Brewer Embraces Outdoor Dining Proposals
In a Tuesday letter to Department of Transportation Department Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer (D) joined calls to increase al fresco dining options at restaurants citywide, Eater New York reported Wednesday.
The letter discussed the City’s Street Seats program, an effort to enable ground-level businesses with street access to use their outdoor space for public seating.
In the letter, Brewer urged Trottenberg to expand the program to enable businesses to take orders and handle money in out door areas.
Maloney Wants Insurers to Cover COVID-19
Politico reported Thursday that Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens) is introducing legislation that would reimburse insurance providers’ losses from coronavirus coverage.
Currently, many insurers do not cover coronavirus, saying that the financial toll of the pandemic renders them unable to do so.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Maloney wrote in a letter urging her colleagues to support the bill. “Like the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, the federal government would serve as a backstop to maintain marketplace stability and to share the burden alongside private industry.”
Rivera, Williams Blast De Blasio’s Police Funding
City Councilmember Carlina Rivera (D-East Village, Lower East Side, Murray Hill) and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D) blasted Mayor Bill De Blasio’s (D) decision to not cut police funding while doing so for numerous other city departments, The Chief reported Monday.
“If a budget is a moral document, then it looks like the city is putting us on our way to be morally bankrupt,” Rivera said. “No agency should get special treatment.”
Williams agreed. “You cannot leave a $6-billion agency almost all intact and cut another agency almost 40 percent,” he said. “You can’t put a hiring freeze on the entire City of New York except for the NYPD,” Mr. Williams said.
