Change for New York: 100 Ideas for a Better City
INTRODUCTION: IDEAS & CHANGE, NEW YORK STYLE
MARK GREEN
July 9, 2009
Campaigns are usually about politics -- about money, polls, endorsements, attacks. Sounds obvious, right?
But ideally -- and certainly during a crisis -- they should be even more about policies and ideas. As figures from Keynes to Galbraith to Gingrich have noted, "ideas matter" -- indeed over the course of history, little else does.
My public life has been about advocating good ideas and then trying to put them into practice. In my work as a public interest lawyer, public official, and author, I successfully initiated 311, reduced tobacco promotions to kids, organized “Kick Butts Day” and “Tuesday Night Out,” prohibited companies from firing domestic violence victims, helped get RU-486 imported into America, got abusive cops punished, enacted the law providing public funds matching small donations, among others.
In this campaign to again become the Public Advocate, I want to focus more on ideas than politics by showing how to put the new back in New York -- how to advocate for fresh ideas to old problems that can be implemented in office. And since I just did this for the Obama Administration in my January book, Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President, today my campaign is releasing part one of Change for New York. Next month will be part two, the next 50 ideas.
These are not necessarily brand new, unheard of ideas ready to be immediately enacted. That’s not the way government works or solutions get enacted. Rather, these ideas are either novel or tried elsewhere or sitting ignored but, in my view, ready at least for consideration and discussion by either the State legislature, the Mayor, or the City Council. And we'll also put them out for comment on our website so the New Yorkers can provide feedback on what works and what doesn’t. So policies will be drafted, not just by me but by us.
Just as President Obama is bringing progressive change to Washington, all candidates and officials should strive to do the same for New York. His theme of change echoes throughout American history. Jefferson said America needed a revolution once a generation; Lincoln urged Americans to “disenthrall ourselves” to “think anew and act anew;” F.D.R. concluded during the Depression that we had to “boldly experiment” and if something doesn’t work then try something else.
Ultimately, it was the poet of democracy, Brooklyn’s own Walt Whitman, who said it best when he noted that “America is always becoming.” Isn’t that the story of America – and New York too?
