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March 24, 2014

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The Way To Reach Elected Officials

The Must-Read inNY Politics Since 2006

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The Way To Reach Elected Officials

The Must-Read inNY Politics Since 2006

2006

2009

2011

2008

2010

City Hall News launches in 2006

After the success of City Hall News, The Capitol launches in 2008

City Hall + The Capitol merge in Dec. 2011 to become City & State

See how it all started.

Jan. 2014:

magazine arrives!

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Keep New York a state of

n Over the last five years, SUNY and CUNY have been cut by nearly $2 billion — driving up tuition and endangering quality affordable higher education for all New Yorkers.

n Our public colleges and universities are under intense pressure to eliminate programs and courses, erode quality and slash opportunities for students in need.

n Public higher education’s mission of teaching, research and health care is key to a bright future for all New Yorkers. New York State must invest now — in faculty, staff and student support — to keep our public colleges and universities great.

Take action! Defend quality.

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Support the Public Higher Education Quality Initiative

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Contents

While, sadly, progress is a rare phenomenon in Albany, that should not mean that everyone has to suffer the consequences of our legislators’ intransigence. Fortunately, New York’s Native American tribes

have the sovereign power to lead as lawmakers, and set the stage for substantive reform in the rest of the state.

Take marijuana legalization. Growing and selling marijuana on Indian reservations could provide a massive windfall for New York’s economically depressed tribes. Colorado, one of two states in the union to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes, has begun to demonstrate how much money doing

away with the nonsensical policy of prohibition against pot can yield by collecting $2 million in tax revenue in January alone, the first month it went on sale. And that figure does not include the $1.5 million in taxes generated over the same period by medical marijuana, as well as all of the ancillary financial benefits that come from the industry, like job creation and tourism.

Gabriel Galanda, a partner in the Native American-owned law firm of Galanda Broadman, explained in a 2011 op-ed: “Indian Country has the sovereignty, tax status, land base, agricultural savvy and business intangibles to really make legalized marijuana happen. For some rural tribes, those attributes are all they have to leverage economically.”

Many tribes have already built successful businesses based on some of New Yorkers’ so-called vices, namely cigarettes and gambling. Unlike with tobacco, however, the tribes will not have to import the crop from out of state to produce their local brands. Marijuana can be grown on reservations both outdoors and indoors, thus creating more employment opportunities and yielding a higher profit for people badly in need of any new means of economic stimulus they can get. Plus, no geographic exclusivity agreements complicate the issue, as they do in the case of casinos.

Legalization would also put an end to the scapegoating of reservations as pipelines for the illegal drug trade. In a recent pro-legalization piece for the Indian Country Today Media Network, Charles Kader points out how the St. Regis Indian Reservation in New York’s North Country “has been repeatedly blamed by state and federal officials for a significant volume of high-grade marijuana entering the United States.” Legalization would close this corridor of black market smuggling by eliminating its reason to exist.

Critics will likely bring up the substance abuse epidemic that has historically plagued Native Americans to argue that legalization will only exacerbate that tragedy. This concern, which must be taken very seriously, needs to be addressed on the facts. That alcohol, banned on many reservations across the country, is legal has done little to curb alcoholism on tribal lands, and dozens of studies over the past decades have shown that the legalization of marijuana does not lead to an increase in its usage. Moreover, with legalization, those who need treatment will no longer face the compounded difficulty of being branded as criminals.

In February the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council took the first step toward legalizing recreational marijuana on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Some time soon the Tribal Council will decide whether to allow a public referendum on the proposed measure, which, if approved, will reportedly make Pine Ridge the first reservation in the country to legalize marijuana.

With national public opinion moving rapidly in favor of legalization, and Colorado showing how much states have to gain by giving the people what they want, full-fledged legalization in the United States appears increasingly less a matter of if than when. Why shouldn’t New York’s Indian reservations reap the benefits of this inevitability now and show Albany what it’s missing?

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Bypassing Albany CITYCharlie Rangel’s last standBy Jon Lentz

STATE Can Democratic legislators’ DREAM still come true?By Jon Lentz

INDUSTRYGambling addiction funding waits on casinos….The quieter charter school divide.…The appliance industry fights back.…The future of LaGuardia Airport.…Support erodes for NYC’s new schools chancellor.

CRACKS IN THE CFBAs Albany weighs instituting statewide public financing of elections, how well is the system it could be modeled on working?By Nick Powell SPECIAL SECTION: GRADUATE SCHOOLS

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The race for the 13th Congressional District is shaping to up to be a replay of

the 2012 contest, with Rep. Charles Rangel facing a tough challenge from state Sen. Adriano Espaillat as well as from a political newcomer who could steal support from the incumbent’s base.

But while another tight race is certainly likely—Rangel beat Espaillat by fewer than 1,100 votes in a Democratic primary two years ago—the final outcome this time around is anybody’s guess.

“What I’m seeing is a sort of a déjà vu all over again race, a three-way race, one Hispanic, the demographics of the district being what they are, and Espaillat losing by 1,000 votes the last time,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College. “The dynamic could be the same. But the end result could be different. Espaillat could certainly win.”

