BP Adams Calls On NYCHA To Reform Tenant Complaint System
Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams alongside other elected officials, community leaders and tenants, will call on the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to reform it’s tenant complaint system today.
On Friday, Adams will specifically call on NYCHA to immediately address tenant reports of a lack of steady water service at NYCHA’s Brevoort Houses. The public housing development consists of 894 apartments in 13 seven-story buildings housing nearly 2,000 people in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Residents claim that over the course of several weeks they have been experiencing outages without the proper steps to address the situation.
The NYCHA online dashboard, which is meant to record and address tenants’ complaints, was reportedly inaccurate as it indicated that the outage had only been taking place for five hours as opposed to several days or weeks.
According to tenant reports, residents experienced brief restoration of water supply followed by another outage forcing them to submit a new ticket in NYCHA’s reporting system. Additionally, photographs have also been circulating of water spigots being set up outside the housing development to allow residents to come and fill buckets of water for their apartments.
At the rally, Adams will also address the city’s public housing authority’s need for increased transparency, communication with residents, additional real-time monitoring of infrastructure and ticketing for residents, as well as the proper classification of outages and reformation of the ticketing system so that residents do not have to re-submit complaints.
The event is slated for 11 a.m., today, July, 27, at Brevoort Houses (outside the basketball court), at 254 Ralph Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Carroll Demands Governor Sign Legislation Encouraging Solar Investment
Assembly member Robert Carroll (D-Park Slope, Kensington, Windsor Terrace) and members of the NYC Solar Business Alliance joined together earlier this week, to call on Governor Andrew Cuomo to sign bills (A.10150 & A.10410) that encourage investment in solar panels and electric energy storage equipment in New York City.
The first bill, A.10150 (Carroll), would extend the existing incentive program that encourages the installation of solar panels in New York City. The tax abatement is currently set to expire in 2019, while this bill would extend it until 2021. The program is aligned with New York’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing cleaner, more reliable power for every New Yorker.
The second bill, A.10410 (Carroll), would provide a property tax abatement to individuals who purchase and install electric energy storage equipment. This will allow expenditures related to running electric energy storage systems to be more affordable. Both bills passed the Assembly and Senate in June and are waiting for final approval from the Governor.
“Solar power is efficient, clean, and green. Solar energy reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that are destroying our planet. But in the current economy, and under the current administration in Washington, solar power may be unaffordable for working families. And it is even more expensive to install solar energy projects in the five boroughs than in the rest of the state. This legislation makes it affordable for working Brooklynites and other City residents to utilize solar energy as a way to power their homes,” said Carroll.
“Incentivizing solar power now will create jobs, reduce our carbon footprint and help improve the quality of our environment in the future. Extending and strengthening programs that encourage the installation of solar panels and the storage of solar energy will help us achieve those goals. I urge the Governor to sign this legislation as soon as possible,” added Carroll.
Mosley Denounces Expiration of School Speed Camera Program
Assemblyman Walter T. Mosley (D-Fort Green, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights) denounced the expiration of of the state’s pilot speed camera program yesterday.
On Wednesday, State Senators waged war as they attempted to pass legislation aimed at expanding and preserving the school safety program. However, due to a lack of agreement no measure was passed and the school-zone speed cameras were shut off. All 140 of the pilot’s cameras have been turned off including halting of an additional 150 that were set to be installed later this year.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, with help from the state legislature, rolled out the cameras in 2014 on a trial run. The photo equipment has been used to ticket drivers going at least 10 mph above the speed limit during school hours.
“Yesterday at 5:30PM, school-zone speed cameras in New York City were shut off due to Senate Republicans holding this legislation hostage and refusing to act. They have turned children’s lives into political bargaining chips with little regard for the potential destruction this will cause,” said Mosley.
“This is not a hard choice. I stand with my Democratic colleagues in calling on Senate Republicans to return to Albany to do their jobs in protecting our children,” added Mosley.
Nadler Introduces Democracy Bill Aimed At Restoring Voting Rights of Ex-Offenders
Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-Western Brooklyn, Western Manhattan), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the Democracy Restoration Act of 2018 yesterday, a measure aimed at restoring voting rights to ex-offenders.
The Democracy Restoration Act is a narrowly crafted effort to resolve ambiguities in the voting system and expand voting rights for people with felony convictions, while protecting state prerogatives to generally establish voting qualifications.
The legislation, introduced with more than 30 Members, is part of ongoing efforts at the federal and state level to help reintegrate ex-offenders into their communities, restoring their full participation in civic life. An estimated 6.1 million citizens are ineligible to vote in federal elections due to their status as ex-offenders. More than four and a half million of these disqualified voters are not in prison, but are on probation, parole, or have completed their sentence.
“The United States remains one of the world’s strictest nations when it comes to denying citizens convicted of crimes the right to vote. The denial of voting rights to ex-offenders is a vestige from a time when suffrage was denied to whole classes of our population based on race, gender, religion, national origin and property,” said Nadler.
“Our nation not only fails people with felony convictions by denying them the right to vote, we fail the rest of our society that has struggled throughout American history to ensure that our citizenry be part of legitimate and inclusive elections. It is long overdue that these restrictions be relegated to the dustbin of history,” added Nadler.
