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Newsletters 2006 
Improving City Services 2006
BG Mail
12/11/06
City
Hospitals Fail to Provide Important Birthing Information
Expectant mothers need
accurate information about all their birthing options in order
to make informed decisions. Yet in a recent follow-up of a report
my office published last year, all 44 hospitals in New York City
that provide labor and delivery services are failing to comply
with the Maternity Information Act.
This state law requires
hospitals to provide expectant mothers with a pamphlet describing
C-sections and other birthing procedures, and information about
how often each of these procedures is performed at the hospital.
A C-section is an invasive surgical procedure with several medical
risks, including increased mortality, increased risk of infection,
injury to other organs and infertility. The C-section rate at
several hospitals was more than twice the 15 percent maximum rate
recommended by the World Health Organization, and three times
the optimal rate cited by researchers.
Our hospitals are doing
a great disservice to expectant mothers by failing to comply with
state law and provide detailed information on C-section deliveries.
I’m calling on all hospitals in New York City to comply
with the Maternity Information Act and requesting that the New
York State Department of Health and New York City Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene make this information available on their
websites so that pregnant women can make smart medical decisions.
To read more about my
report, click here.
Consumer
Rights Bill to Inform Customers of Hidden Cell Phone Cancellation
Fees
With the holiday shopping
season in full swing, it’s important for consumers to know
the full extent of the costs and fees involved in buying a cell
phone service plan. Yet in a guide I published last year, my office
found that many independent retailers charge cancellation fees
ranging from $50 to $400 without informing their customers. These
hidden cancellation fees are in addition to those charged by national
cell phone service providers like Sprint, Verizon, or Nextel.
During a recent follow-up review, my office found stores still
charging the added fees — and still failing to inform customers.
I recently introduced
a bill in the City Council requiring cell phone dealerships to
clearly post any additional fees they charge customers. But until
my bill becomes law, it’s important that consumers ask questions
when signing up for a cell phone plan and shop around for the
best deals. Be sure to get all the details on cancellation fees
and other charges before signing on the dotted line.
To read more about cell
phone cancellation fees, click
here.
Department
of Education Misses Opportunity to Connect Students with Career
Training
Last week I visited
the School of Cooperative Technology Information in Manhattan
and Automotive High School in Brooklyn, which offer Career and
Technical Education programs for high school students. I was so
impressed to see the students work on complex projects with such
a high level of professionalism.
State-certified CTE
programs give high school students the chance to earn practical,
hands-on work experience in a number of industries. I recently
published a report that calls for the Department of Education
to expand CTE programs to give students the chance to gain industry
and technical certification in the growing health care industry.
With a 50 percent dropout
rate and 200,000 disconnected youth in New York City, it’s
important that we foster CTE programs because they give our children
a viable alternative towards good, living-wage jobs.
To read my report on
CTE programs, click
here.
BG Mail
12/04/06
Residents
Need Answers on Tragic Queens Shooting
Our city was shaken
last week by the tragic shooting of Sean Bell just hours before
his wedding day. My heart goes out to Mr. Bell’s fiancée
and family.
I met with Mayor Bloomberg
and other elected officials and community leaders to discuss the
shooting. We all agree that the investigation should proceed expeditiously
and all of our questions, especially those of the Bell family,
must be addressed.
At the funeral Friday
evening, the mood was of terrible sadness. But all the speakers
expressed hope that something positive would come from this tragedy
to that it would not occur again.
The way in which Mr.
Bell died will resonate in this city and across the nation for
a long time to come and reflects poorly on America’s safest
large city. We must never forget it and must do a better job preventing
such tragedies in the future.
No-Bid Contract Giveaway Leads to
Service Cuts
Since 2002, I’ve
watched the Department of Education give away an estimated $270
million in taxpayer dollars by skirting the competitive bidding
process. The parents and educators of our city’s 1.1 million
students deserve to know how the DOE spends its money.
Most recently, the DOE
handed corporate firm Alvarez and Marsal a secret no-bid contract
worth $17 million. Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have both
claimed there’s $200 million in savings at stake in restructuring
the Department of Education's financial operations. And the Chancellor
has claimed that Alvarez and Marsal’s work has already produced
savings of almost $50 million.
But where are these
mystery “savings” that the Chancellor is touting so
highly? The DOE has slashed its budget and cut back on school
maintenance services, drug education programs, and bus service.
It seems to me that if Alvarez and Marsal was hired to save money
for the Department that we should be seeing an increase in services
to our schools, not a dramatic reduction.
To read my complete
testimony on no-bid contracts, click
here.
