MARK GREEN RELEASES “A PLAN FOR A GREENER CITY” IN FIRST OF FIVE POLICY PAPERS
Press Contact:
Benjamin Kallos Kallos@MarkGreen.com 917-570-6970
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, May 11, 2009
MARK GREEN RELEASES “A PLAN FOR A GREENER CITY”
IN FIRST OF FIVE POLICY PAPERS
Praises Mayor Bloomberg for PlaNYC and Congestion Pricing
Mark Green, New York’s first Public Advocate and candidate to serve as its third, today proposed A Plan for a Greener City, the first in a series of five that will be released for public comment then re-released, integrated with the ideas and suggestions of New Yorkers. (available in PDF and for your comment in HTML).
“Ideally -- and certainly during a crisis – campaigns should be more about policies and ideas, than money, polls, endorsements, or attacks.” said Green, the author/editor of 22 public policy books, most recently, Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. “As figures from Keynes to Galbraith to Gingrich have noted, ‘ideas matter’ -- indeed over the course of history, little else does. In my campaign to again become the Public Advocate, I want to focus on ideas more than politics by showing how to put the new back in New York -- how to advocate for fresh ideas that can be implemented in office.”
“Just as I was able to offer a Change for America for the Obama Administration,” Green added, “I’ll be proposing a Change for New York, starting today.”
The plan for “A Greener City” praises Mayor Bloomberg for launching PlaNYC and proposing Congestion Pricing, and also chronicles Advocate Green’s environmental initiatives such as restructuring the mob dominated waste carting industry, successfully leading the effort to stop the proposed Williamsburg incinerator, successfully suing to end “green collar fraud” and fighting Mayor Giuliani’s opposition to recycling.
A Plan for a Greener City proposes four initiatives on Green Jobs, Green Energy, Green Buildings, and Green City Planning. “When we look back in ten years and think of ‘Green Jobs,’ the world should think New York City,” Green said:
Green Jobs would expand our City’s current training programs and incubators to provide special programs for New Yorkers interested in joining or starting a green business as well as a bidding preference for such New York City jobs;
Green Energy echoes Green’s 1991 call for a green fleet of city vehicles using alternative energy and also calls for upgrading our City’s aging power grid with a Smart Grid and meters in order to avoid future power outages like in Queens in 2006;
Green Buildings would provide City incentives for Green Roofs in order to save in rain water runoff sewage treatment costs, a Green Government that uses energy efficient long life lighting, set-back climate controls and other initiatives to lead the way for residential and business communities, along with a Green Homes initiative to assist New Yorkers in taking full advantage of Federal and State financing and incentives;
Green City Planning proposes Green Neighborhoods through improving the State’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, calls for more Green Spaces in low-income neighborhoods, supports Councilmember Gennaro’s call to protect our City’s drinking water upstate, and would expand recycling by placing bins in mass transportation stations with the hope of a having a recycling bin anywhere you find a City trash can.
“History is a series of seismic events and innovations, such as 9/11, the invention of electricity, refrigeration, containerization, and parallel data processing,” concludes the former Public Advocate. “America and our City are on the cusp of the next great cultural and economic shift to a greener economy, producing more jobs and a healthier environment. Every so often a City brings together a cluster of talent at the right time to become a national leader, like technology in Silicon Valley, steel in Pittsburg, or cars in Detroit. New York City has tried to cultivate similar clusters in the recent past with biotechnology and ‘Silicon Alley,’ but fell short. ‘A Plan for a Greener City’ will help guide New York City towards an economy flourishing from green jobs, energy provided from renewable sources, and a more sustainable City. When we look back in ten years and think of ‘Green Jobs,’ the world should think New York City.”