The landscape is not exactly the same, of course. Espaillat’s narrow loss established him as a candidate to be reckoned with, and he is already stealing away some key endorsements from elected officials who went with Rangel last time around, including potentially pivotal ones by New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr. At the same time Rangel, who was hobbled by poor health during the last campaign, has been remarkably active this year.

Rev. Michael Walrond, who like Rangel has a base of support among African-Americans in Harlem, could also draw more support than Clyde Williams, the former advisor to President Bill Clinton who came in third place with 10 percent of the vote in 2012. One political consultant not involved in the race said that Walrond’s strength lies in central Harlem, an area that has experienced an influx of new residents who don’t have strong ties to Rangel or the old Harlem machine.

“He’s a really talented minister who pastors a historic church in Harlem,” the consultant, Basil Smikle Jr., said of Walrond. “Among those newer residents he’s getting a lot of traction. He’s been there because of the work

RANGEL-ESPAILLAT, ROUND 2

State Sen. Adriano Espaillat at a press conference during his 2012 campaign forCongress versus Rangel.

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that he’s done as pastor of that church. So his goal is to really build on that and get people that generally just come out in presidential elections or general elections to actually vote in a primary.”

Nonetheless, many observers see the race as a showdown between Rangel and Espaillat. Another demographic shift—the increasing population and political power of immigrants from the Dominican Republican, where Espaillat hails from—may be the decisive factor in the race. The support of Mark-Viverito, who is of Puerto Rican descent and the highest ranking Hispanic elected official in New York City history, could broaden Espaillat’s base, especially if the Council Speaker takes an active role in campaigning and getting out the vote in East Harlem.

“So there’s a sense that rather than go with someone who has been there a long time and who they’ve forged this historic relationship with, let’s make sure that we get on the ground floor and devise a coalition to bring in the next leader for this community, assuming that person happens to be Adriano and represents a growing constituency, not just in the district but in New York politics broadly,” Smikle said.

Another question mark is the Bronx, where the population of Dominicans has been on the rise. Redistricting after the 2010 Census added a larger portion of the borough to Rangel’s Manhattan district, which could make Borough President Díaz’s change in allegiance to Espaillat all the more significant. Two former Bronx borough presidents, Fernando Ferrer and Adolfo Carrión Jr., backed Espaillat in 2012, and while they have not yet declared their intention to do so once again, it can be anticipated that they will stick with him.

Meanwhile, the Bronx Democratic Party, which came out for Rangel two years ago, has yet to endorse in this race, though the shift by Díaz, who wields sizable clout within the organization, could be an indication of where the party might land. Assemblyman Carl Heastie, the leader of the Bronx Democratic Committee, said that the organization was undecided at the moment but would make a decision shortly.

Still, Rangel enjoys the undeniable

advantages of incumbency. While there is a compelling narrative that Espaillat represents the future, for many residents the knee-jerk reaction is to cast their ballots for Rangel, who has served in the House of Representatives since 1971. The congressman can also expect widespread support from the Democratic Party establishment, much as he did in 2012. In that race Gov. Andrew Cuomo, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a number of state and local elected officials endorsed him, as did a slew of influential unions.

Rangel also has strong support from Harlem’s old guard, including former Gov. David Paterson, former Mayor David Dinkins and Assemblyman Keith Wright, the head of the Manhattan Democratic Party and co-chair of the state Democratic Party. One pronounced difference this cycle is that Rangel will not have in his corner Bill Lynch, the mastermind behind many of his successful campaigns, who died last year.

“The key variable in the back of my mind is Bill Lynch ain’t around any more, and Bill Lynch was an absolutely integral part of Charlie Rangel’s various campaigns,” Muzzio said. “And I don’t

By JON LENTZ

AP/

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know how much the absence of a strategic mastermind will play in this particular race, but if there’s a missing variable that’s obviously different than the last time, it’s that Bill Lynch is not there.”

Rangel, a 22-term incumbent, is certainly getting older, but his age may be less of a hindrance this year than it was during the last campaign, when he seemed frail and had to limit his campaigning.

“He was not well two years ago. He was not well,” said Wright, the Rangel ally who political observers have often speculated to be the congressman’s preferred successor when the time came for him to relinquish his seat. “He’s like a 23-year-old guy now trying to run for district leader or Assembly. He’s got more energy than I’ve ever seen. He went to see Ponce de León and the fountain of youth.”

Espaillat, who is seeking to tie Rangel to Washington gridlock, said that he looked forward to a robust debate and a tough campaign.

“I’m happy that he’s in good health, and we’ll have a spirited debate throughout the campaign,” Espaillat said.

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New York City Councilman Corey Johnson, who represents Chelsea, the West

Village and Hell’s Kitchen, threw himself an elegant inauguration costing upwards of $30,000, including $1,500 on flowers. Rather than sourcing this business to one of his district’s many high-end florists, or to the city’s flower district on 28th Street, Johnson hired his chief of staff’s mother, who owns a flower shop 150 miles away in Norwich, Conn., to provide the floral arrangements for his swearing-in celebration. The councilman also spent $14,000 on food with a caterer based in New Jersey. Johnson’s chief of staff, Jeffrey LeFrancois, did not respond to questions as to why his mother’s business was chosen to supply the Johnson inaugural with its table arrangements.

