January 22, 2024

The New City Council, Rent is Too Damn High, Budget Cut Update

January's been slow. We're at the start of a new legislative session with a new city council body in NYC.

There is no newly-introduced legislation. All the meetings have been about nominating and assigning leadership roles to members.

Here's the skinny around what is happening in and around the city council instead.

A summary of new members in the city council

Four incumbents left the council after the 2023 election.

Two were defeated in the general election, one was defeated in the the primary, and one retired.

• Marjorie Velasquez (D), a freshman city council member, lost her seat to Kristy Marmorato (R) in The Bronx
• Ari Kagan (R), a freshman city council member, lost his seat to Justin Brannan (D) in a newly-drawn district in South Brooklyn.
• Charles Barron (D) has been in city council and state assembly for two decades. He lost his primary to Chris Banks (D) in his East New York district.
• Yusef Salaam (D) ran and won the primary in his Harlem district, succeeding Kristin Richardson Jordan (D), who retired.

Another newly-drawn district in South Brooklyn had no incumbents. Susan Zhuang (D) won the primary and general election there.

Here is an article where you can learn a tiny bit more about them, including the first bill they'd like to pass and their favorite bagel order.

The budget cuts were, indeed, overblown

The City reports here on specific decisions City Hall made to make the budget problem seem like a major crisis, forcing every agency to scramble and make deep cuts.

I covered the council's stance that these budget cuts were overblown in the second issue of this newsletter.

The city council was not anticipating a major crisis requiring deep citywide cuts, but a problem that needed to be managed. And it turns out they were right.

Funding has been restored to NYPD, NYFD, and DSNY. Libraries have not had their funding restored, but have been spared from further cuts. (There were going to be two more rounds of 5% cuts, city-wide.)

Meanwhile, City Hall has been talking about how they've responsibly managed a budget crisis that was not a crisis in the first place.

Here's a screenshot from the Mayor's Community affairs newsletter:

There was a budget shortfall. Some cuts needed to happen, and they did.

All of these things were likely to happen, and could have happened without city-wide outrage and panic.

Rent is too damn high, 2013 vs. 2024

2013

Jimmy McMillan, founder of the Rent is Too Damn High Party and unelectable many-time gubernatorial/mayoral/city council candidate runs for mayor again in 2013.

He keeps his fun car perpetually parked on St. Marks Place outside my favorite banh mi shop in East Village, two blocks away from my then-apartment, and releases this YouTube music video to spread his gospel.

He wins 0.18% of the vote.

2024

Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams are now on board.

Last week, Chi Ossé, city council member representing Bed-Stuy/Northern Crown Heights posted this TikTok, proposing that the solution is to build more housing.

Ossé's support is striking because this proposal is especially complicated in the districts that he represents, where gentrification is underway and people are getting displaced.

It isn't simple for Chi Ossé to publicly support building more housing, because new housing in his district has historically meant that his constituents will be priced out.

And unless more housing is built at a pace unseen in NYC in decades, along with careful consideration not to displace current residents, that is still likely to happen.

Community boards -- help?

I'm trying to find community board voting records. If you know where I can find these, please let me know.

And, if you are on a CB and would like to share clips or notes from your meetings here, please holler. I could use help crowdsourcing notable goings-on in CBs, and I'm curious about what is going on in them.

I'll bring CB coverage into this newsletter eventually. It'll take time. They hold a lot power in shaping NYC's development, but there is very little transparency around them.

Meanwhile, here are some useful resources:

• CBs and City Council Districts do not map 1:1. Find out your district boundaries here: https://boundaries.beta.nyc.
• Applications are open for a number of community boards. They are hard to find.

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Thanks for reading! The cartoons in this issue are all by katiebcartoons.

Comments? Suggestions? Want to hear more about something?

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