New
Yorkers Seek Better Measurements of Government Service Performance
A Citizen’s Budget
Commission (CBC) report released last week identified five ways
in which City government could improve performance measurement.
One of the recommendations
was talking to residents – a suggestion I not only strongly
support, but have begun to address. I was a participant at CBC’s
forum on the subject, where I discussed the recently-launched
Public Advocacy Project. The primary component of the project
is a citizen satisfaction survey.
You can’t understand
how to improve city services until you hear what the people who
use those services have to say about them.
The citizen satisfaction
survey I plan to conduct early next year with Baruch College’s
School of Public Affairs will not just seek to identify general
satisfaction with parks, schools, or garbage collection or other
services: there are surveys that already do this. My survey will
look at those services most important to New Yorkers, find out
what they are dissatisfied with and work with the administration
to make changes that will result in improvements.
For more information
about the Public Advocacy Project, click
here.
BG Mail
11/20/06
Report
Finds Schools Fail to Help Students Access Living Wage Healthcare
Today I released a report showing that the Department of Education’s
Career and Technical Education programs in health care are in
fact preparing few students for careers in the city’s booming
health services industry.
While the industry generates
an estimated 7,600 job openings a year requiring an associate’s
degree or less, in 2005 only 185 students—about 2 percent
of the number needed to fill those openings—graduated and
passed the technical assessment for living-wage health care positions
that the state Department of Labor identifies as having “very
favorable” or “favorable” employment prospects.
This means, we are missing
an opportunity to provide thousands of young people with access
to rewarding careers. The health care professionals we spoke to
say this city is facing a shortage of nurses, x-ray technicians,
mammographers, and other health care workers. Unfortunately, far
too few high school students are getting the right preparation
for these promising careers.
Career and Technical
Education is the current name for what used to be known as high
school technical and vocational education. Of the city’s
55 health care CTE programs, only 15 have received state approval.
Without state approval, parents and students cannot be sure that
a CTE program offers quality instruction, qualified faculty, industry-recognized
technical assessments, and agreements with post-secondary institutions—all
of which help to ensure future success in the workplace.
State-approved CTE programs
prepare students not only for a career in the health care field
but also for higher education. 76 percent of students who completed
state-approved health care CTE programs in 2004-2005 went on to
post-secondary education. By comparison, less than 63 percent
of all 2005 city high school graduates reported having plans to
pursue a post-secondary education. The purpose of these programs
is to give young people more options and opportunities. But for
CTE to work, the DOE needs to commit to meeting state standards.
I have called for a
summit of industry representatives, union leaders, and city education
officials to identify the sectors of the health care industry
where the shortages are most critical and begin to develop the
programs and curricula to prepare students specifically for those
jobs.
Among the report’s
other key recommendations are the following:
1. Investigate the value
of centralizing certain programs, such as medical billing and
coding, in order to make more efficient use of resources and thereby
help ensure that more students graduate from state-approved programs.
2. Increase awareness
of health care career opportunities—and of CTE programs
as a way to prepare for those opportunities—among guidance
counselors, parents, and students.
3. Highlight state-approved
programs in the high school directory and more effectively on
the DOE website.
Helping
the Hungry
An estimated 1.2 million
New York City residents, including 417,000 children, lived in
households facing hunger or food insecurity, according to federal
statistics recently calculated by the New York City Coalition
Against Hunger. Food pantries and soup kitchen can't keep up with
demand.
Over the past 5 years
I have worked with anti-hunger organizations across the city to
increase enrollment in the food stamp program and raise awareness
and support for emergency food programs.
While hunger is a year-round
problem for too many New York families, with Thanksgiving and
the holiday season right around the corner, I urge you to do your
part in helping fight hunger in New York City. There are plenty
of opportunities for you to get involved - whether its serving
food at a soup kitchen, donating to a local food pantry, or providing
financial support to one of the many city-wide anti-hunger organizations.
To find out more, contact
one of the following organizations: New York Coalition Against
Hunger, City Harvest, Food Bank for New York City, or FoodChange.
BG Mail 11/14/06
New
Project Lets Residents Rate City Services, Civic Leaders Offer
Advice
Data from my office’s
Ombudsman Hotline and 311 show that too many New Yorkers are dissatisfied
with city services. One of the problems is that the Administration
does not assess how residents feel about the services they use
and therefore cannot make needed improvements.
That’s why this
week I am launching an exciting new project that for the first
time in the City’s history will allow residents to rate
their satisfaction with city services and provide civic leaders
with an opportunity to suggest improvements to services. The information
this project gathers will improve government’s understanding
of city service problems and its ability to develop long-term
solutions to these problems.