According to the city’s Campaign Finance Board’s rules, Transition and Inauguration (TIE) funds are not matched by public funding, so elected officials are free to distribute the money they raise for those purposes largely at their own discretion. As such, TIE funds are a gray area, not just because they are mostly spent on parties but also because they do not receive a lot of scrutiny. A candidate taking money from a dubious donor will be criticized by his opponent, but the winner of the election no longer has to be so wary of appearances, and is freer to accept TIE money from questionable sources.

For example, Johnson was adamant throughout his campaign that he was independent of real estate and development interests, and insisted that his professional life in the hospitality industry was so incidental as to be practically an afterthought. Indeed Johnson took only a small amount of

FLOWERS SMELL, MONEY DOESN’Tmoney from the real estate industry in his race for Council. As soon as he was elected, however, he accepted $5,000 in TIE money from the Meilman brothers, who own a large stretch of prime retail property on 14th Street just east of the High Line. Johnson also received $15,000 from the developers and managers of the Dream Hotel in the famed Maritime Building on Ninth Avenue, including the owners of Tao Nightclub.

One of these developers, Punjabi hotelier Sant Chatwal, purchased a decommissioned church on 44th Street and converted it into a luxury hotel called the Chatwal. In so doing, he neglected to inform the Department of Finance that the building was not a house of worship anymore, and thus was no longer exempt from property taxes. By the time the city caught up with this omission, the hotel had avoided payment of around $2 million.

Johnson also accepted $2,500 from Judith Rubin. Rubin is the wife of Robert Rubin, Clinton’s secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Rubin oversaw the dismantling of regulatory oversight of the financial industry, and urged caution regarding the regulation of credit derivatives. He then became chairman of Citigroup, which had to be bailed out by the U.S. government following the 2008 collapse of the financial industry. Between 1999 and 2009 Rubin received more than $125 million in compensation from Citigroup.

Is there a contradiction inherent in a “progressive” who aggressively touts his family’s labor background partying on the dime of a person who perhaps typifies the “1 percent”? Or is it the case that in a one party town, being a “Democrat” covers the widest range of sins?

Another progressive whose TIE fundraising appears to be incompatible with his politics is Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who, like Johnson, was selected as a freshman by his borough colleagues to be a co-leader of their respective delegations. Menchaca ran as a reformist insurgent against Sara Gonzalez, whom he vilified as a tool of “Manhattan millionaire developers” for receiving support from Jobs for New York, the Real Estate Board’s independent expenditure arm. But

soon after taking office, Menchaca accepted $1,500 in TIE funding from Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, which is essentially run and funded by the same major property owners who spearheaded Jobs for New York.

Menchaca, who did not respond to a request for comment, also took $1,500 from John Ciafone, a Queens lawyer and property owner who was listed on Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s Worst Landlords watch list in 2011. De Blasio returned two large contributions from Ciafone when it was revealed that he was a donor, but Menchaca is apparently unfazed by or unaware of Ciafone’s troubling distinction.

John Ciafone’s wife is Gina Argento, the CEO of Broadway Stages, a large television and film production studio and soundstage company in Brooklyn and Queens. Argento and her brother, Anthony, are prolific contributors to political campaigns, and each gave $1,500 to Menchaca’s TIE committee.

Last year the Argentos applied to have a subsidiary company, Luna Lighting, receive a license to operate as a trade waste business, which would allow the company to cart demolition and construction debris from worksites. As the Argentos have ownership interest in many industrial sites they would like to repurpose for other commercial uses (for example, the Knockdown Center in Maspeth), owning their own demolition hauling company would provide vertical integration to their business. The city’s Business Integrity Commission issued a harsh denial of the Argentos’ application, citing a history of illegal carting by Luna Lighting, and also misrepresentation by Anthony Argento of his arrest record.

Furthermore, Anthony Argento was shown to have over $1 million in federal tax liens against him, as well as his business. As of April 2013 Argento owed the Internal Revenue Service more than $600,000. This information was all published by the city and is a matter of public record.

Debi Rose of Staten Island, one of the Council’s seven deputy leaders, threw herself a $7,000 inaugural party, even though she has already served a full term. It is typical for freshman Council members to have a lavish inauguration, though it is not unheard

of for veterans to do so as well: Rose’s fellow progressive Councilwoman Margaret Chin had a five-figure celebratory dinner to commemorate her election to a second term.

Rose, who also did not respond to a request for comment for this column, raised a relatively small amount of TIE money, but she got it from some strange sources. Almost half of her TIE contributions come from four men who appear to work together in a real estate company called Shore to Shore Realty Partners. The business address is listed with the Secretary of State as 15 Page Avenue on Staten Island, which is the location of a 7-Eleven convenience store. No one at the store has any knowledge of Shore to Shore.

