Budget + Taxes

How would you prioritize these elements of or changes to the city's contracting and spending processes?

1: A Database of Deals for all economic development projects.
1: Council and borough president discretionary funding process.
1: Greater limits and oversight for campaign donations for companies and individuals who contract with the city.
1: Living wage requirements for city contracts, with cost of living adjustments (COLAs).
1: Minority and women owned business enterprises (MWBE) programs.
1: Participatory budgeting at the executive level.
1: Participatory budgeting for all council members and borough presidents.

Which proposals would you support to change or study changes to the city's tax system?

• Add an additional tier for single earners over $200,000 and households over $250,000, who would be taxed at 4.013% ($500 million in revenues annually) - and seek state legislative approval to accomplish this change
• Restructure the city’s tax brackets to have 7 instead of 5, reducing rates for the lowest brackets, and increasing them for the highest ($400 million in revenues annually) - and seek state legislative approval to accomplish this change
• Reinstitute the commuter tax ($900 million in revenues annually) - and seek state legislative approval to accomplish this change
• Cap Personal Income Tax Credit at $10,000 for payers of the Unincorporated Business Tax ($77 million in revenues annually)
• Constitute a new property tax commission to study and make recommendations on tax rates
• Add a vacancy tax for all non-resident (6 months/yr) owners, commercial tax to vacant storefront owners where after 6mo. half of the rent they're asking counts as income rather than loss

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address the budget and taxes in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

I would like to add an infrastructure tax to all new developments that include luxury development. I would like to create community land trusts and a "luxury tax" for new developments which would be put in a fund to subsidize home-ownership loans to lower- and middle-income New Yorkers.

Workers + Economic Development

How would you improve jobs for CITY employees?

• End gender and race-based pay gaps (Note that there is an 18-cent wage gap for women in city jobs)
• Move city employees in non-emergency and non-school roles to a 4-day, 36 hour work week, with 9 hour days (The NYC Independent Budget Office states that this could save $20 million a year)
• Improve evaluations and disciplinary processes
• Limit use of provisional employees
• Limit outsourcing of city jobs
• I would seek to amend the current standard corporate franchise agreement to add penalties for failure to negotiate with unions. I would also add new union protections to city law.

How would you prioritize creating and protecting job opportunities for NON-CITY employees?

1: Change street vendor permit rules, such as the Street Vendor Modernization Act.
1: Expand job placement services for veterans.
1: Expand summer youth employment.
1: Expand transitional jobs programs for the homeless and formerly incarcerated.
1: Provide workers with the right to advance notice of schedules, greater flexibility of scheduling, and access to full-time hours.
1: Support training programs to bring workers into emerging sectors.

How do you rank these initiatives to spur economic development throughout the city?

1: Develop ports and waterfront jobs.
1: Reform of Scaffold Law (requires change to state law).
1: Support manufacturing expansion and protection.
2: Develop the technology sector, including campuses such as Cornell, and incubators for the sector as a whole.
2: Support film and TV productions, including in the form of credits.
5: Support the sharing economy.
I do not support this initiative: Implement Midtown East Rezoning.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address workers and economic development in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

Transportation + Infrastructure

How would you prioritize upgrading NYC's aging infrastructure?

1: Airports
1: Gas lines
1: Rail and bus service
1: Roads and bridges
1: Water and sewer system

How would you prioritize proposals to address transportation and mobility in NYC? (Note that many of these proposals require state level advocacy.)

1: Bike Lanes Expansion
1: Bus Rapid Transit
1: Ferry Service
1: Half-price fares for working adults at or below the poverty line
1: Increased funding for Access-A-Ride and ADA compliance for subway stations
1: Increased Ride Hailing
1: Second Avenue Subway Phase 2
1: Triboro RX Subway Extension
2: LaGuardia AirTrain
3: CitiBike Expansion
4: Brooklyn to Queens Streetcar

Many subway riders - and associated MTA data - would argue that subway service is getting worse. At the same time, city and state officials disagree about who is responsible for fixing the system and paying the bills. What proposals would you advance to improve the subways and their governance?

