🍎 citymeetings.nyc #6
Hearings on the Parks & Recreation, Sanitation, and Libraries budgets
Howdy!
Some updates, then onto highlights from some recent hearings.
citymeetings.nyc's status
I continue to run into challenges with efficient chapter extraction & review. I shared a bit about this in the last newsletter.
I'm reworking my automation and hope to be back on track at the end of the summer. In the meantime, I'll be publishing a sample of meetings every 1-2 weeks.
If you want to request that a meeting be published sooner rather than later, please email me.
citymeetings.nyc making the rounds
citymeetings.nyc has been getting noticed in fun and exciting ways since my talk at NYC School of Data ~8 weeks ago.
My favorite shoutout for citymeetings.nyc has been this one from N.K. Jemisin on Bluesky in late March:
In early April, Zach Seward (Editor of AI Initiatives @ New York Times) shared citymeetings.nyc in a talk he delivered at the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ).
In it, he builds the argument for how "... generative AI’s most powerful use is not in creating entirely new text or images, it’s creating structure out of messy data that already exist".
Here is the YouTube clip where he discusses citymeetings.nyc.
More recently:
- I've delivered talks about citymeetings.nyc and LLM use cases at the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI) and Independent Budget Office (IBO).
- I've spoken with and shared notes with newsrooms and civic hackers around the US (👋 Boulder Reporting Lab and Recap)
- Advocacy groups have been curious about how to use citymeetings.nyc in their work (👋 Stop the Chop)
I have greatly enjoyed these conversations.
If you'd like me to talk to your team about citymeetings.nyc and/or LLMs at large, consider this an open invitation: you can reply to this newsletter or email me directly.
Hearing on the Parks & Rec's and Sanitation's budgets
The hearing in numbers:
Sanitation
- $477MM - 2025's budget for waste export. Link
- $100MM - the amount invested in new snow removal equipment in the last 2 years. Link
- $30.8MM - the estimated cost of 76 new mechanical street sweepers in 2025. Link
- $22.2MM - yearly salaries for street-sweeping functions in NYC. Link
- $22MM - how much it costs yearly to provide adequate litter basket service in NYC. Link
- $1.1MM - how much it costs to send mailers to all 1-9 unit residences to announce the forthcoming citywide bin mandate. Link
Parks & Rec
- $51.85MM - the amount allocated for tree planting in 2024.
- $13.8MM - the cost of a "second shift" in NYC Parks (Thurs - Sun evenings) Link
- $1MM - the cost of playground renovations across the five boroughs. Link
- $1MM - how much it costs to install one Portland Loo. The city is evaluating 5 (one in each borough).
- $1,000 - the retention bonus for returning lifeguards. Link
- $22 - a lifeguard's hourly rate. Link
Some highlights
- A string of laid-off GrowNYC workers express their dismay. Link
- There are 900 lifeguards projected to staff pools and beaches this summer, about 60% of the need citywide. Link
- Negin Farsad, comedian & frequent panelist on "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" testifies on the importance of parks in NYC. Link
Hearing on the library & Department of Cultural Affairs budget
The hearing in numbers:
- $6.14B - the amount city council found left on the table in City Hall's preliminary budget. Link
- $920.2MM - the proposed capital budget for libraries in 2025. Link
- $425.1MM - the proposed expense budget for libraries in 2025. Link
- $152MM - proposed budget for the Department of Cultural Affairs.
- $130MM - combined capital funding cuts to libraries in 2025. Link
- Their impact. Link
- $58.3MM - the amount city council is calling for in additional budget to restore cuts and cover funding gaps. Link
- This would not immediately restore full services and programs. Link
- $30.1MM - the cost of renovating the Tompkins Square library Link
- $28.4MM - the cost of renovating the Corona library Link
- $23.3MM - the cost of renovating the Brownsville library Link
- $20MM - the cost of renovating the Eastern Parkway library Link
- $16.5MM the cost of renovating the West New Brighton library Link
- $4.6MM - the Brooklyn Public Library's technology budget (~5% of total). Link
Thanks for reading!
For a complete listing of published meetings, visit https://citymeetings.nyc.
Comments, questions, or feedback? Reply to this email or shoot me a note at vikram@citymeetings.nyc