In 2011 the CEO of Shore to Shore, Andrew Gonchar, who gave Rose $2,000, was barred for life from the securities industry by the Securities Exchange Commission, which noted in its decision that Gonchar actively sought to “gouge” his bond-trading retail customers.

Whether accepting these donations was hypocritical, unwise or justifiable is for the Council members and their constitutents to judge. What is certain, however, is that elected officials exercise far more due diligence vetting those from whom they take campaign dollars from than those from whom they receive Transition and Inauguration funds. The bar is much lower for TIE funds because the election is over, the next campaign is more than three years off and none of the money is eligible for public matching funding anyway, so who really cares? Still, for those paying attention, TIE contributions are an amusing coda to campaign finance season, when elected officials can embrace their unseemly supporters and freely take what they had to deny themselves during the Lenten pre-election period. Which begs the question: Are the progressives who now constitute the Council leadership any different from the typical big city machine politician with a wide smile and an open palm?

SETH BARRON

Seth Barron (@NYCCouncilWatch on Twitter) runs City Council Watch, an investigative website focusing on local New York City politics.

COUNCIL WATCH

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Union apprenticeships provide 2-5 years of industry sponsored training in the skills needed to work safely and compete for long-term employment. Some apprenticeships even include college credit and an associate’s degree.

Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York

Real opportunity involves years of continuing education and access to jobs that pay middle class wages with health insurance and retirement security. New York City’s building trades unions offer all that and more.

GARY LA BARBERA, PRESIDENTWWW.NYCBUILDINGTRADES.ORG

This is what union construction looks like.Shouldn’t it be what all construction looks like?

75%of our union apprenticeslive in NYC

Union Apprenticeships =

65%of our local apprentices

are minoritiesTamara Mitchell

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Completed apprenticeship in 2011Bronx resident

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A DREAM DEFERREDSTA

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By JON LENTZ

AP/

MIK

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ROLL

In voting on the DREAM Act on March 17, the New York State Senate took the rare step of

bringing to the floor a bill with an uncertain outcome. As the roll was called and several potential swing votes went against the legislation, the passionate pleas of Democratic lawmakers gave way to pessimism. The bill, which would make young undocumented immigrants eligible for state financial aid for college, ultimately fell short in a 30–29 vote, just two votes shy of sending it to the governor for his signature.

Now, with a week left to go in the budget negotiations, the DREAM Act’s supporters are mounting a desperate push to include it in the state budget. They face long odds: Gov. Andrew Cuomo, despite calling the issue a priority last week, never included it in his executive budget in the first place. Supporters in both houses say that Cuomo has yet to reach out to them. And the governor, along with Senate Coalition Leaders Jeff Klein and Dean Skelos, is now shrugging his shoulders, pointing to the Senate vote as the final nail in the bill’s coffin.

But this being Albany, and with plenty of deal-making yet to be done, could the DREAM Act still wind up a dream come true this session?

“If the governor’s statement is that it’s a priority, we haven’t seen that up until this point,” said Assemblyman Francisco Moya, one of the bill’s lead sponsors. “If he’s saying that this is a priority, we’ll take him at his word. Because we are looking for the governor’s leadership on this—the same way he went out for marriage equality, the same way he was calling people for the SAFE Act, making those phone calls—that’s the same thing we need to see from the governor now.”

Of course, the most probable outcome is that the legislation goes nowhere this year. The Senate Democrats and the Independent Democratic Conference simply do not have the 32 votes between them to send the bill to the governor. One Democrat, Sen. Ted O’Brien, voted against it, and not a single Senate Republican—or even Sen. Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans—voted

for it. What’s more, some Republicans are staunchly opposed to the measure. State Sen. Mark Grisanti said he could not vote for a bill that spends “tens of millions of taxpayer dollars annually to pay for tuition for illegal immigrants” while “so many legal families are struggling with the high cost of a college education right now.”

“I made a promise that I was going to bring this very important piece of legislation to the floor, and we did that,” Klein said immediately after the vote. “I’m disappointed with the outcome, but at the same time I think it’s important that we actually have a vote, especially on an important issue like this.”

Assemblyman Moya said that the timing of the Senate vote hurt the bill’s chances going forward. “But you live to fight another day,” he said. “The fight’s not over. We have time to work it in the budget. We have until June to see if we can get it back to the floor.”

Another possible outcome is that the state Legislature passes a compromise bill. The DREAM Fund, which was passed in the Assembly in 2011 but made no headway in the Senate that year, would set up a more limited pool of money that provides undocumented immigrants with school aid through private donations. Unlike the more comprehensive DREAM Act, it would not include state taxpayer dollars. The DREAM Fund is now included as a component of the DREAM Act, but it could be reintroduced as a stand-alone measure. That approach may be more appealing to Cuomo, who earlier this year pressed DREAM Act supporters for a compromise, according to the Daily News.

However, supporters insist they are unwilling to accept scaled back legislation. When Republican gubernatorial candidate and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said recently that he could support a DREAM Fund, Latino lawmakers rejected the idea. If Cuomo floated the idea, lawmakers say, he would not have any better luck.