Civic leaders from across
the city will participate in a half-day conference hosted by Baruch
College’s School of Public Affairs Wednesday to help select
service topics for a citizen satisfaction survey of 3,500 city
residents.
This initiative, the
Public Advocacy Project, is being funded through the 501(c)(3)
Fund I established. For more information, visit my website here.
City
Must Lift School Cell Phone Ban
Armed with more than
100 e-mails from parents and students fed up with the Department
of Education’s cell phone ban, I called upon Mayor Bloomberg
Tuesday to allow students to take cell phones to school.
I’ve heard from
parents across the city who rely on cell phones to stay in touch
with their children; parents whose children were lost, mugged,
or injured, and were only able to receive assistance by using
their cell phones to call for help. It’s absolutely ridiculous
that this administration would continue to brush off these serious
concerns, especially when our children’s safety is at stake.
Students should not
use cell phones during school unless it’s an emergency.
But in today’s world, the Mayor must understand that cell
phones are a vital line of communication. It’s high time
that we come up with a cell phone policy that makes sense.
I first called on the
Mayor to rescind the ban on cell phones last year after unannounced
random searches were conducted and more than 3,000 cell phones
were confiscated from students entering schools. Both parents
and students protested the search and seizure, which is based
on a 1988 policy, written long before people carried cell phones.
To read more about parents’
concerns, click here.
BG Mail 11/6/06
Independent
Review of Failed Child Welfare System Needed
Many facts and details come to light when a child is killed, yet
the child welfare system doesn’t seem to learn the lessons
that could help prevent the next tragedy.
The fatal injury 4-month-old Preston Hertzog allegedly suffered
at the hands of his parents two weeks ago is just the most recent
example of this failure. ACS, the foster care system, Family Court—all
at one point or another knew that Antonio Patterson and Tamirra
Hertzog, Preston's parents, were a danger to their children. What
was done to protect those children? That remains to be determined,
but clearly it was not nearly enough to save a defenseless 4-month-old.
Since becoming Public Advocate, I have issued report after report
about the failure of the Administration of Children’s Services
to protect children from abuse and neglect. The latest report
from my office, issued just a few weeks ago, uncovers even more
problems with ACS than we knew about in the past. Lawyer turnover
rates and high caseloads lead to the Family Courts committing
“malpractice,” as one former ACS attorney told us.
It is clear to me that we are running in place. ACS is a failed
agency, part of a failed child welfare system. Simply changing
the names at the top is not enough to rescue it. The time has
come for an independent, public review of the way ACS operates
and, more importantly, of every single case in the child welfare
system.
I am calling for such an independent review of ACS and the entire
child welfare system, including foster and Family Court.
For more information about problems within the family courts,
click here.
Special Ed Students Shortchanged
Special education students around the city are getting shortchanged
once again: the Department of Education has forced them into overcrowded
classrooms. I have called on Chancellor Klein to take immediate
steps to remedy this violation of State laws and regulations and
to provide special-needs children the educational opportunities
they deserve.
My call came after a father of a 7-year-old autistic boy contacted
my office’s ombuds unit for help, saying, “I am very
concerned about the lack of planning for special education by
the DOE. Last year, the school overbooked my son’s class
and couldn’t provide him with the one-on-one services he
needs. He was underserved for a good five months before I found
out. This year, all six special education classes at my son’s
school are overbooked. Parents who complain are being told, ‘Would
you rather your child stay at home or be in an overbooked class.’
My son has been restless and inattentive in class, and I have
no idea if he will even have a place next year.”
In response, according to a NY1 story,
Department of Education officials said that they are aware of
the problem and "have opened several new classes in recent
weeks.”
In truth, the DOE must do more. For years, I have pointed out
how the schools have failed to provide adequate, legally mandated
special education services. The DOE must do better by our 160,000
children in special education.
For more information on other special education service problems
I have identified, click
here.
Don't forget to vote.
BG Mail 9/18/06
Department
of Education Keeps Parents in the Dark
Tonight I am hosting
a forum on education so parents and students can get the answers
they need about their children’s education. All parents
are welcome to attend and share questions, thoughts and experiences
with our panel of elected officials and education advocates.
The forum, co-sponsored
by Assemblyman Keith Wright, will be held at Adam Clayton Powell,
Jr. State Office Building, located on 163 West 125th Street in
Manhattan, at 6:30 PM. Tonight’s guests and panelists include:
• Manhattan Borough
President Scott Stringer
• Council Members Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson
• Carmen Colon, Association of NYC Education Councils
• Dawn Brooks-DeCosta, Harriet Tubman Learning Center
• Tim Johnson, Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council
• Dr. Danielle Moss Lee, Harlem Educational Activities Fund,
Inc.