IDEAS INDEX
1. Spur start ups with $50,000 micro-seed investments.
2. Grow jobs by improving accessibility to economic development programs.
5. Make the City’s Job Centers work better for applicants by passing the Ready Access to Assistance Act
7. Provide tax incentives for working youth and support for gaining access to those benefits.
10. Measure better our investment in training and the current demands of the market place.
11. Increase access to business and workforce development programs by putting them online.
13. Improve our City's neighborhoods through tax increment financing.
16. Support niche manufacturing by launching a “Made In New York” campaign.
17. Protect niche manufacturing by amending and better enforcing the zoning code.
18. Attract "creative class" members to join our workforce though targeted tax incentives.
19. Attract small businesses to become a part of "THE Creative City" through targeted tax incentives.
20. Retain "creative class" members and encourage them to build creative communities.
23. Reintroduce affordable housing and studios for artists and their families.
24. Adopt "Green Lighting" for our City's buildings.
25. Reduce government waste by going paperless.
26. Reduce frequency of power outages and lower electricity costs by investing in a Smart Grid for NYC.
29. Cover the up-front costs of clean energy projects in return for payments over 20 years.
31. Improve upon PlaNYC's million trees initiative.
32. Reduce emissions and improve the environment by phasing in congestion pricing.
33. Improve regional public transportation by keeping infrastructure up to date with regional growth.
34. Provide notices regarding traffic delays and service changes.
35. Create an independent budget for the Public Advocate's office.
36. Attempt to do work "in house" before hiring a private contractor.
37. Bring more accountability to the way we provide subsidies and tax breaks to big businesses.
38. Hold agencies accountable for results by expanding the CompStat initiative to all City Agencies.
39. Expand services and information available in multiple languages from City agencies.
44. Implement an Internet emergency broadcast message to provide emergency information over the web.
47. Provide automatic statutory renumeration for anyone detained by the NYPD for more than 24 hours.
49. Improve the health of our children by establishing Health Coordinators in school districts.
50. Create more Youth Courts throughout the City, letting teenagers hold their peers accountable for misconduct.
CHANGE FOR NEW YORK: 100 Ideas for a Better City
I. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
1. Spur start ups with $50,000 micro-seed investments.
Seed money to build a start-up business usually involves an investment of a quarter million dollars or more. But NYC Seed was recently appropriated only $2 million, which led it to announce that their smallest investment would be $200,000 or more, meaning that only 10 companies or fewer would benefit. In this economic crisis, we should offer micro-seeds of $50,000 or less to as many creative entrepreneurs as possible. Instead of seeding 10 companies, that $2 million would seed 40 companies or more. While $50,000 may not be much for most small businesses, it is just enough for the ICE sector where someone already has a career but might need additional capital to turn their art or website into a full time job and the next big thing. Additionally, micro-seeds would gain access to shared conference rooms and presentation spaces along with technical services for business plans, formation and first round investors. By lowering our initial investment, increasing their number and providing support, New York City is likely to generate many more jobs.
2. Grow jobs by improving accessibility to economic development programs.
Job and Business Centers can be made more widely available to New Yorkers through a commitment to being multi-lingual, extended hours, expansion of child care availability, and the use of new technology. They should also help applicants gain access to other benefits like a free interview suit offered by a not-for-profit, or pre-kindergarten programs throughout the City to alleviate socioeconomic pressures that might otherwise hinder the jobseeker’s or business’s success.
Especially in an economic crisis, the City needs all the talent within the five boroughs to spur economic growth. A new “Senior Service Corps” (SSC) is one way to tap into one of our City's major "natural" resources, the hundreds of billions worth of experience and intelligence held in the brains of the tens of thousands of retired business leaders who could work with City agencies and companies to assist with workforce and business development. Economic development programs like incubators would benefit from the life-long experience of senior business people who volunteer as chief financial officer, accountant, attorney, or other technical advisor, working with the a start-up firm once every week or two. Companies would gain valuable technical services and SSCs would develop a ground floor relationship with what might be the next Google or Amazon. Active SSCs who have become knowledgeable on City, State and Federal programs could be called upon to serve as economic ambassadors to attract or keep talent or companies in the New York City marketplace.
Our workforce development strategy must expand to encompass those who might not be “work-ready” and to help them make a transition away from hourly jobs to high quality jobs that offer a career path, benefits, and a living wage. Training vouchers must be expanded to allow for residents to receive multiple grants over time. Our next workforce training program should more closely collaborate with educational institutions, employers, jobseekers and workers to provide industry-recognized training or certificates for the unemployed and underemployed who are currently actively sought by employers.
5. Make the City’s Job Centers work better for applicants by passing the Ready Access to Assistance Act
A 2008 study by the Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum found that the majority of welfare applicants experienced long waits, received misleading information and had to come back multiple times. Let’s reform our Job Centers by (a) ensuring applicants receive clearly written materials on requirements for applications and compliance, (b) reducing wait times and (c) better training workers to improve customer service. The City Council should pass the Ready Access to Assistance Act, to allow applicants to enlist an advocate on their behalf to help them better navigate the system, and to allow non-profits to set up tables in the office’s public areas to better assist applicants.
The City’s current welfare-to-work program focuses on getting job seekers into the workforce as soon as possible. Let’s instead focus on education and training, so that welfare recipients get into good paying jobs in which they can build a career. This will improve economic growth and ensure that those passing through the welfare program have the skills needed to compete in the modern economy. The State Legislature should revisit legislation to have welfare offices take steps towards emphasizing nontraditional employment and jobs paying over 185 percent of the poverty rate.
7. Provide tax incentives for working youth and support for gaining access to those benefits.
Over one thousand youth in New York City age out of our foster care system every year, with thousands more needing to become independent while still in their teens. In order to assist working youth in our City, we should support Assembly Member Susan John's extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to young workers ages seventeen to twenty four with increased standard deductions and deductions for student loan interest -- this would make youth eligible for an average benefit of $280. For our part, the New York City education system could integrate tax preparation into its secondary and higher education curriculum where our government should have a duty to help students file taxes and qualify for benefits like a new EITC.