“Absolutely not. Absolutely not,” Moya said. “It’s the DREAM Act or nothing. We’re going to stand firm on that. This is not a heavy lift. We’re not asking for a special handout. We’re not

asking for anything out of the ordinary here. This is a moment where we need leadership in our state to rise up to the occasion and really lead the way for us to get this done.”

Passage of the DREAM Act is not outside the realm of possibility. As backers note, the bill came within two votes of passage, even with little advance warning that it would be taken up on the floor. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has made it a top priority. At least in his public statements Cuomo has warmed to the legislation, declaring recently for the first time that he would sign it if it reached his desk. The growing electoral clout of Latinos gives him incentive to support the bill, especially since he is up for re-election and appears to be dead set on securing another landslide win at the polls.

Some Republican senators could also stand to benefit if the bill passes. It was notable that two GOP senators who were excused from the vote, Sen. Phil Boyle and Sen. Kemp Hannon, have sizable Latino populations in their districts. Some advocates even claimed that Boyle was planning to vote in favor of the bill if it got to the floor, although the lawmaker said publicly he would have voted “No” had he been in the chamber. The timing allowed both senators to justify skipping a vote that could have political consequences for their re-election campaigns. At

THE DREAM ACT DIED ON THE SENATE FLOOR. CAN IT BE REVIVED THIS SESSION?

A woman holds a sign during a February news conference on the DREAM Act.

the same time, if the DREAM Act does pass by being included in the budget, the Republicans can tout their unanimous opposition to it as a stand-alone measure, giving cover for other members of the conference in whose districts it would be unpopular.

One longtime Albany observer speculated that Felder, who cast a conspicuous “No” vote, might use the issue as leverage to secure passage of an education tax credit that has passed the Senate but has yet to find enough support in the Assembly.

“Each of those issues are important for different houses,” the source said. “The Senate clearly wants to push the Senate tax credit bill. And clearly the Assembly has placed a top priority on the DREAM Act. It would not be the first time that a major priority of both houses that doesn’t look to pass the other comes out in what one might call a trade in the budget.”

State Sen. Rubén Díaz Sr., a longtime backer of the DREAM Act, said he does not know what to think. For years, he said, key officials had indicated they would support the bill, only to let it die. But this time, his fellow supporters had made a mistake in pushing for a vote in the Senate, he said.

“There’s too many games, too much hypocrisy going on now,” Diaz said. “I’m not even going to blame the governor. I’m blaming this on all the people.”

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When state officials crafted a deal to legalize gambling in upstate New York, they

included a measure that would require casinos to pay $500 for each slot machine or table game to help combat problem gambling.

But while having a dedicated funding stream to prevent and treat gambling addiction was hailed as a positive development, some experts and lawmakers say that existing programs have been underfunded for years and that more investment is needed now.

“We do not have the infrastructure to handle everything currently,” said James Maney, the executive director of the New York Council on Problem Gambling. “There are some areas of New York State where there aren’t any state-funded treatment programs. We do not have enough education, we don’t have enough awareness, we don’t have enough research being done currently and we don’t have enough services for folks.”

Earlier this year when Gov. Andrew Cuomo put out his executive budget proposal, Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz said that it “falls alarmingly short” in addressing compulsive gambling. Cymbrowitz, who chairs the Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, took aim at the flat spending for the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), which funds programs to treat people with gambling addictions.

With state budget negotiations now coming to a close, the assemblyman was resigned to the conclusion that there would be no additional dollars until full-fledged casinos open for business in upstate New York, something that will take months, if not years.

“I was hoping that we would be able to get it, but there’s nothing in the budget,” Cymbrowitz said. “I had hoped that we would do that, but, as with many programs, there just isn’t enough money to go around.”

Mark Gearan, the new chairman of the state’s Gaming Commission, seems to have taken notice, although he has not yet waded into questions of funding. In his first board meeting earlier this month, he said that problem gambling was a “personal interest”

GAMBLING HABITS By JON LENTZ

and an “important issue” that the commission should spend more time exploring. Gearan, the president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, said he became aware of the issue while preparing for his Senate confirmation and realized it would be a factor in the commission’s decision to issue or renew licenses.

“So, given this responsibility, it seems to me that it would make sense for the commission to be proactive in this arena,” he said, suggesting that the commission hold a forum to discuss ways to improve prevention and treatment efforts.

The state does have an apparatus in place to combat problem gambling. In addition to the services rendered by the treatment providers around the state, OASAS coordinates with the New York Council on Problem Gambling to ensure that the state’s racetrack casinos and lottery ticket vendors comply with regulations pertaining to problem gambling. Its efforts also include educating the public about the warning signs of gambling addiction and publicizing a help line. Beyond setting aside $500 per table or slot machine each year, which could yield a projected $4.7 million annually, the new legislation also requires those companies awarded a casino license to create comprehensive problem

MORE FUNDING FOR PROBLEM GAMBLING PREVENTION ON HOLD UNTIL CASINO EXPANSION

gambling programs and to put policies in place to bar addicts.