• Matthew Lenaghan, Advocates for Children
• Ellen McHugh, Parent to Parent NYC
• Randi Weingarten, UFT President
School
Safety Policy Fails to Protect Many Students:
DOE Changes Discipline Code Without Consulting Stakeholders
Over the past four years,
the Department of Education has repeatedly revised its school
safety policies, yet our schools, our students, and our teachers
are not any safer. In August, State Education Commissioner Richard
Mills released data identifying a sharp increase in the number
of “persistently dangerous” city schools, a number
that many knowledgeable observers still believe to be far lower
than the reality.
As the school year starts,
parents from across the city are once again turning to my office
for help in accessing a safety transfer for their children. The
DOE makes what should be a straightforward process entirely too
difficult for many parents, and they are rightfully concerned
about their children’s well-being.
The DOE has decided
to once again revise its standards of discipline without consulting
parents, educators or its partners in the community This leaves
little assurance that they will get the discipline code right
and create a safer environment for our children, and it could
cause even more confusion for parents seeking to keep their children
safe.
School Cell Phone Policy Must Address
Parent Concerns
Since the end of the
last school year, the DOE has insisted on sticking with a cell
phone ban that is unacceptable to many parents. Parents are justifiably
upset because they rely on cell phones to keep in touch with their
children in the post-9/11 world. Three months have passed, and
I, along with many other advocates, continue to press the DOE
to amend their policy.
Perhaps an ever greater
cause for concern is how this policy affects students with special
needs whose safety depends on being able to call their parents
when they need help. I have been working with special education
advocates and parent groups from across the city to get the DOE
to provide clear instructions on how to access a waiver for their
children. I’m going to keep pressing the DOE on this issue
until it comes up with a policy that makes sense for children,
parents, and schools.
Gotbaum
Calls on DOE to Suspend No-Bid Contract, Pending Investigation
Perhaps the most glaring
symptom of the DOE’s lack of transparency is its habit of
awarding contracts without submitting to the competitive bidding
process that’s required of all city agencies. My office
has determined that the number of no-bid contracts awarded by
the DOE went from eight worth a total of $1.3 million in 2001,
the last fiscal year before Mayor Bloomberg got control of the
school system, to a high of 69 contracts worth $56 million in
2003.
Recently, I called on
the DOE to suspend its no-bid contract with Alvarez and Marsal,
a corporate “turnaround” firm hired to help manage
our public schools, pending a thorough investigation of the firm’s
work in other school systems around the country. It is clear that
the DOE didn’t do its homework before going ahead with this
$17 million, no-bid give-away.
Under Alvarez and Marsal’s
management in St. Louis, 16 schools were closed and class sizes
grew. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “The turnaround
firm was going to put the district on a solid financial and organizational
footing…Instead, there is vague talk of a plan…The
financial mess the turnaround firm was going to fix? It’s
still with us.” Now the firm is overseeing the “recovery
school district” in New Orleans, where in some cases, students
are being turned away because of low grades or special needs.
The cost of this contract,
could be far greater than just the taxpayer dollars squandered.
We’ve seen what Alvarez and Marsal did in St. Louis and
New Orleans. New York City public schools cannot afford that kind
of help.
Bill
Would Increase Accountability on Special Education
Tomorrow, the City Council
will hold a hearing on my legislation intended to hold the DOE
accountable for its policies and get children the special education
placements they need. I first introduced this bill after my office
surveyed nearly 300 school psychologists and administrators and
discovered that the DOE was pressuring them to keep down referral
rates for special education services. The survey also revealed
that 75% of school psychologists and 58% of administrators had
a backlog of students awaiting special education placements.
For a copy of my bill,
click
here.
To read my testimony
on the DOE’s changes to the standards of discipline, click
here.
To read Samuel Freedman’s
New York Times op-ed on the DOE’s reliance on no-bid contracts,
which cites my work on the issue, click
here.
To read more on my position
on no-bid education contracts, click
here.
BG Mail 6/26/06
Gotbaum
on School Fitness: Expanded Report Cards Not Enough
The Department of Education
is taking a step in the right direction this year by giving a
quarter-million city students expanded report cards with information
on their level of fitness. But a step or two is not enough. We
need to get our kids running, playing, and learning the habits
of a healthy lifestyle. It’s one thing to send a child home
with a report saying he needs to “play active games, sports,
or other activities…a total of 60 minutes each day.”
It’s another thing to provide that child with the time,
facilities, equipment, and instruction to act on that recommendation.