New York City health insurance costs have recently risen 13 percent annually, with average monthly family health insurance premiums rising from $3,866 last April to $4,354 this April. For perspective, monthly premiums now exceed the cost of renting a two-bedroom apartment in a building in the Financial District. As a result, healthier and younger New Yorkers drop coverage and leave insurers with an even sicker and costlier client pool. Should an uninsured person get injured and be unable to pay their medical bill, taxpayers must cover the expense. While the Federal government works its way towards universal health care, the City government should also investigate opening its health insurance plans to small businesses, so that (a) the businesses can benefit from increased bargaining power and (b) City benefits from lower rates coming from a larger and healthier risk pool.
In 1999 the New York Cancer Project -- involving 25 medical schools, academic health centers, and major medical research institutions in New York -- began a 20 year study on New Yorkers to better understand genetic and environmental factors that increase cancer risk. Let’s launch similar initiatives to better understand asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and obesity, using funding from the federal government to build biomedical research capacity, expand local skilled employment, and learn valuable information on diseases that affect numerous New Yorkers.
10. Measure better our investment in training and the current demands of the market place.
The New York City Workforce Investment Board (WIB), along with 33 other related workforce programs, currently invest in workforce development based on scant and scattered sources of information from Federal and State agencies without much original research or investigation into the City’s economy. In order to invest our near billion dollars more wisely, we must improve our Labor Market Information System (LMIS) which studies and publishes labor market information. Some improvements include (a) expanding the breadth of the sectors and the depth of its research, (b) learning information from primary sources such as jobseekers and local businesses, (c) providing new data to the public in accordance with open data standards, and (d) integrating information feeds from other City and State agencies so that workforce development benefits from up-to-the-minute understanding of our economy.
11. Increase access to business and workforce development programs by putting them online.
Internet can make our business and workforce development centers and the courses they offer more accessible. The program that we envision would follow the “TED.com: Ideas Worth Spreading” model (the YouTube just for great ideas) by working with our City’s educational institutions to bring innovative and compelling experts to lecture. Speakers would be digitized and accessible with multilingual captions or dubbing for jobseekers and entrepreneurs all over our City to watch from the comfort of their own home.
Universal Internet is vital for making information accessible for local residents -- became a reality last month with a $500 million high-speed wireless network for all 300+ square miles of New York City. While this network is currently reserved for first responders, we must expand Universal Internet, whether through universal broadband or wireless, to the general public so that everyone in the city has some form of access. New York City as a whole has some of the slowest Internet connections at a higher cost than most other cities in the country, which means jobs lost to more connected cities. We should work with our phone and cable companies (that exist as limited monopolies which have access to much of our City’s infrastructure at little to no cost) to provide a better Internet at a lower cost. Another benefit to Universal Internet would be added public safety from the ability to display emergency messages to every web browser in the City in the event of another major emergency. Improvements to current commercial Internet connections coupled with cost reductions and the availability of Universal Internet will be one of the major catalysts New York City needs to leap into the twenty-first century as “THE Creative City.”
" 13. Improve our City's neighborhoods through tax increment financing.
A good way to generate funds for neighborhood investment is to implement Tax Increment Financing (TIF). Chicago has more than 100 TIF districts, used for the funding of playgrounds, parks, schools and other development projects. TIF allows for the selling of bonds to raise money for projects, paid back with increased tax funds that the project generates in an area. New York City recently used TIF to raise $2 billion for the extension of the 7 line. Currently, however, the State laws on TIFs do not allow for school districts to take part in these programs, weakening the amount of financing TIF can bring. We should support the passage of legislation from Assembly Member Schimminger and Senator Stachowski that would allow school districts the option to participate in TIF projects, and expand the purposes for which TIFs could be used, such as environmental remediation and brownfield redevelopment.
The Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center (GMDC) owns and operates rehabilitated industrial buildings, offering start-up manufacturing firms and artisan tenants below market rents, employing hundreds of people. Especially as commercial rents fall in this economic downturn, let's replicate the GMDC program throughout New York, buying vacated industrial buildings to spur industrial growth in the city.
Industrial Business Zone tax credits should be expanded from simply a relocation benefit to also subsidize conversion of existing manufacturing space to provide affordable biotechnology or green manufacturing spaces to help keep those sectors growing in our City.
16. Support niche manufacturing by launching a “Made In New York” campaign.
The City should work with Chambers of Commerce in each borough as well as the Partnership for New York City to build industry-centered "Made in NYC" advertising and events connecting manufacturers with current and potential clients so that we can encourage local businesses to invest in one another, helping our local economy to flourish.