• Increase city funding to the MTA
• Increase state funding to the MTA - and seek state approval to accomplish this change
• Earmark state funds for the MTA and forbid moving MTA money from subways to other projects - and seek state approval to accomplish this change
• Audit MTA finances, including contracts with vendors and maintenance costs, to find opportunities for savings
• Develop mechanisms for community input in MTA spending plans
• Get more NYC representatives on the MTA board - and seek state approval to accomplish this change
• Increase personal income tax rate from 3.9 to 4.4 percent for individuals makings $500,000 or more, or households earning $1 million or more
• We need to expand bus service, add dedicated bus lanes during peak hours and add priority green lighting for those lanes to decongest bus traffic and make it a more attractive and viable option, getting subway riders to view buses as an option.

cm-subway-yes

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address transportation and infrastructure in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

I would like to see, in general, fewer appoints made by the mayor and more department heads to be elected offices, including MTA and DoT.

Land Use + Real Estate + Housing

As a council member you'd have influence over land use decisions and the process for decision-making in your district, and competing concerns may arise in the process. How would you rank various land use priorities as you make these decisions?

1: Expand classroom seats at pace with the increase in housing units.
1: Expand infrastructure, such as transportation and utility capacity, at pace with the increase in housing units.
1: Increase affordable housing units.
1: Keep/grow community spaces, including parks and gardens.
1: Keep/grow small businesses, including mom and pop retailers.
1: Limit building heights to stay close to those of surrounding buildings.
1: Make sure development and zoning is in line with a DISTRICT-wide land use plan.
1: Preserve landmarks and/or institute neighborhood review to recommend which landmarks matter most.
2: Make sure development and zoning is in line with a BOROUGH-wide land use plan.
3: Make sure development and zoning is in line with a CITY-wide land use plan.
4: Increase market rate housing units.
5: Increase luxury units.
I do not support this initiative: Expand presence of chain and big-box retailers.

Do you support any of these proposals to reform ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure)?

• Increase transparency and refine procedures before ULURP applications are filed and/or during the certification stage
• Make borough president input binding, rather than advisory
• Reduce the role of council members
• Change the ratio of mayoral appointees to the City Planning Commission, or change the term lengths or limits of commissioners
• Increase oversight of community benefits agreements between developers, community groups, and government officials - and make them enforceable
• We need mayoral appointments to become elected positions. We also need an independent community review board. I would like to see testimony in housing and preservation committees given at city council to have to be given under oath.

What proposals do you support to address housing costs?

• Change inclusionary housing rules to limit zoning bonus of 421-a buildings to development on the building's zoning lot, eliminating transfer of air rights away from the affordable units (HPD proposal)
• Tie the percentage of rent increases to inflation rates - rather than the annual determination of the Rent Guidelines Board
• Expand the city's Mitchell-Lama program
• Increase number of city-subsidized units set aside for low and mixed income families (eg 3 person households with income between $34,360-51,540)
• Preserve affordable housing units by subsidizing physical repairs to property
• I believe we need to increase minimum wage and tie that permanently to housing costs so that no one working 40 hours/week will pay more than 33% of their income on average housing, so that single-parent families can afford at least an average 2 bedroom apartment.

Which proposals do you support to change the city’s homelessness service delivery?

• Find funding for NYCHA's $17 billion capital budget deficit
• Offer permanent rental assistance
• Reform anti-loitering laws
• Increase accessibility of shelters to those with disabilities
• Increase the number of Section 8 and public housing placements
• Offer permanent supportive housing with links to social services to address mental illness and other health issues
• Expand eviction-prevention programs including subsidizing rent for those behind in payments
• Many people become homeless due to either disabilities or inability to pay medical fees. Medicare-For-All would alleviate many issues.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address land use, real estate, and housing in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

We are seeing an influx of new people moving to the area and unless we are creating denser housing in our new developments, we will continue to premiumize housing and create less supply than there is demand. We need to zone for floor-to-floor height limits in new buildings so that, should we pass a zoning resolution for a height cap, we aren't just creating shorter luxury buildings, but still building dense enough housing with 10-11 foot ceilings to accommodate new residents. We also need permanent rent control for low-income seniors.

