taxes.

More attacking infrastructure on the flip...

Congestion Pricing: STILL Good for New York's Middle Class

by: ElanaDMIBlog

Mon Jul 09, 2007 at 14:05:21 PM EDT

This year on Earth Day, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a sweeping 127-point plan for New York City to confront the challenges of population growth, aging infrastructure, and environmental sustainability over the next 25 years. As many New Yorkers know, one part of the plan is a proposal to implement congestion pricing in Manhattan below 86th Street. The Drum Major Institute analyzed the congestion pricing proposal, invited the Deputy Mayor of London to speak with New York City policymakers about her city's experience with congestion pricing, and concluded that the congestion pricing proposal would have a positive impact on the city's current and aspiring middle class. By the end, we were so impressed overall by PlaNYC's bold vision for a sustainable city that DMI honored Mayor Bloomberg for creating it.

But like so many policies crucial to the city's fate, congestion pricing requires approval from Albany before it can be implemented. Governor Spitzer supports the plan. The State Senate passed legislation to implement it. But the State Assembly has refused to act, despite the fact that $500 million in federal transportation funding may depend on quick action.

Today a new report (not yet available online) released by the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions, chaired by Richard Brodsky, sheds some light on the Assembly's disagreement with the plan.  Unfortunately, at a time when New Yorkers need a serious discussion about the city’s growth over the next 25 years, about how we will deal with clogged streets, poor air quality, underfunded mass transit system, and the threat of global warming, the Assemblyman Brodsky's report instead offers a grab bag of critiques that fail to understand crucial aspects of PlaNYC 2030 and the congestion pricing plan specifically. 

First of all, it is absurd to describe a plan that would massively redistribute resources from drivers, who have a higher average income, to transit riders, many of whom who have very low incomes, as regressive. By proceeding as though the right to drive a private car cheaply into Manhattan were an evenly distributed "public good" to begin with, Assemblyman Brodsky fails to notice the millions of New Yorkers trying to work their way into the middle class who don't own cars and have no choice but to take mass transit, no matter how poor the quality. These New Yorkers are among those with the most to gain from congestion pricing and the nearly half a billion dollars in transit investment it would generate annually.

"Equity" cannot be defined as everyone having a chance to engage in behavior that has inherently inequitable impacts. As demonstrated in DMI's recent report, "Congestion Pricing: Good Policy for New York’s Middle Class," congestion itself disproportionately impacts the city's current and aspiring middle class. Middle-class New Yorkers already pay price for congestion with poor health, environmental damage, lower quality of life, and less economic growth, even though the majority of them never drive a car into midtown Manhattan.

Assemblyman Brodsky's critique systematically overlooks the negative impact of driving cars as compared to other means of transportation. Despite the fact that concern about reducing greenhouse gases is a major motivation for the congestion pricing plan, no reference to climate change or global warming can be found anywhere in the Committee report.

As an alternative to congestion pricing, Assemblyman Brodsky suggests we consider a far more regressive plan -- raising fees on mass transit riders (that is, "time of day pricing on mass transit.")  Not only would this proposal disproportionately burden lower-income transit riders, it would do little to alleviate congestion in our streets, would not improve air quality, and would worsen global warming by discouraging New Yorkers from taking less-polluting mass transit. Suggesting an increase in mass transit fees as an alternative to congestion pricing shows that Assemblyman Brodsky fundamentally misunderstands the aims of the congestion pricing plan.