That’s where our
school system is falling short. Two years ago, I released a report
showing that out of 100 city public elementary schools surveyed,
14 schools did not even have a gym teacher, while 20 either had
no gym classes at all or had them infrequently. Going without
gym classes isn’t just unhealthy for kids; it’s actually
illegal. All 100 schools I surveyed were in violation of state
physical education requirements. Unfortunately, not enough improvement
has been made since my report was issued.
To read more about
my report, click
here.
Gotbaum
Backs $25 Million Budget Initiative for Stem Cell Research
I am proud to be working
with New Yorkers for the Advancement of Medical Research, a coalition
of disease advocacy groups, university research centers, and biotech
industry leaders proposing that the City Council allocate $25
million for stem cell research. Representatives from my offices
are in contact with the administration to determine which department
would be the most appropriate to administer a program that could
have profound benefits for New Yorkers.
A better understanding
of stem cells will help doctors and scientists understand and
possibly correct medical conditions such as cancer and birth defects.
Stem cells also offer the possibility of a renewable source of
replacement cells and tissues to treat a wide range of health
problems, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases,
spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, and
arthritis. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has stopped
federal funding for this important research.
New Yorkers shouldn’t
be deprived of potentially life-saving advances because of the
President’s regressive policies. It’s time for city
and state government to step in and keep this vital research alive.
BG Mail 6/19/06
Gotbaum:
DOE “Out of the Mainstream” on Cell Phone Policy
After reviewing the
cell phone policies of the nation’s largest 15 school systems,
I found that New York is one of only three that bans cell phones
altogether. I made my findings known at a City Council hearing
last week and urged the Department of Education to come into the
mainstream on cell phone policy.
I’m not advocating
that students be allowed to use their cell phones in school to
download pornography, cheat on tests, initiate violence, or do
any number of things the Department of Education has enumerated
in its alarmist scenarios. In fact, cell phones should be neither
seen nor heard in school. A cell phone used in the classroom should
be taken from the student using it. It’s that simple. And
it’s what the vast majority of the country’s largest
school systems do. It’s school policy in Los Angeles, Chicago,
Miami, Houston, San Diego, and Dallas.
On Saturday, in a speech
to graduates at the University of Chicago, Mayor Bloomberg said,
“There is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with criticizing
our government on any topic and challenging it to live up to the
democratic ideals.” But that’s not the message he’s
sending to students, parents, teachers, and elected officials.
His response to our concerns has been angry and dismissive. It’s
time for his administration to listen to reason and come up with
a sensible cell phone policy.
My position on the city’s
cell phone policy was covered by The New York Post and The Staten
Island Advance.
To read my statement
to the City Council, click here.
Gotbaum
Honored by Municipal Retirees
I was honored last week
by the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations (COMRO) of the
City of New York for my ongoing commitment to senior issues. The
Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations was founded in 1995
and represents more than 150,000 New York City municipal retirees.
COMRO’s member associations represent retirees from NYPD,
the Department of Education, the City University of New York,
and other public employers.
Over the last four years,
I have worked with the State Legislature to protect seniors from
glitches in the Medicare Part D system, successfully advocated
for a streamlined application process for the Senior Citizen Rent
Increase Exemption, led the fight to preserve Meals on Wheels
service, and exposed problems with the Human Resources Administration’s
Adult Protective Services. I remain committed to helping our seniors
access the services they need and deserve, and I’m proud
to be recognized by an organization that shares this goal.
BG Mail 6/12/06
Gotbaum
Urges NYCHA to Back Off Proposal to Divert Section 8 Funding
In testimony before
the New York City Housing Authority last week, I thanked NYCHA
for implementing recommendations by advocates and myself to make
more flexible documentation requirements for survivors of domestic
violence seeking priority status for NYCHA housing. But I also
expressed concern about NYCHA’s plan to use Section 8 voucher
funds to pay for the cost of operating 8,400 units of city- and
state-assisted public housing.
NYCHA is proposing to
attach project-based vouchers to the units in questions. But project-based
vouchers cannot be attached to the units unless their current
residents move out. In order to provide the residents with an
incentive to seek housing elsewhere, NYCHA would provide them
each with a separate voucher. In other words, NYCHA would have
to use two Section 8 vouchers for each unit in order to implement
its proposal. That’s up to 16,800 vouchers that will no
longer be available to low-income New Yorkers on the waiting list
for Section 8. This will have serious consequences for families
that need help with housing costs.
With the Bush administration
slashing funding for housing authorities across the country, and
the state and city also reducing operating subsidies for public
housing to zero, NYCHA is forced to fend for itself. But Section
8 vouchers are a precious commodity. Their purpose is to help
families pay the rent. They should not be used to absolve the
city and state of their responsibility to support the housing
they built.