But experts say that more investment is needed. Nearly a million New Yorkers have been identified as problem gamblers, according to an OASAS study cited by Cymbrowitz’s committee, while 5 percent of adults and 10 percent of students in grades 7 through 12 have experienced problem gambling behavior. At the same time, the Internet has made gambling far more accessible, especially for young people, and poker games and sports betting have become widely popular. More and more casinos have popped up in neighboring states and across New York, including Resorts World Casino New York City, which has quickly become the most lucrative slots establishment in the country.

Yet during the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009, outreach efforts and treatment programs nationwide were cut back, and funding has not been restored in New York. Despite the millions of dollars in profits at the state’s existing racetrack casinos and the massive windfall they provide for the state, New York reportedly provided only $1 million to treat problem gambling in 2012. According to figures posted by the Association of Problem Gambling Service Administrators (APGSA),

the state now sets aside $1.58 million a year. A study by APGSA and the National Council on Problem Gambling shows that New York is well below the national average on per capita allocation of problem gambling services. The influx of cash from new casinos will improve New York’s standing, although expansion is likely to increase the number of problem gamblers as well.

“Being in this field for so long, we know when you have gambling, you have problem gambling, and every time you have expansion—new opportunities, new availabilities—you’re going to have more problems,” Maney said. “To me it makes sense that we start addressing that.”

The state, which once had 41 prevention programs, has shifted its approach in recent years by training staff at 187 providers around the state that already deal with drug or alcohol problems. The move did not add any dollars, but state officials say it increased availability.

“Not a lot of states are doing a lot of great work—and, really, it usually comes only when there’s no expansion,” Maney said. “As compared to everybody else, New York is doing a great job. But in reality, there’s so much more we can do.”

800 Troy-Schenectady Road, Latham, n NY 12110-2455 518-213-6000 n 800-342-9810 n Affiliated with AFT / NEA / AFL-CIO

www.nysut.org

www.nysut.org/freeze

Richard C. Iannuzzi, President

Andrew Pallotta, Executive Vice President

Maria Neira, Vice President

Kathleen M. Donahue, Vice President

Lee Cutler, Secretary-Treasurer

Representing more than 600,000 professionals in education, human services and health care

Don’t leave our kids

out in the COLD

Just when we thought spring is here, the governor and the Senate want to put a deep freeze on our future.

They are pushing a Bad News Budget that would force schools to make more cuts, increase class size and lay off teachers and staff — all to pay for a so-called “tax freeze” that favors the wealthiest New Yorkers and hurts the rest of us.

This Bad News Budget shortchanges schools, SUNY, CUNY and community colleges while giving big breaks to private schools and corporate charters.

Don’t leave our kids out in the COLD.Support great public schools for every child.

NYSUT_CS032414_FP.indd 1 3/21/14 7:17 PM

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As rancorous charter school space debates continue to dominate the headlines,

another, lower profile round of discussion about who attends the schools is just beginning.

Charter leaders strategizing about how to work with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and avoid paying rent say they believe committing to particular enrollment policies could be one way to assuage de Blasio’s and Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s concerns about charter schools “doing their part.”

One main issue is backfill, or what happens to space vacated by students who leave charter schools. Some schools, seeking to fulfill a larger mission and bolster their finances, fill those spots by calling students from their waiting lists. Other schools focus on teaching the students who remain, avoiding a potential drop in test scores and the social and academic disruption of adding new students.

The debate over which policy is best has long divided the charter sector, with critics charging schools that do not backfill with failing to serve an equitable share of high-needs students.

Now the issue is growing in prominence as school leaders try to anticipate how the mayor will deal with charter schools in the years ahead, and especially how the city might charge charter schools rent to operate in public space. Meanwhile, financial pressures on schools already paying rent have made backfilling a necessity for a growing number of schools.

De Blasio’s recent meeting with a coalition of 34 charter school leaders—city officials’ second sit-down with them in two weeks—did not get into detailed policy discussions, though attendees said the conversation touched on how to use enrollment policy to promote equity. But the charter leaders are now planning regular meetings with city officials and say they expect the backfill issue to resurface.

“I think facilities is probably the bigger one,” Future Is Now founder and coalition member Steve Barr said of the issues on the table. “But they

THE QUIETER CHARTER SCHOOL DIVIDE

By SARAH DARVILLE from CHALKBEAT NEW YORK

might say, ‘These are some things that we need assurances on.’ ”

Some charter leaders outside the coalition agreed. “It’s definitely more of a public policy issue than it has been in the past,” said Steve Evangelista, co-founder of Harlem Link Charter School.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT “BACKFILL”

RARE DE BLASIO POINT OF LEVERAGE

IDEOLOGICAL AND MATERIAL BENEFITS

BACKFILL COST TO SCHOOLS

Charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately managed, sit

outside the mayor’s authority. De Blasio does have the power to set the conditions by which charter schools can operate in public space, however. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as much last week when he noted, “The question becomes: What should the criteria for co-location be?”

