🍎 citymeetings.nyc #2
Hearings on anti-book banning initiatives, NYCHA corruption, remote learning issues, eliminating the 30- and 60-day shelter limit rule, the housing vacancy survey, various budgets and dozens of other meetings!
There were ~50 meetings since I sent issue #1 two weeks ago. Most of these are 1 to 7-hour long hearings!
It's budget hearing season, so this will continue through the end of March.
Some updates to citymeetings.nyc:
- I've upgraded how I extract chapters + edit titles and summaries to make this process faster.
- You can now see tags to identify questions, council member remarks, testimony, or procedure (screenshot below).
I'm talking about citymeetings.nyc at NYC School of Data on March 23rd. Here's the conference program, here's what my talk will cover, and here is where you can grab tickets.
I'd love to see you there!
On to highlights from the last 2 weeks. Please send me feedback or questions by replying to this message.
Note:
- citymeetings.nyc's meeting research tools do not work on mobile yet. You'll need to access links below on your desktop.
- Links are currently loading a bit slowly, apologies! Let me know if you run into issues.
Hearing on eliminating shelter 30/60-day shelter stay limits for migrants
- Two migrants in the shelter system testify on their experiences. (Skip to Speaker 5, who is the French-language interpreter). Link
- Questions to expand on their testimony start here. Link
- Two Venezueluan migrants on challenges access food, social services, and employment. Link
- How does the 30- and 60-day shelter limit rule affect asylum seekers? Link
Hearing on anti book-banning initiatives,and book banning across the country
- Are New Yorkers sufficiently aware of the threat that stems from banning books? Link
- Have NYC's public libraries faced pressure locally to ban books? Link
- Why are teens especially important in your anti-banning efforts? Link
- How are libraries curating collections for diverse communities and subject areas? Link
- A testimony from Flame, storyteller with Drag Story Hour NYC. Link
Hearing on wrongful convictions
- Yusef Salaam reflects on his personal journey in the Central Park Jogger Case. Link
- Does NYPD audit investigations after a wrongful conviction is overturned? Link
- Would the NYPD support a policy prohibiting the interrogation of minors without a lawyer present? Link
- Vickie Paladino's inquiry on the release of guilty individuals due to insufficient evidence. Link
Budget Hearing for the Department of Probation & Department of Correction
- The number of youth jailed has doubled under Mayor Adams' tenure. Why? Link
- Why are funds being cut from from programs that are alternatives to incarceration? Link
- There were about 1,029 staff reported as chronically absent in the Department of Corrections. Link
- What measures is the Department of Correction (DOC) implementing to prevent deaths in custody? Link
- A youth advocate who goes by "Batman" delivers testimony on how we can better support youth. Link
Hearing on Remote Learning Issues During February 13th's Snowstorm
IBM is contracted by DOE to provide remote learning services.
- How did the DOE communicate with IBM about technical issues? Did IBM meet its contractual obligations? Link
- Why are 2018's capacity numbers still used in procuring services after the pandemic introduced remote learning? Link
- What is the DOE's response to the mayor’s comments blaming parents for login issues? Link
- IBM's Senior State Executive for New York gave testimony. Link
Hearing on the 2023 Housing Vacancy Survey
- What does a 1.4% vacancy rate signify for NYC's housing crisis? Link
- How can 230,000 vacant but unavailable housing units be activated? Link
- Does CHIP disagree with the Housing Vacancy Survey's categorization of offline units? Link
Budget Hearing for the Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI)
- The city plans to use AI to reach out to folks who are eligible for public benefits. Link
- The city's weekly average in terms of cyber threat events is 90 billion. Link
- Daniel Golliher's testimony (Maximum New York) on how tech workers are keen to better understand how the government works and get involved. Link
Hearing on the NYCHA corruption scandal
- What role can technology and data analytics play in preventing fraud in the micro-purchase program at NYCHA? Link
- Did changes after 2021's recommendations from the Department of Investigations help improve efficiency (yes) and prevent corruption (no)? Link
- How has the bribery and corruption scandal affected NYCHA's work order completions and repair times? Link
- How is NYCHA working on repairing trust with residents? Link
- What measures is NYCHA taking to reform its culture? Link
Hearing on compliance with the Open Data Law
- The public has access to a dataset that tells everyone what datasets will get released. Link ("It's datasets all the way down.")