To read my testimony
in its entirety, click here.
Gotbaum
Advocates Program to Help Special Ed Students Obtain Needed Services
At a conference held
by the New York City Task Force for Quality Inclusive Schooling
last week, I argued that parents must be given a greater voice
in their children’s Individual Education Plan committee
sessions, which determine the services that special needs students
receive over a three-year period. IEP committee sessions are technical
and complicated. They can be especially difficult for people whose
primary language isn’t English. Parents going through the
process often don’t understand what information is required
of them and don’t know their rights when their child is
given an incomplete or faulty plan.
That’s why I’m
working to launch a program that would train a core group of volunteers
to accompany parents to IEP committee sessions. The volunteers
would be able to provide parents with the information, advice,
and representation they need to ensure their children get all
the services they’re entitled to. To make this program work,
we’re going to need volunteers. I urge anyone with an interest
in participating to call my office at 212-669-7200.
Gotbaum
Emphasizes Importance of Public Benefits on Hunger Awareness Day
On Hunger Awareness
Day last week, I joined City Council Speaker Christine Quinn,
Senator George McGovern, and Council Members Robert Jackson and
Eric Gioia at P.S. 33 in Manhattan to talk to students and parents
about the importance of good nutrition and to raise awareness
of public benefits like free school breakfast, summer meals, and
food stamps. These programs provide vital assistance to New Yorkers
in need. They also pour more than a billion of federal dollars
into our city’s economy. But there are hundreds of thousands
of eligible New Yorkers who do not have adequate access to these
programs.
That’s why I’ve
introduced REAACT, the Ready Access to Assistance Act, which would
allow New Yorkers to meet with advocates when they go to city
offices to apply for food stamps and other benefits. The application
process can be difficult, especially for people whose first language
isn’t English, and this bill will ensure they get the help
they need. At a time when the Bush administration is slashing
funding for social services, it’s up to us to ensure that
working families get the help they need and deserve.
***************************************************
Next Wednesday, June
14, Housing Here & Now and a host of other housing advocacy
groups will be holding a town hall meeting on fair rent laws from
7:00 to 9:00 PM at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Park Avenue
at 51st Street. I encourage anyone who is concerned about the
state of affordable housing in this city to attend this important
meeting.
BG Mail, 6/5/06
Gotbaum:
Rent Laws Must Be Changed to Preserve Affordable Housing Stock
Last week, I met with
advocates, union representatives, and elected officials to discuss
new strategies to stop vacancy decontrol of rent regulated buildings
in New York City. Current law allows landlords to remove rent
control or rent stabilization from apartments once their current
tenants move out. The units are then likely to be priced out of
reach of the families that once lived in them. That’s why
it’s so important that the city act now to change rent laws.
Rent regulation protects
more than 1 million units of affordable housing in New York City.
But every day, we lose hundreds of units to vacancy decontrol.
Since 1993, vacancy decontrol has reduced our affordable housing
stock by 99,000 units. Mayor Bloomberg has committed to creating
a substantial new pool of affordable housing over the next 10
years. But the point of building new affordable housing is to
increase the overall stock and to make it easier for New Yorkers
to make ends meet. As long as we keep losing affordable units
at such an alarming rate, we’ll be struggling just to maintain
status quo.
It’s a truism
that if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere.
Government has a responsibility to all New Yorkers, present and
future, to keep that dream alive. It can start by keeping rent
regulation alive.
Gotbaum
Meets with Lawyers, Advocates to Plan Strategy for Pinnacle Tenants
Last week, I brought
together advocates and attorneys from Jenner & Block, LLP
to discuss the possibility of providing pro-bono counsel to tenants
of the Pinnacle Group. According to tenants, Pinnacle has allowed
its buildings to fall into disrepair in the Bronx and systematically
forced out thousands of residents in Upper Manhattan, many of
them senior citizens. The company has then driven up rent for
newcomers.
At the meeting, a strategy
for addressing the problems of Pinnacle tenants was established.
I look forward to the facts coming to light and to a just resolution
for all tenants who have been victims of harassment.
Gotbaum
Monitors Overcrowding at Washington Heights Intermediate School
On a school visit to
I.S. 218 in Washington Heights with City Council Education Committee
Chair Robert Jackson, I witnessed the effects of extreme overcrowding
caused by the presence of two additional small schools in the
building. The school, built in 1993, was intended to accommodate
1,200 students, but now is dealing with a population of more than
1,600. Science labs have been converted into permanent classrooms.
Classrooms are stifling due to a lack of air conditioning. The
exterior of the building is undergoing a major emergency repair.