17. Protect niche manufacturing by amending and better enforcing the zoning code.
Manufacturing remains integral to a sustainable and economically diversified City, even one that is post-industrial. While we may not build cars here, we have become a City of intelligent niche manufacturers, who make everything from gloves for entertainers to parts for the Hubble space telescope and military equipment that keeps our soldiers safe abroad, as described in a recent Daily News article. Industrial Business Zones (IBZs) can provide a framework for keeping manufacturing space affordable and increase investment, but will need tougher restrictions to keep higher-rent big-box retail outlets, entertainment, bars and clubs out of designated areas. A codification of the Mayor’s promise not to rezone IBZs to mixed use or residential areas will increase confidence that any future changes would be subject to larger review as well as the political process.
18. Attract "creative class" members to join our workforce though targeted tax incentives.
Tax incentives like exemptions from Unincorporated Business Tax proposed in my June policy paper "Our Next Economy: THE Creative City," and adopted in the City's most recent budget will provide a less costly environment for Creative Class entrepreneurs to join our City as freelancers while encouraging them to start-up a small business in their own right – or join one. Other related high profile tax incentives that have been prioritized by "creative class" members like Assemblyman Jonathan Bing's and State Senator Daniel Squadron’s "Open Source Tax Credit" should be implemented on a City level to provide developers of open source and free software products with the ability to take deductions in the same way as an incorporated business for developing the very same products.
19. Attract small businesses to become a part of "THE Creative City" through targeted tax incentives.
We can build “THE Creative City” with a strong creative core through a mix of targeted tax incentives, program campaigns, and education. For one example, we should continue tax incentives like the New York City Film Tax credit, expanding it to other creative industries such as the technology sector and then keep it current with competing incentives from other cities.
20. Retain "creative class" members and encourage them to build creative communities.
We must build creative communities by hosting or funding events for jobseekers, educators, businesses and investors in the sector. “NY Tech Meetup” gathers almost one thousand creative class members into a room on a monthly basis to meet, greet, and share the next big ideas with other entrepreneurs, businesses, investors, and service professionals. Any one of these presenters could be the next YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, and will generate revenues for whatever location happens to be their host. In building these communities, we can emphasize New York City’s best asset – location, location, location – by sponsoring such events to remind the creative class that this City has the resources and talent pool they need to prosper.
Let's revitalize New York's connection to the arts, as well as our City's artistic potential and talent, by creating a rotating collection of local art through a private-public partnership fund called "Art for Public's Sake". Artists would be paid very modestly to let their work be displayed in the public areas and government buildings. After a period of time the art would be moved to a new building, for a new set of people to see and appreciate. Every few years we would return the work to the artist and update our collection.
The combined economic impact of just two 2007 exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art resulted in $377 million in spending by regional, national and foreign tourists, with a direct tax benefit to the City and State from out-of-town visitors totaling $37.7 million. In testimony before the New York State Assembly's Committee on Tourism, Arts, and Sports Development, the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./N.Y.) suggested that additional revenues like these could be generated by local cultural institutions if the New York City Economic Development Corp (NYCEDC) created a $20 million fund for cultural institutions that are awaiting funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to provide short term loans for start up costs associated with shows and exhibits. Since the short term loans would only go to cultural institutions already designated for NYSCA funding they could be guaranteed by the NYSCA loans and would get reissued to multiple cultural institutions each year. Through smart investments and loan programs like these we can foster the arts and culture and also generate tax revenue from the creative sector.
23. Reintroduce affordable housing and studios for artists and their families.
Building artistic communities are an essential part for building "Our Next Economy: THE Creative City." In the 1960's and 1970's the National Endowment for the Arts partnered with private foundations and the City to create the Westbeth, currently home to over 300 artists and their families, where applicant artists are admitted on merit. Other similar project include Manhattan Plaza where Larry David met Kenny Kramer, moving out after he created the hit series "Seinfeld." We must reaffirm our commitment to provide housing and studio space for artists by building new spaces or by repeating the model that worked with Manhattan Plaza. The City should also explore creating a new neighborhood for an artistic community in future economic development plans.
