Budget + Taxes

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

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.
2: A Database of Deals for all economic development projects.
3: Council and borough president discretionary funding process.
3: Participatory budgeting at the executive level.
3: 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
• 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
• A tax on inequality, levied on corporations where the CEO is making hundreds of times what their average worker is making. It will be an extra percentage layered on top of the Business Corporation Tax

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.

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.), Limit outsourcing of city jobs
• I'm interested in a 30-hour work week (with no loss in pay), and would like to explore ways to achieve this for city employees. I believe I we can make progress on this through digitizing documents and/or automating tasks. If successful, the initiative can exert pressure on the private sector in NYC to do the same.

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

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

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

2: Support film and TV productions, including in the form of credits.
3: Develop the technology sector, including campuses such as Cornell, and incubators for the sector as a whole.
3: Support manufacturing expansion and protection.
3: Support the sharing economy.
4: Develop ports and waterfront jobs.
4: Implement Midtown East Rezoning.
4: Reform of Scaffold Law (requires change to state law).

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: Rail and bus service
2: Water and sewer system
3: Airports
3: Roads and bridges
4: Gas lines

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

1: Half-price fares for working adults at or below the poverty line
2: Bike Lanes Expansion
2: Bus Rapid Transit
2: CitiBike Expansion
2: Increased funding for Access-A-Ride and ADA compliance for subway stations
3: Increased Ride Hailing
3: LaGuardia AirTrain
3: Triboro RX Subway Extension
4: Second Avenue Subway Phase 2
5: Ferry Service
I do not support this initiative: 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
• Increase funding via toll reforms, such as the MoveNY tolling plan, seeking state approval for 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
• Move the MTA, or its NYC-specific services, within NYC control - 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.

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.

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: Increase affordable housing units.
1: Keep/grow small businesses, including mom and pop retailers.
1: Make sure development and zoning is in line with a DISTRICT-wide land use plan.
2: Expand infrastructure, such as transportation and utility capacity, at pace with the increase in housing units.
2: Keep/grow community spaces, including parks and gardens.
3: Limit building heights to stay close to those of surrounding buildings.
3: 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: Preserve landmarks and/or institute neighborhood review to recommend which landmarks matter most.
5: Expand presence of chain and big-box retailers.
5: Increase luxury units.
5: Increase market rate housing units.

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 community board input binding, rather than advisory
• Reduce the role of council members
• Increase oversight of community benefits agreements between developers, community groups, and government officials - and make them enforceable.

What proposals do you support to address housing costs?

• Increase number of city-subsidized units set aside for middle and moderate income families (eg 3 person households with income between $69,000-141,735)
• 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
• Draft a vacancy tax and property flipping tax, and work with Albany to enact them

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 supportive housing with links to social services to address mental illness and other health 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.

I'd love to see the Community Land Trust model accelerated, starting with the Bedford Union Armory.

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
• 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.

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.
2: Increase e-waste recycling facilities.
5: Expand commercial waste zones.
I do not support this initiative: “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).
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.

By diverting more money to food rescue, we can keep more food waste out of landfills, save money on trash collection (fewer lbs collected), and also address pantry shortages. Also, recycling styrofoam is inefficient and costly, and I'd rather try to ban it than try to recycle it.

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.
2: Integrity and proper management of buildings and construction inspections.
3: Funding for safety net hospitals.
3: 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?

Opioid abuse presents a growing threat, and there are often addicts outside the rehab center on Fulton (in my district) who need additional help.

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.

Although we can't pass single payer health care at the city level, I will use my position on the city council to pressure state officials to pass the NY Health Act in 2018.

Education + Children + Youth

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

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

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

I would push for alternatives to high stakes testing, and a return to Elected School Boards. I'd also fight against charter schools, and direct that funding towards public 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
• 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
• 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.

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.

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
• Increase reporting and notification of film permits, their locations, and related data
• Improve education and/or ease requirements for applications for cultural funding, while ensuring integrity and proper use of funds.

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
• Standardize financial data reporting from private partnerships that care for parks - such as the Central Park Conservancy and Prospect Park Alliance .

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.

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.
• LGBTQ community centers.
• Housing for homeless LGBTQ, particularly youth.
• Sexual health/HIV and AIDs services.
• Drug abuse and addiction services.
• Department of Veterans Services.

Fine as is:

• 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.

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).

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?

• Health care
• Educational and youth services.

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

I support this funding for all immigrants.

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?

Yes. Although I personally identify as male, I plan to hire staff at an inverse ratio to the council. If the City Council is 2/3 male, my staff will be 2/3 female, including chief of staff.

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.

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.

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
• Replace the CCRB with an elected body, bring participatory budgeting to the NYPD, and require that NYPD officers live in NYC

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
• 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.

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?

Rikers Island is already closing. We'll need to have a borough-wide discussion on the location of a smaller facility in Brooklyn. And we'll need to discuss how the facility can treat incarcerated individuals humanely and with the goal of rehabilitation.

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.

Decriminalizing marijuana would be huge step in reducing mass incarceration in this city.

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.

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
• Change COIB and DOI leadership appointments, so that they are not only appointed by the mayor but also by other branches of government that check the mayor and the city's agencies, such as the city council, public advocate, and/or comptroller
• 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
• Readjust term limits to strengthen the city council and reduce mayoral power, allowing council members to serve for 3 terms while the mayor is limited to 2 terms
• 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
• Implement a mechanism to recall elected officials

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?

How Capital Discretionary Budgets are determined and allocated by district.

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
• Battle it out with state officials in the press
• 2018 is the year to put pressure on Albany to overhaul our housing laws and fight back against the housing lobby. All state officials will be up for reelection.

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
• I'll be slashing my own salary to the median income of Brooklyn

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.

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:

• Instant runoff voting

Support:

• Nonpartisan elections
• 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

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:

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

Good as is:

• 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 the primary election ($182,000 for council candidates)
• Spending limits in the general election ($182,000 for council candidates)

Make it lower:

• Contribution limit ($2,750 for council candidates)
• Spending limits in years prior to the election year ($49,000 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?

I think it provides a loophole for the housing lobby to enter, and it should be closed.

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.