The city has laid out some criteria for next year’s co-locations, but they were logistical considerations like the ages of the students who would be sharing a building and the proposed school’s size. The mayor has yet to say how he will make decisions about charging charter schools rent, a key campaign promise.

Requiring certain enrollment practices like backfill could make sense, given Fariña’s criticism of charter schools, which she says don’t serve similar populations as district schools. Earlier this month she criticized Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz for implying there are certain high-needs students “she cannot help, necessarily, because she doesn’t have the resources for them.”

One charter leader described the potential trade-off this way: The city provides space rent-free if the schools commit to more inclusive enrollment tactics. Then the choice becomes the operator’s: Do we want to go along, or stick to our model and pay a penalty for it?

For Stacey Gauthier, the principal

at Renaissance Charter School, the decision to backfill in every grade wasn’t really a decision at all. Like other charter schools, her school has a long waiting list of students, which many schools cite as evidence of their success and demand.

“It was just natural, just organic,” Gauthier said. “You have a space, there are 2,500 kids on a wait list—why would you not fill the space? It never crossed my mind—‘Wow, don’t backfill because you might have to work harder to make that kid a Renaissance kid.’ ”

“My charter colleagues should really look closely if their enrollment practices don’t look equitable,” she said.

There are those, including some coalition members, who argue that the choice is more

complicated. In 2012 the New York City Charter School Center put that ideological divide mildly. “NYC charter school leaders have mixed opinions about backfill enrollment,” its State of the Sector report said.

Backfilling seats that open up can pose steep challenges for schools. Students who enter the school midyear or at one of a school’s higher grade levels can have trouble adjusting to a new school and be academically behind. Midyear entries especially are more likely to have unstable home lives, leading to them leaving the school—meaning that one “backfilled” seat might actually be filled by two or three students over the course of a year.

Research has shown that students who leave charter schools tend to be lower performing academically, so not replacing them can boost scores overall—a move that benefits those charter schools eager to prove their value.

“On one hand, why should they?” said Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University. ”It’s a real disruption for the classroom teacher. Traditional public schools are plagued with this problem, especially in high poverty

areas where there is lots of student attrition.”

An understanding of those challenges and a desire to maintain a particular school’s culture has led some charter school networks to reject backfilling, especially in the higher grades. Success Academies only backfill through the third grade, and students in all subsequent grades up to high school must have started by that grade.

Success Academy has said that their longer school days and years help students jump so far ahead academically that placing older students in without that background would be unfair to them. Last year 58 percent of its students were deemed proficient in reading and 80 percent in math on state exams.

“We want all children to feel and be successful. We wouldn’t want the newer children to be at a disadvantage,” a Success spokeswoman said last year.

Actually getting seats filled can also be no easy feat.

Charter schools face the question of whether to hold back incoming students who are behind academically or insert them into the grade they were expecting to attend, knowing that families might not accept a spot for their child if it means he or she is held back a grade.

And since state law requires charter schools to admit students by lottery, a school must start at the top of its waiting list and contact families until one accepts the opportunity to fill a vacant seat. That process can take time if families have gotten comfortable at the school their child attends, making the choice to fill seats a costly one logistically. By contast, in district schools that do not have to use their own resources to fill seats, the city assigns students.

Even with the challenges, charter schools have good reasons to fill seats that become

vacant.District schools take students after

their entry grades—and many accept students midyear—and not doing so raises questions about whether charter schools are doing enough to educate a fair share of high needs students. In addition, having the schools follow different enrollment rules complicates performance comparisons between charter and district schools—which the charter sector cites as a justification for

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PATCHWORK OF POLICIES

Charter schools must spell out their enrollment policies when they ask for

permission to operate. But authorizers have been loath to require charters to adopt one backfill policy or another, seeing it as one way in which the schools exercise the autonomy that defines them as a charter school, and so schools frequently include vague language in their charters.

“In terms of just replacing students, we leave that up to schools,” said Susan Miller Barker, the head of SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute. (The institute does plan to require more explicit descriptions of enrollment policies from new applicants, it announced in January.)

That leaves the city’s charter schools with a patchwork of policies. Democracy Prep and Explore Schools both accept students in all grades, for example, as do Beginning with Children 2 and Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School, while Harlem Village Academy doesn’t backfill upper grades.

In a Nov. 2009 report by Education Sector, Achievement First CFO Max Polaner wrote that given the difficulties of backfilling, “the dream was to bring in kindergartners only.” The network’s application for the K–8 Achievement First Central Brooklyn, set to open next fall, notes that it will backfill up to the eighth grade.

For now the coalition of charter schools sitting down with city

growing. A few weeks ago the chair of

Harlem Link Charter School’s board of trustees asked a question of the room during a board meeting: Who thinks it’s in the best interest of the community to continue the school’s backfilling policy?

It was a loaded question. Evangelista, the school’s co-founder, has spoken openly about his school’s policy of accepting new students at every grade and its resulting connection to the school’s relatively lower test scores. Last year 17 percent of its students cleared the state’s proficiency bar in reading, below the city average, and 29 percent did in math, which is at the city average.