According to the School
Construction Authority’s 2005-2009 capital budget, Washington
Heights will experience a population decrease over the next four
years and therefore need no more than one new school. But the
Department of City Planning has determined that the neighborhood
is in the midst of a two-fold population boom resulting from immigration
and rapid gentrification. Until the administration reconsiders
its approach to small schools and corrects its formula for determining
neighborhoods’ school construction needs, schools like I.S.
218 will continue to suffer from severe overcrowding.
Gotbaum
Calls for Expanded HIV Testing on 25th Anniversary of AIDS Crisis
I joined members of
the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and other advocacy groups yesterday
for a rally commemorating the 25th anniversary of the AIDS crisis.
It was on June 5, 1981 that the first government report on HIV/AIDS
was issued by the Centers for Disease Control.
Last month, I released
a report showing that city-run STD clinics aren’t doing
a good enough job of providing rapid HIV testing. That’s
a dangerous problem considering that one in four people with HIV/AIDS
don’t know that they’re infected. The good news is
that after discussing my findings on STD clinics with the Department
of Health, I’m confident they will act decisively to take
care of the problems.
But city clinics are
only a part of the equation. We know that there is a link between
homelessness and HIV, yet groups that do HIV prevention work don’t
have regular access to city shelters. I’ve called on the
Bloomberg Administration to provide rapid testing, condoms, and
prevention information at all city shelters. I look forward to
a time when we will commemorate the end of the AIDS crisis instead
of this painful anniversary.
BG Mail, 5/22/06
Gotbaum
Advocates More Assistance for City’s “Other Mothers”
This past Mother’s
Day, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece co-authored by me and
Nancy Rankin, director of research at the Community Service Society,
a non-profit group that fights poverty. In the op-ed, we note
that much has been written recently about highly educated women
choosing to take time out from their careers to raise a family.
Unfortunately, little attention has been given to the challenges
facing “the other mothers,” the ones at the opposite
end of the pay scale.
In New York City, the
labor force participation rate for single mothers with no more
than a high school education rose to 57.8 percent last year from
40 percent in 1996. For these women, opting out is not possible,
but the strains they face are huge. A recent survey by the Community
Service Society found that among low-income working mothers living
on less than $32,000 for a family of three, 37 percent had to
forgo necessary medical care in the past year. A third had their
electricity or phone turned off because they could not pay the
bills. Forty-three percent had to rely on food pantries, and 42
percent fell behind in their rent. Faced with the struggle to
make ends meet, a low-wage mother can rarely stay home with a
sick child or recover from her own illness when it means losing
a day’s pay, or worse, jeopardizing her job.
Subsidized child care,
including after-school and summer programs, would ease the burden
on low-income working mothers, but they also need health insurance
and more time and income to care for their families. New York
City and those of us who work against poverty should also do more
to help people take advantage of existing benefits, like food
stamps and the earned income tax credit.
To read the op-ed in
its entirety, click
here.
Gotbaum:
City Routinely Passing up State, Federal Food Aid
At a City Council hearing
on economic self-sufficiency last Monday, I testified that new
reforms are necessary to help the approximately 700,000 New Yorkers
who are eligible for Food Stamps but not enrolled gain access
to this federally funded program. Mayor Bloomberg passed up an
opportunity to take a major step forward on this issue when he
overturned two top social service officials’ decision to
pursue the federal Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWD)
waiver, which would have allowed some able-bodied adults, ages
18 to 49, to receive food stamps for longer than the normal federal
limit of three months in any three-year period.
The recent rejection
of the ABAWD waiver is not the only instance in which the city
has consciously passed up an opportunity to make food stamps more
accessible to New Yorkers. In October of 2004, the Commissioner
of the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA)
wrote a letter to the Human Resources Administration (HRA) Commissioner
encouraging her to “exempt certain groups from the Automated
Finger Imaging System requirements of Food Stamp eligibility.”
Despite this prompting from the state, and despite a number of
reports, including one by the USDA, which show that requiring
finger imaging for Food Stamp applicants is an ineffective way
to prevent fraud and a deterrent for eligible New Yorkers, the
city has refused to accept the exemptions offered by the state.
I consider it an embarrassment
that a progressive city like ours has to be told by a Republican-controlled
state agency to do more to help people in need.
To read my testimony
in its entirety, click
here.
Gotbaum
Persuades Health Department to Provide Better Info on Mammograms
In a recent meeting
with Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Thomas
Frieden, I expressed concern about my office’s finding that
the DOHMH website makes it difficult for women seeking mammograms
to access relevant information and that the information it does
contain is inaccurate. I urged Commissioner Frieden to update
information on the site to include an accurate list of the facilities
in New York City that offer mammograms, as well as the correct
telephone numbers to call in order to schedule a mammogram appointment.