Environment + Sanitation

What proposals do you support to address the environment and environmental justice in the city?

• Fees for plastic bags (note that a city law was passed, but a moratorium was enacted at the state level)
• Expand green infrastructure to prevent storm runoff
• Expand green energy usage for public facilites, such as solar and natural gas
• Increase transparency of facilities siting through online publication of Fair Share Statements and mapping of facilities
• Update the city's Fair Share criteria, and reform the city's statement of needs process for siting of facilities
• Prohibit siting certain facilities in oversaturated communities, even through emergency sitings, by requiring a higher bar than current law
• Tax credits for private green energy usage, such as solar and natural gas.

How do you prioritize proposals to improve NYC's waste management?

1: Improve education about residents' role in waste management.
1: Increase compost collection sites.
1: Increase e-waste recycling facilities.
4: “Pay as you throw” charging for collection of waste other than recycled materials, similar to charges for utilities and water (estimated to raise $337 million annually, by the Independent Budget Office).
4: Expand commercial waste zones.
I do not support this initiative: Recycle styrofoam.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address the environment and sanitation in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

We need to rid the city of styrofoam.

Public Health + Safety

What public health and safety issues do you believe are in most need of addressing?

1: Access to healthy food.
1: Community-police relations.
1: Continuing sanctuary city policies.
1: Emergency preparedness.
1: Epidemic of addiction, including opiates.
1: Funding for safety net hospitals.
1: Integrity and proper management of buildings and construction inspections.
1: Keeping hospitals and emergency care in neighborhoods.

What do you think is the greatest health, safety, or emergency preparedness challenge facing NYC, how does it impact your district, and how would you address it?

Our greatest public health risk is the 91st St Marine Transfer Station. Not only is it situated in an area that will put kids and families at risk (the entrance ramp runs through the center of a recreational facility), but it is located near densely populated NYCHA housing. It would better serve the city as a ferry stop, which could be connected to bus service. The current ferry stop proposed is one block south with no direct access to public transit, making it very difficult for families with strollers, seniors and people with disabilities to access other forms of transit.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address public health and safety in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

I support an independently elected police review board. I also support an end to paid meals in schools. Healthy breakfast and lunch should be provided to students free of charge. I also support decriminalization of all drug use/possession.

Education + Children + Youth

How would you rank the significance of these alleged problems in NYC schools?

1: Class sizes are too big.
1: Inadequate racial and ethnic diversity.
1: Not enough classrooms and/or seats.
1: Restrictive environment for children with disabilities.
1: Student achievement gaps based on race and income.
3: Parental involvement mechanisms, such as Community Education Councils, need strengthening.
3: Too much testing to measure student and/or teacher performance.
4: Too much student testing.

What solutions would you advance to solve the problems you marked in the previous question?

We need to ensure all schools are ADA compliant. Students travel an hour or more sometimes to attend a school that meets their needs, even needs as simple as wheelchair access. We must also create a credit system to enact racially-balance quotas to incentivize diversity in all schools. I believe the system of tying school funding to property taxes is a biased system. Funding should be distributed more equally, with differences based on need and class size. An elected school board, with curriculum input to be given by teachers, would create better and more accountable schools.

Where do you stand on charter schools?

• The number of charter schools should be reduced
• Charter schools divert city funds inequitably to benefit some students at the expense of the majority
• Since charter schools are funded publicly, the government should have more oversight of their finances and operations
• They should NOT be co-located with public schools.

Should the city subsidize any of these services for children and their families?

• Childcare for all, from birth to age 4 (Pre-K)
• Universal free school lunch
• Expanded alternative education/GED programming
• Longer library hours
• After-school programming for all students
• More youth employment and apprenticeship opportunities.

What proposals do you support to ensure the safety of children under the purview of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) in the foster care and juvenile justice systems?