II. GREENER CITY
24. Adopt "Green Lighting" for our City's buildings.
Our City government has an annual $800 million energy bill, which accounts for 6.5 percent of our City’s energy use. Let's save money and the environment by gradually replacing lighting with low-energy and long-life fluorescent, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), and light emitting diodes (LED). “Green Lighting” uses a fraction of the energy and offers 8 to 50 times the lifespan of old lighting, with LED’s lasting over 50,000 hours. Let's also install motion sensor light switches in common public areas to ensure that when our employees go out, so do our lights.
25. Reduce government waste by going paperless.
Going “paperless” by making more materials publicly available over the Internet and upon request will cut paper, printing and ink costs for the City. Eliminating our practice of printing large quantities of City publications will reduce waste stemming from disposal of outdated materials. For example, the City should enact Introduction Number 702 of 2008 (Lappin) to create electronic pay stubs for City employees, reducing our City’s paper and ink use and saving $2 million each year. A paperless campaign, however, can’t stop at pay stubs, and we must work to expand it to all areas where we find our City government wasting paper.
26. Reduce frequency of power outages and lower electricity costs by investing in a Smart Grid for NYC.
A smart grid provides for a more efficient, cost-saving method of moving electricity along major long-distances to the disparate end-users, using computers and sensors to better manage the flow of electricity. While New Yorkers may currently use energy generated on Long Island, a smart grid would allow our energy to come from much farther away, mitigating price hikes. A valuable side effect would be that instead of relying on customers to report power outages, outages would be discovered automatically by a smart grid. We can begin making our grid "smart" by investing funds, requiring ConEd to invest in upgrades and acquiring federal funding allocated towards smart grids. Savings would be found in cheaper electricity and in not having to pay damages to consumers who lose power. In addition, a smart grid would spur development of clean electricity projects for businesses and individuals, who would be able to sell excess power back into the system.
With most power meters, the electric company comes to read the meter once a month, and then bills the consumer for that usage. A smart meter changes all that by allowing consumers themselves to monitor electricity usage and prices in real time, and adjust their usage accordingly. Smart meters will save New Yorkers money -- repaying the cost of installation after only a few years, strengthening our grid’s reliability by preventing blackouts, and saving the City money by lowering power usage during peak hours, thereby pushing back the need to build new power plants. We should require the replacement of old meters with smart meters with every new renovation; new developments should be be required to use smart meters; and we should require ConEd to begin replacing old meters with smart meters.
One-third of New York’s landmass is covered by roofs which, if redesigned, can help to clean our environment. Green roofs hold rainwater which would help prevent subway delays associated with flooding and help stem the 27 billion gallons of untreated wastewater that overflows into nearby waters when our sewer system becomes overburdened. Green roofs cool the air, as water in the plants evaporate when sunlight hits, rather than creating an urban heat island effect from higher temperatures in urban areas. If one half of New York City’s flat roofs were green, City temperatures would fall by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, saving $70 million in energy costs and strengthening our energy infrastructure. Green roofs also create open spaces where people can congregate and grow food, cut down on CO2, and generally last about twice as long as normal roofs. Some experts believe that by investing $250 million in green roofs, we can avoid having to spend money on expanding our wastewater treatment capacity to handle overflow due to rainwater, while also receiving the other benefits green roofs bring.
29. Cover the up-front costs of clean energy projects in return for payments over 20 years.
New York State’s tax incentives for installing solar and wind power lag behind other states and municipalities. One obstacle to the development of this industry is the high upfront costs. While solar and wind energy pay the owner back with energy savings after only a few years, they can cost upwards of $15,000 to install. In some California municipalities, local government pays the upfront costs of the installation of solar panels, and taxes the owner’s use for 20 years. This program would mean home and business owners would see lower energy bills right away, and our government would recoup its investment over time.
Our current residential recycling goal is 25 percent, although we have only reached 16.5 percent as of 2007. In order to reach or exceed our current goal, we must expand the materials that we recycle, expand availability of recycling receptacles, expand deposits on bottles, establish electronic waste and plastic bag recycling programs, investigate clean waste-to-energy projects and further explore sustainable waste export and transportation. Recycling should become wide spread and proliferate throughout our City through reintroducing Introductions 673 (Lappin) and 752 (de Blasio) of 2008, which would have placed recycling bins in City schools and parks. Recycling must be a part of our children’s youth so that they grow up recycling out of habit. While these Introductions in the City Council represent a good first step, recycling should be wide spread with recycling receptacles eventually any place our City maintains a trash receptacle. Through recycling our City can reduce waste, save money, and create jobs.