- Agencies are required to fill out a workbook yearly to identify datasets that should be on the open data portal. The Open Data team also reviews agency websites for datasets. Link
- Why are only 50% of datasets automated? Link
- What new datasets does the Open Data team think should be included in the open data initiative? Link
- What does the future look like for the city's Open Data program? Link
Prelim Budget Hearing for Health and Hospitals (H+H)
- H+H has been heavily enlisted in providing shelter services for asylum seekers because of their experience creating hotel rooms during the pandemic. Link
- Average medical school debt for residents is ~$215,000, their median annual salary is $67,311. Link
- Suicide is the leading cause of death for male residents, the second leading cause of death for female residents. Link
- Overall malpractice numbers are lower in H+H than other systems in total dollar amount. Why? Link
- Dr. Lucky Tran urges the city to continue funding and implementing COVID measures. Link
March 7th's Stated Meeting
- Many remarks remembering Paul Vallone, a former council member who recently passed. Links to some of these: Adrienne Adams, Kalman Yeger, James Gennaro,
- James Gennaro also talks about Peter Vallone Sr., Paul Vallone's father, reflecting on how city council's operations became more inclusive because of his efforts. Link
- Kevin Riley introduces a resolution to address lifeguard shortages in NYC. Link
- Sandy Nurse re-introduces the Stop Illegal Evictions Act. Link
Prelim Budget Hearing for the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) and the Mayor's Office of Asylum Seeker Operations (OASO)
- There's a pilot program to distributed prepaid debit cards to asylum seekers. Link
- There are claims the program will save the city $7.2MM. Based on what information? Link
- American DreamWorks is an initiative to connect asylum seekers with work. How is the initiative implemented? Link
- How is the city protecting new arrivals from legal service fraud? Link
Hearing on water safety and access to swimming pools
- There are 65 public pool facilities. 58 are open. Link
- The NYC Parks Department's current swim lesson offerings. Link
- NYC pools require 1,400 lifeguards. Last year there were 800. Same the year before. Link
- What are the current efforts to address the lifeguard shortage? Link
- What is an aquatic culture? Link
Prelim Budget Hearing for NYC
- How did the mayor's office decide who was exempt from 5% cuts in January? Link
- The council is not pleased with the collaboration between the mayor and the council on budget priorities. Link
- Why are NYC's revenue forecasts conservative? Isn't there a concern that an overly conservative revenue estimate will lead to unnecessary service reductions? Link
- Brad Lander on the housing crisis. Link
Hearing on boosting solar photovoltaic and battery storage capacities
- 2025's 50-megawatt solar energy goal will covers 177 buildings, covers schools, cultural institutions, firehouses, and other buildings. Link
- In December 2023, the city had 24 megawatts of solar capacity. They have 50 megawatts in their pipeline, expecting to have them implemented by 2025. They're planning 70 megawatts by 2027 and 100 megawatts by 2030. Link
- It's costs $24MM to install a 5 megawatt battery energy storage system. Link
Hearing on the Preliminary Mayor's Management Report (PMMR)
On 3/1, the Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation held a hearing on this document, known as the PMMR.
Every municipal agency reports on their performance "delivering services", whatever that might mean for them.
- What actions are being taken to address the worsening NYPD response times (13m48s this year up 108 seconds from last year, and up 6 minutes from 2019)? Link
- Only 40% of SNAP applications and 14% cash assistance applications are being processed on time. Link
- How can the trend of decreased bike and bus lane installations be reversed? Link
Hearing on declining childhood vaccination rates
- Vaccination rates are down 2 to 16 percentage points compared to 2019, depending on the vaccine and age group. Link
- What's the difference between DTaP and Tdap? Link
- What are the school attendance rules for children not fully vaccinated in NYC? Link
- It's safe and standard procedure to administer a vaccine instead of test to see if it is needed. Link
- Current vaccine compliance rate in schools is 95.3%, but it was 98.5% prior to COVID. Link
- The current vaccination rates broken down by borough. Link
Hearing on supporting Business Improvement Districts (BIDs)
- The smallest BID has a budget of $73,000 and the largest BID has a budget of $20M. Link
- What are the services required to start a BID? Link
- On grants to help develop BIDs. Link
Hearing on implementing the state class size law in NYC
- Can principals repurpose school budgets to chase smaller school enrollments? What are the tradeoffs? Link
- Can pay incentives for teachers in high poverty schools retain them? Link
- How can we address the need for more classrooms and teacher shortages? Link
- Why does reducing class sizes require trade-offs? Link
Hearing on discrimination in financial services
- Why has there been a significant decline in consumer complaints against debt collection and debt settlement companies in NYC? Link
- What actions have been taken regarding predatory auto loans? Link
- What are the greatest challenges in implementing and enforcing discrimination complains? Link
Hearing on fire safety in residential buildings
- The number of fire safety education presentations roughly halved from 1449 in the 1st 4 months of FY to 735 in the 1st 4 months of FY 2024. Why? Link
- What recourse do tenants have if they are denied re-entry after a building is deemed safe after a fire? Link
- Why are unit assignment declining in The Bronx when there's an increase in fire events? Link
Hearing on streamlining college acceptances for NYC public high school graduates
- Testimony from Phong Yang, Strategic Enrollment, at Fresno State shares details about a direct admission program from high schools to Fresno State, elements of which CUNY/SUNY want to implement in NYC Link.
- What are the goals of sending personalized letters to high school students from CUNY? Link
- What's the feedback from this program? Link
Feedback? Comments? Questions? Reply to this newsletter or send me an email at vikram@citymeetings.nyc.
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