• Caseload reductions of front-line workers
• Greater transparency of data regarding caseloads
• Increased resources for parent and family advocacy in navigating these systems
• Increased oversight, beyond court-appointed monitor
• Increased use of city council's oversight authority.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address the children, youth, and education in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

Caseload limits are important. I would also add expanded paid vacation for case workers, as they have a difficult and taxing job.

Arts + Parks

Which proposals do you support regarding arts and cultural institutions and initiatives in NYC?

• Increase the city's overall arts budget
• Increase funding for small and/or community-based arts and cultural organizations
• Increase funding and/or partnerships for art and music education in schools
• Allow the city's cultural institutions that have free admissions - such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art - to charge admissions for non-city residents
• Fund cultural institutions and museums based on the diversity of their board members and employees
• Increase reporting and notification of film permits, their locations, and related data
• Change film permit requirements to reduce frequency of shooting in much-used neighborhoods
• Improve education and/or ease requirements for applications for cultural funding, while ensuring integrity and proper use of funds
• I want to create a citywide storefront program to provide opportunities for curators and artists and to eliminate the plague of empty storefronts.

What proposals do you support regarding the management and funding of city parks?

• Give the Parks Department its own discretionary budget, to give parks discretionary funds that are separate from those distributions from council members
• Redistribute privately donated funds from well-financed to lower-financed parks conservancies
• Make community gardens into permanent park spaces
• Standardize financial data reporting from private partnerships that care for parks - such as the Central Park Conservancy and Prospect Park Alliance
• Institute shadow laws to prevent parks from losing sunlight because of shadows from new, tall buildings.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address arts and parks in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

Based on the success of Calendrillo Gallery on Roosevelt Island, I'd like to use his model as a tactic throughout my district. He received steeply-reduced rent on a storefront in exchange for having a month-to-month lease and fixing up the space. By having it open with a "For Rent" sign in the front, the gallery functioned as a working advertisement for prospective business owners in the district. Creating a network of artists and curators to populate vacant storefronts would keep our neighborhoods from looking blighted, discourage demolition/redevelopment and add foot traffic to neighborhoods who need it the most. With agreement from the owners, city council budgets could subsidize a portion and gallerists would pay the other portion, agreeing on a month-to-month contract. This would also keep owners from being subject to my aforementioned vacancy tax.

Constituent Groups' Needs

The city offers services to address constituent needs - how would you address funding for these services?
Increase funding:

• Additional staff, including social workers, for senior centers.
• Extended hours at senior centers.
• Additional meals at senior centers.
• Education regarding availability of Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE).
• Education regarding availability of Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE).
• Education regarding availability of evaluations for Individualized Education Plans (IEP) for students with disabilities.
• Education and job training for individuals with disabilities.
• LGBTQ community centers.
• Housing for homeless LGBTQ, particularly youth.
• Sexual health/HIV and AIDs services.
• Drug abuse and addiction services.
• Mental health training for city employees.
• Department of Veterans Services.

Fine as is:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

Decrease funding:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

Do you support any of these changes to NYC's human rights law?

• Amend the definitions of gender and sexual orientation (City Council Intro 1186)
• Prohibit employer retaliation if an employee requests a "reasonable accommodation on the basis of a religious observance, disability, pregnancy, childbirth, medical condition, or their status as a victim of domestic violence, a sex offense or stalking, among other possible reasons" (City Council Intro 1479)
• Clarify which employees are protected by the human rights law, including interns and particular independent contractors (City Council Intro 1016)
• We also need legislative protections to protect employees whose employers have called ICE as an intimidation tactic (see B&H photo)

NYC provides a variety of services and information to immigrants, but not always in the languages spoken by the city's many immigrant communities. In which of these areas do you believe the city should provide resources in more languages?

• Elections and voting
• Health care
• Educational and youth services
• Senior services
• I would also advocate for all new businesses in majority bilingual neighborhoods to include bilingual signage, to ease the pace of displacement and gentrification.