31. Improve upon PlaNYC's million trees initiative.
Our City needs more trees, but not at the sake of cutting others down. A large, fully grown tree removes almost 70 times more air pollution than a newly planted tree. PlaNYC’s goal of a million trees in New York must account for trees that are cut down. Tree protection should be part of the approval process for any construction project. We should make it easier for individuals and community groups to plant new trees by streamlining the permit process and providing assistance when needed. We must also seek to lower pollution and corresponding asthma rates in low-income areas by planting trees and building parks there to green our urban environment. We can raise funds for new parks and trees with the selling of naming rights for individual trees, park benches and slabs and through Tax Increment Financing.
32. Reduce emissions and improve the environment by phasing in congestion pricing.
Phasing in congestion pricing would vastly improve transportation in New York City while we wait for infrastructure improvements to catch up with growth. The Partnership for New York City estimates that eliminating excess traffic congestion would add as much as $4 billion and 52,000 jobs to the regional economy, along with reducing losses of $2 billion in revenue and 8,674 jobs in the manufacturing sector, on an annual basis. Let's renew our effort to bring congestion pricing to New York by allowing Albany legislators greater say say in how it is implemented.
33. Improve regional public transportation by keeping infrastructure up to date with regional growth.
Even with the most recent bail out, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will face budget shortfalls in the future. Meanwhile, our transit system continues to carry one-third of the nation's transit passengers who, according to NYPIRG, pay nearly twice as high a percentage of system operative costs than the national average. We must (a) base funding decisions on current ridership, future ridership and perspective City growth, (b) create a dedicated funding stream so that money people think is going to infrastructure improvements does not get spent elsewhere, and (c) give the City and State Comptroller the power to do full audits of the MTA's finances and records.
34. Provide notices regarding traffic delays and service changes.
Transportation 2.0 would use technology to provide commuters and businesses with live information regarding traffic delays and service changes. Bringing technology to our transit stations would provide the added benefit of increasing safety by providing cell service in subways; so in the absence of working pay phones on most platforms, if someone sees something, they can say something. And we may not be able to get the trains to always run on time, but imagine if a train sent you a text message or a visual on-platform message that it was running 15 minutes late – or not at all due to flooding or an accident – you could stay at work generating more revenue for your family, business and the economy.
III. GOOD GOVERNMENT
35. Create an independent budget for the Public Advocate's office.
It's absurd that the budget for a 178 year old, charter-mandated City office intended to be a watchdog over City Hall is decided by City Hall. For the Office of the Public Advocate to be able to fulfill its charter obligations, the budget for the office must be removed from the political process. Let's create an independent budget for the Public Advocate's office, tying it to the budget of a Mayoral agency or the City Council, similar to how the budgets of Independent Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget are tied together.
"36. Attempt to do work ""in house"" before hiring a private contractor.
The City's private contracting budget has ballooned in the past four years from $6.7 billion to $9.2 billion. While most of this money is necessary for a well functioning government -- providing services that City workers perhaps cannot -- we shouldn't give in to the notion that private necessarily equals better. By paying civil servants instead to do some of the jobs that private contractors do, we can save money, make government more accountable and raise the morale of the City's workforce. The municipal union DC 37 has proposed $130 million in savings over eight city agencies simply by cutting down on hiring outside consultants and contractors, and instead letting city employees trained for those tasks do the work. New York State takes a different approach to outside contracting. Under a 2008 executive order, a Task Force was created to monitor outside contracting so that the State can only enter into a contract if it is necessary for public health or safety or if it is more efficient or cheaper than using state employees. We should look to create a similar program in our City.
" 37. Bring more accountability to the way we provide subsidies and tax breaks to big businesses.
The City for too long has given tax breaks and subsidies to big businesses which do not live up to their promises and which do not provide economic growth. For example, just in the past few years the City has given hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to the Mets and Yankees to build stadiums which will not stimulate the economy nor create many jobs. Instead of putting all of our eggs in just a few large, corporate baskets, we should focus on giving tax breaks and subsides to small businesses, spurring innovation and diversity. We should also hold the New York City Industrial Development Agency and Economic Development Corporation more accountable by forcing them to make available more detailed materials on the promised benefits and potential drawbacks of proposed projects. We should make all future subsidies come with strict rules about complying with promised job creation and retention numbers with oversight as the project develops to ensure the promises are kept and remediation options are available if the promises are not kept.
