‘Some of it has to do with doubling down on existing policies but a lot of it has to do with things that we’ve been advocating for for years that are still not done. A lot of them are things we’ve been talking about for five, six years.’
Speaker Johnson’s office says the Council is working to tweak the decades-old Small Business Jobs Survival Act. But advocates are frustrated and fear ‘a completely different watered down version’ of SBJSA is what will pass.
CityFHEPS, the city’s voucher system has moved many homeless people into housing. But more linger in shelters because the voucher won’t pay enough to cover the rent.
They are unlikely to stop the plan, but at least some of them will be where last-minute negotiations focus.
The chair of the Council’s Committee on Public Safety believes the mayor could play a more decisive role than he’s said, and could have played it much sooner, in deciding Officer Pantaleo’s fate.
‘The plan that is in progress right now is the right plan, it’s one that is viable, it’s moving.’
‘Last winter another agency, the New York City Department of City Planning deliberately circumvented the Council’s oversight when it told the City Planning Commission that it had to approve four mega towers proposed to be built right on top of existing buildings.’
Overall, the budget for the Department for The Aging will grow 13 percent in 2020 from the previous year, reaching $411 million.
Rafael Salamanca said a rezoning slated for his district would be ‘dead on arrival’ if the de Blasio administration did not provide estimates of how many residents and businesses might be displaced.
‘In reviewing the city charter, the Council’s leadership should focus less on expanding its institutional powers as a body, and more on strengthening the role that individual members can play.’