The current city budget supports funding for legal services for immigrants facing deportation. What do you think about that?

I support this funding for immigrants not convicted of serious felonies.

Women make up half of the population, but are slated to make up less than one-third of the NYC Council's next class. Do you think this is a problem? And if so, what would you do about it?

This is absolutely a problem. As many city government officials begin their careers as staff for city council members, I would advocate standards and quotas for hiring staff, where 50% need to be women and 33% need to be people of color.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address the needs of constituent groups in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

As about 40% of our homeless youth identify as LGBTQ, we need to be doing a better job of providing housing, healthcare and employment services to them. And as so few of our MTA stations are wheelchair accessible, we need to add an administrative code mandating that no two consecutive stops on any train service should be without a wheelchair accessible elevator.

Policing + Criminal Justice

Which of these strategies do you think NYC should implement to prevent crimes?

• Reduce youth exposure to violence
• Invest in education and workforce development for young New Yorkers, to steer them away from making money through criminal activity
• Strengthen partnerships between the police, government entities, and community organization working with at-risk youths
• We need to provide housing and childcare vouchers to complement the free public tuition program at SUNY/CUNY. We also need to mandate more foot patrol for police to build better police-community relations. We also need reformed de-escalation training for all NYPD ASAP.

Which of these proposals do you support to change policies of the New York Police Department (NYPD)?

• Improve existing oversight structures such as the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and Inspector General
• Pass the Right to Know Act, which requires police officers to identify themselves and the reason for the interaction, and obtain fully informed consent before conducting searches
• Publish data regarding when the Police Commissioner declines to discipline or reduces recommended penalties for officers, particularly for use of force cases
• Release incident level and geographically-coded data on summonses and misdemeanor arrests
• Assess NYPD's quality-of-life policing tactics in terms of reduction of higher-level felony crimes
• Improve diversity and special needs training for communities of color, LGBTQ and disabilities communities, and residents with mental health issues
• We need an independent police review board. And we dearly need to retrain police in de-escalation. We should also implement a residency requirement for NYPD

Which of these proposals do you support to address pretrial detention, case processing, and trials for criminal defendants?

• Eliminate money bail or limit it to a small fraction of cases, using pretrial supervision instead for defendants released on their own recognizance for those charged with misdemeanors or nonviolent offenders
• Develop risk assessment tools to measure defendant's possible risk of re-offense, violence, and domestic violence
• Institute best practices to manage the timeline of criminal cases, including triage for cases likely to go to trial and speedy resolution of other cases, courts monitoring the timelines of cases, and holding attorneys accountable for moving cases along
• Use specialized courts that deliver services to address recidivism and provide alternative justice models, such as Community, Youth, Reentry, Drug, and/or Mental Health Courts
• We need to end cash bail and close rikers.

If Rikers Island were to close, where do you think a jail should be sited in your borough, how would you discuss this with your constituents, and what do you think should be the use of Rikers Island?

We should close rikers, eliminate cash bail and only be detaining violent criminals. I don't think we need a new facility. The Rikers facility could be a new location for compost processing.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address policing and criminal justice in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

Government Structures

How do you think NYC's system of checks and balances is working?

• New Yorkers are not appropriately represented by their elected officials
• Elections are not enough to keep government accountable
• The mayor's office has too much power and the other branches of government cannot adequately counteract or check it
• Fernando Cabrera was paid $40k by a styrofoam company to promote styrofoam recycling and vote against the styrofoam ban. It was in the papers but still people don't know. We need courageous elected officials who will call out these kinds of corrupt behaviors. We also need to lower the limit for campaign contributions and disallow real estate developers and corporate lobbyists from supporting candidates.

How would you fix NYC government's system of checks and balances and keep officials accountable to the public?