38. Hold agencies accountable for results by expanding the CompStat initiative to all City Agencies.
The City of Baltimore has successfully implemented CitiStat, which requires many City agencies to produce regular reports on performance data. This data is analyzed and discussed between the mayor and officials from the agency. In addition, the data allows analysts to identify problematic trends and determine geographic areas with the greatest need for City services. CitiStat is similar to the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) CompStat program, which has made the NYPD more effective and responsive. While the City currently has NYCStat, which compiles data, reports and statistics on every City agency, we should take the process to the next step by making the underlying data used to generate the statistics available and to use it to improve agencies and hold management accountable.
"39. Expand services and information available in multiple languages from City agencies.
With people from over 200 countries living here, New York City’s diversity is a great asset, economically and culturally. Film-maker Ric Bruns, in his public television series ""New York,"" has written that “New York City is a continuing experiment to see if all the peoples of the world can live together in one small place.” Though we may all live together, we don’t all speak the same language. The 1990 census reported that 35 percent of New Yorkers’ native language is not English. City government has an obligation to serve these residents, and should do it in a language they understand. That’s why we must expand the availability of City services and information, both printed and electronic, in multiple languages.
Government often provides for public hearings on many issues -- on pending legislation and regulations, for examples -- because each is made better through the advice and input of the public. Similarly new software is generally released as ""beta"" which allows software to undergo usability testing with users who provide feedback so that improvements can be implemented and malfunctions fixed prior to the final version. A prime example of this practice in the marketplace is the word ""BETA"" under the ""Gmail"" logo on your Google mail account. Google as a company acknowledges how important the user is in developing usable websites and applications. Unfortunately, the New York City and State governments often provide its users with new websites and applications as a finished product, rejecting requests for improvement by citing projected cost overruns. Sometimes the websites and applications even turn out not to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). By providing a mandatory ninety day public beta period on all government funded websites and applications, the public -- who are the ultimate end users -- can provide feedback and suggest improvements that can be integrated as part of the project's original contract price thereby ensuring that future websites and applications are ADA compliant and user friendly.
"Open 311" would be the next logical step of 311 by making information collected on the system available over the Internet in real time. This would allow the vast network of Internet users to develop their own applications with such important information. An application using Open 311 to share the top request for the day would reduce the burden on call centers with questions about, say, that “Maple Syrup” smell that turned out to be coming from New Jersey. By providing Open Data, we can allow our Internet community to turn boring data into information that is potentially useful to everyone.
Last month President Obama launched DATA.GOV in order to provide the public with increased access to information collected by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Immediately after, the Sunlight Foundation launched “Apps for America: The DATA.GOV Challenge” to encourage the development of hundreds if not thousands of applications for people to use in understanding government information. Following their lead, our City should similarly make information immediately available to the public through a commitment to Open Data.
Many people now tweet. I tweet @Green4NY, the City Council tweets @NYCCouncil, and now 311 does as @311NYC. Twitter is a great way to get a message out to the world in 140 characters or less, recently becoming a major news source in the aftermath of the Iranian Elections. With the launch of @311NYC, the City has pledged to "'tweet' information regularly about such things as alternate side of the street parking status, school closures and information about citywide events." But this fails to take government from a source of information to Government 2.0, where it is a source and consumer of information. The true power of Twitter is that it can collect every tweet using a keyword called a hashtag, which is a predetermined keyword starting with the pound sign (#) used to build a community around a specific issue. During the swine flu epidemic, the community adopted the hashtag of #swineflu and for the Iranian elections #iranelection, both of which allowed other users, government, and news media to keep track of what was going on. In our City, we should use a hashtag like #NYCWatch or #311NYC for tracking local issues through the Public Advocate's office which will in effect deputize every Twitter user in New York City as we follow, re-tweet, respond, direct message and track new problem trends so that we can solve them.
IV. PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY
44. Implement an Internet emergency broadcast message to provide emergency information over the web.
On 9/11 New York City did not use the emergency broadcast system, but many New Yorkers learned about the crisis and what they should do over the Internet. The New York City Office of Emergency Management should work with local Internet Service Providers to provide an initial landing page like the one you see at a hotel or airport that would appear once in the event of an emergency with an advisory, instructions and links for additional details.