In addition, I recommended that the list be made accessible through
a special “Mammograms” link on the site’s Health
topics and Women’s Health topics pages. I also recommended
that it indicate which hospitals offer free mammograms to uninsured
women and which have special mammogram outreach campaigns during
the month of May.
I am pleased to report
that Commissioner Frieden has taken my recommendations under advisement
and committed to improving the DOHMH website’s resources
for women seeking mammograms. I believe that if we work together
to raise awareness about the importance of mammogram screenings
and improve access to information for women making important healthcare
decisions, we can help countless women across the city make the
right choices.
BG Mail, 5/15/06
At a hearing before
the Education Committee of the City Council Thursday, I testified
that, four years into mayoral control of the schools, the Department
of Education still refuses to break out of its bunker mentality
and give parents a meaningful role in the reform process. In so
doing, it is not only showing disrespect to the New Yorkers who
entrust their children’s education to our public schools,
it is depriving itself of a valuable resource.
From the recent cellphone
crackdown to shifts in special education policy, the DOE routinely
revises its procedures and restructures schools without informing
parents. As a result, it falls on the elected representatives
of the parents, including me and the City Council, to legislate
greater transparency in the school reform process. Legislation
would be a mere formality, however, if the DOE would simply break
its code of secrecy and respect the right of parents to be actively
involved in their children’s education.
To read my testimony
on parental involvement in its entirety, :
Gotbaum
Introduces Bills to Help Students with Special Needs; Protect
Children from Dangers of Tanning Beds
Last Wednesday I re-introduced
legislation requiring the Department of Education to create and
maintain detailed files for each student seeking or receiving
special education services and prepare an annual report based
on those files. I first introduced the bill after a survey of
nearly 300 school psychologists and administrators by my office
revealed that the DOE was pressuring school superintendents to
keep down referral rates for special education placements. The
annual report would be submitted to my office, the City Council,
and the Citywide Council on Special Education, a parent organization.
I also re-introduced
legislation prohibiting children younger than 14 from using tanning
beds. Minors younger than 18 would need parental consent. It is
unquestionable that ultraviolet rays pose a health risk. Studies
have found that people using tanning beds increase their risk
of skin cancer, including melanoma. Medical surveys have shown
that a third of teenage girls and more than 10 percent of teenage
boys have used tanning beds at least once. I introduced this bill
because the city should be doing its part to protect young people.
Similar legislation has been introduced in several other municipalities
and states across the country. Locally, Nassau and Suffolk counties
have enacted such legislation.
For more information
on these important bills,
l
Students at Herbert
H. Lehman High School in the Bronx were heartbroken last week
when they were told they would not be allowed to take the stage
for their production of Chicago because the school had not applied
for permission to perform the musical. That didn’t sit well
with me, so I reached out to some friends with ties to Broadway
and, by Tuesday afternoon, the owners of the Ambassador theater
where the Broadway revival of Chicago is playing, as well as the
producers and writers of the show, had given Lehman High the green
light. I was touched to receive a letter from Lehman’s dedicated
principal, Robert Leder, in which he wrote, “They say that
‘hope springs eternal’ and thanks to people like you,
it seems that such hope is justified.”
My efforts on behalf
of Lehman High were covered by The New York Times, The Daily News,
and El Diario.
I joined advocates last
Tuesday to call attention to new evidence that Wal-Mart is not
the type of business we need or want here in New York City. A
new report by Wake Up, Wal-Mart! shows that Wal-Mart stores are
crime magnets and that the company has failed to take even minimal
steps to protect its customers. For an estimated cost of 4 cents
per monthly customer visit, Wal-Mart could hire roving security
guards at all its stores nationwide. But instead, it’s letting
communities pick up the costs. According to Wake Up, Wal-Mart!’s
report, in the year 2004 alone, Wal-Mart stores soaked local taxpayers
for an estimated $77 million in increased policing costs.
That’s just bad
corporate citizenship. Local government, labor, and the people
of this city need to band together to keep Wal-Mart, and companies
with similar practices, out of New York. Because once they’re
here, holding them accountable will be an uphill battle all the
way. Wal-Mart says it’s all about discount prices. But higher
crime and a death-blow to small businesses—that’s
a price New York City can’t afford to pay.
My position on Wal-Mart’s
crime statistics was covered by The Daily News and The New York
Post.
To read Wake Up, Wal-Mart!’s
report,
Have a Great Week,
Betsy
Gotbaum
New York City Public Advocate
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