• Give the COIB, DOI, and/or the public advocate "independent budgets" - budgets tied to certain formulas rather than the annual, political budget process of the mayor and city council, Give the public advocate more powers, such as power to issue subpoenas and prosecute officials' violations of the city charter
• Have the city council review COIB and DOI internal rules, procedures, and findings
• Conduct an extensive review of the city charter to balance and update government structures
• Strengthen the role of community boards in neighborhoods' land use decisionmaking, while enhancing oversight of community boards
• Build on NYC's OpenRECORDS by publishing documents in response to Freedom of Information Law requests
• I would enact a program like Seattle's democracy vouchers where all elections are supported by public funds, through $25 vouchers given to all registered voters to be then used to contribute to candidates. I would also like open primaries to break up the power of the establishment Democratic party and give independent the third party voters a better voice.

Over the past several years, NYC has developed an Open Data Plan and has been releasing datasets about select city services and operations to the public through the Open Data Portal. Is there any data about city services or operations that you think should or must still be shared with New Yorkers?

Donor data should be mailed to all constituents. The trend of opening everything up through public databases is important but the onus is still on the voter to then play detective and connect the dots. We need an independent financial review board for voters to contact about information about candidates with a rating that compares their voting record to their contributors.

All cities, including NYC, are "municipal corporations" of state government - and state law dictates what authority cities have over their own government and operations. State law limits NYC government's control over rent regulation (Urstadt Law), mayoral control of city schools, transportation and traffic (the MTA and subways, bridge tolls, and speed cameras and speed limits). As a council member, how would you deal with state government when it gets in the way of your city policy goals?

• Meet with state legislators, the governor, and other state officials to collaboratively find solutions
• Protest with other council members and constituents in Albany
• Sue the state
• Meet with officials from other cities in NY state, to collectively change municipal home rule to expand cities' self control.

In 2016, the NYC Council voted to remove special stipends for chairs of council committees (which had been used as a political tool by the council speaker), while giving all council members a raise from $112,500 to $148,500 - the raise was signed into law by the mayor. If elected, how would you handle this issue if it comes up again?

• Vote against giving council members another raise
• Advocate for legislation that requires salaries of council members to be voted on by New Yorkers through referendum
• Advocate for legislation that requires salaries of council members to be tied to inflation and/or median income.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address government structures and accountability in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

This raise failed to address issues of corruption and lobbyist kickbacks (see the aforementioned styrofoam lobbyist example). We need to ensure that once these issues come to light, the public advocate or the comptroller have jurisdiction to file a report or recommendation to investigate.

Elections + Campaign Finance

Where do you stand on these proposals to change voting and municipal elections in NYC?
Support - and would like to be prime sponsor on this legislation:

• Nonpartisan elections
• Instant runoff voting
• Expand use of poll workers working shorter shifts (less than the current 15 hour shifts)
• Extend the vote to permanent residents
• Extend the vote to non-citizens who have applied and are waiting for green cards
• Extend the vote to non-citizens who have been lawfully present for a specified period of time
• Extend the vote to all non-citizens, including undocumented residents

Support:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

Oppose:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

Not sure:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

Should these elements of the public matching system be higher or lower?
Make it higher:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

Good as is:

• Maximum public funds payment ($100,100 for council candidates)

Make it lower:

• Contribution limit ($2,750 for council candidates)
• Doing business contribution limit ($250 for council candidates)
• Threshold of funds raised to participate in public matching system ($5,000 for council candidates)
• Threshold of donors to participate in public matching system (75 for council candidates)
• Spending limits in years prior to the election year ($49,000 for council candidates)
• Spending limits in the primary election ($182,000 for council candidates)
• Spending limits in the general election ($182,000 for council candidates)

Not sure:

• (Candidate didn't select answers in this category)

What do you think about the role of bundlers in raising campaign funds, lobbyists making donations, and nonprofits of elected officials taking donations from lobbyists?

These all need to be subject to investigation with legal penalties attached.

Please use this space if you'd like to share any other thoughts and proposals to address elections and campaign finance in NYC, or expand your answers to the questions on this topic.

Seattle's democracy voucher program would serve the city well. I have also heard experiments in paying voter to turn out on election day. A small $25 check or prepaid card is currently less than many city council races spend in public funding for primary elections. We would see turnout skyrocket.