The New York City Office of Emergency Management recommends that residents prepare for emergencies by buying and storing certain basic emergency supplies as well as creating “Go Bags.” Unfortunately, few have the requisite emergency supplies. Fewer still have heard of a “Go Bag,” which is a collection of items you may need in the event of an emergency packed in an easy to carry container that is accessible in case you need to leave your home in a hurry. By providing an initial New York City sales tax holiday from September 1 through September 11 for individual emergency supplies, with a sales tax holiday for pre-made “Go Bags” for the month of September, we can encourage New Yorkers to begin to be prepared for whatever emergency they may face. New York State Assembly Member Jonathan Bing has introduced legislation on this issue and Florida enacted a similar tax free period aimed at hurricane preparedness in 2006.
Elevators in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings are plagued by problems, with 75 percent failing routine inspection. Since 2001 about 300 residents have been injured in elevator related accidents in buildings maintained by the City's public housing agency. The elderly and disabled are affected the most, making it hard or impossible to leave their apartment when elevator service is down. This problem can be addressed in the interim by adding transparency and notice while we work to fix the underlying problems. A list of NYCHA elevators and their current status as functioning or in need of repairs must be put online in accordance with open data standards. NYC Alert must be leveraged to alert NYCHA residents when their elevators are out of service through robo-calls, text messages, or emails to prevent deaths or injuries from faulty elevators. NYCHA must work with social service programs such as Meal on Wheels to provide food and medical care to stranded seniors and the disabled. The Public Advocate should write an amicus cruiae in support of the current federal lawsuit to compel NYCHA to fix elevators and provide help to disabled residents when elevators are not working.
47. Provide automatic statutory renumeration for anyone detained by the NYPD for more than 24 hours.
During the 2004 Republican National Convention, New York City arrested 1,821 protesters and innocent bystanders, holding them in a former bus depot with asbestos fibers and chemical runoff for an average of thirty three hours in violation of the State's requirement that detainees be arraigned within twenty four hours. A 2005 estimate placed the City government's legal exposure at $859 million, with $8.2 million spent on defending eighty seven lawsuits and 557 claims remaining as of 2008. There should be steps in place for our City to automatically compensate individuals whose rights are trampled through statutory damages and a policy of automatic settlement offers. Let's start by paying individuals who are held for more than 24 hours without arraignment $1000 for every addtional day they spend in detention. The individual would have the option of taking the settlement sum and forgo suing the City in the future. Were this program in place for the 2004 RNC, the City could have minimized its almost billion dollar exposure and would have had incentive not to violate the law.
Transgender individuals must be able live with the same freedoms as the non-transgendered without fear of accusal for fraud, harassment, discrimination or rejection for showing identification which displays a gender other than the one they display. In order to avoid such discrimination, we should allow transgender individuals to change the sex on their birth certificate or other standard forms of identification without undergoing sex reassignment surgery, while ensuring that people who wish to conceal their identity cannot take advantage of such a program.
49. Improve the health of our children by establishing Health Coordinators in school districts.
Thousands of children across the City suffer from chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and poor dental or vision care. The City should fund a Health Coordinator in low-income school districts to oversee a team of case managers to work in schools, linking uninsured children and children with chronic illnesses to doctors and other appropriate pediatric resources. Health Coordinators and their staff would also track sick days and new sicknesses, catching problems before they become bigger. By placing information online, and having a phone number to call, the Health Coordinator program would be a place where parents can learn about new threats to their children’s health, such as this year’s Swine Flu, and public health officials can better study trends in children's sicknesses.
Youth Courts place young offenders in front of people of their own age who decide on how offenders will repay the community and their victims. Youth Courts have been shown to be more effective at reducing recidivism than traditional punishment. Red Hook’s youth court, for example, hears an average of 139 cases each year, and more than 90 percent of those who go before the court complete their sanctions -- such as community service, workshops, essays and letters of apology -- as ordered. Crime in Red Hook generally has fallen faster than other neighborhoods in the City and the murder rate has fallen to zero there for several years. Youth courts also teach young people about the justice system, encouraging many to work towards joining a profession in the field. Let’s expand on the success of Youth Courts in New York and create more of them.
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