“What is the community? Is it just the school community, when it’s very clear that bringing kids in that don’t know our school and its culture is very clearly detrimental?” Evangelista asked.

He has answered that question with a no, for now, and Harlem Link is choosing to define community as the broader neighborhood and school system.

There are financial as well as ideological considerations. A district school that loses a student after Oct. 31 keeps its funding for that student, but a charter school loses funding for a student as soon as the student leaves. Allowing more seats to remain unfilled each year exacts a steeper toll on school budgets.

For many charter schools, especially those in private space that have to pay rent, budgets are so tight that operating at anything but their highest capacity makes the school unsustainable. With prospective charter operators not counting on generous offers of public space from the de Blasio administration, backfilling may become more common.

Judi Kende, who works with prospective charter school operators through the Low Income Investment Fund, an organization that finances charter school facilities, has seen that trend firsthand. When LIIF is assessing a charter school’s financial viability, backfill policy gets special attention, Kende said.

“People are doing more backfilling. They kind of have to if they have real estate space,” Kende said.

officials is thinking about a number of policy issues to tackle down the line, with facilities and enrollment at the top of the list, Gauthier said.

“They’ve said, ‘We want this to be two-way, we know these are items that need to be addressed. We hope you can be our thought partners in this,’ ” she said.

De Blasio could draw inspiration from Massachusetts, which required all charter schools to backfill in some grades beginning in 2010, or from Denver and New Orleans, which use universal enrollment systems to ensure that charter and district schools follow the same policies. But de Blasio has so far not prioritized enrollment policy when discussing charter equity issues, and Evangelista cautioned that there are many possible policy priorities for City Hall.

“The policy debate right now is a sprawling octopus, and his office has the potential to drive attention to one or two things,” Evangelista said. “It could be testing, English language learners, special ed, recruitment—these are all hot buttons.”

Chalkbeat New York is a nonprofit news organization covering educational change efforts in the communities where improvement matters most. The Chalkbeat network has bureaus in New York, Colorado, Indiana and Tennessee. Its mission is to inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families by providing deep, local coverage of education policy and practice. Visit ny.chalkbeat.org for more information.

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The New York Affordable Reliable ElectricityAlliance (New York AREA) is a diverse group

of business, labor, environmental, and commu-nity leaders working together for clean,

low-cost and reliable electricity solutions thatfoster prosperity and jobs for the Empire State.

W W W . A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G

New York’sInfrastructureNeeds SeriousInvestmentBy Jonathan Bowles & Adam Forman

Superstorm Sandy exposed a number of critical infrastructureweaknesses throughout New York City. While policymakers stillneed to address these fundamental problems, New York facesmany other infrastructure vulnerabilities that have little to do withstorm preparedness or resiliency—and more with the fact thatmuch of the city’s core infrastructure was built in the first half ofthe 20th Century.

As a new report from the Center for an Urban Future (CUF)reveals, much of our vital infrastructure dates back from the firsthalf of the 20th Century:• One thousand miles of New York’s water mains, 170 schoolbuildings and 165 bridges were constructed over a century ago.

• The city’s public hospital buildings are 57 years old, onaverage, 531 public housing towers were built prior to 1950.

• Thirty-seven percent of subway signals exceed their 50-yearuseful life.

Given the age of New York’s infrastructure, disruptions andmalfunctions are inescapable:• In 2013, there were 403 water main breaks.• In 2012, 162 bridges across the city—11 percent of the total—were structurally deficient.

• Nearly 1,500 of the 2,600 public housing buildings do notcomply with local standards for exterior and façade conditions.

As the tragic East Harlem apartment building explosion revealed,much of New York’s energy infrastructure is also old. The averagegas main in New York City is 56 years old and 53 percent aremade of cast iron or unprotected steel, which are leak-pronematerials. In 2012, there were 5,835 gas leaks across the city, with1,600 linked to corroding pipes.

The electricity system too is getting older. Nearly 70 percent of in-city generation is sited in Brooklyn and Queens, where the averagepower station is 41 and 37 years old, respectively.

The CUF report finds that $47.3 billion is needed to maintain thesafety and functioning of New York’s infrastructure. Unless manyof these aging assets are upgraded or replaced, they could wreak asmuch havoc on the city’s economy and quality of life as the nextbig storm.

Mayor de Blasio, Governor Cuomo and other policymakers needto make a significant new infrastructure investment and refocuscapital spending on repair needs, while the city’s utility companiesshould accelerate the replacement of old assets. This won’t be easywhile the federal government is failing to adequately invest ininfrastructure, but city and state officials can create new dedicatedrevenue streams, incentivize the undertaking of infrastructureprojects, and develop a more comprehensive capital planningprocess to get the job done.

Jonathan Bowles is executive director and Adam Forman isresearch associate at the Center for an Urban Future, a New YorkCity based think tank that recently published Caution Ahead, areport about New York City’s aging infrastructure.

S P E C I A L S P O N S O R E D S E C T I O N

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THE FUTURE OF LAGUARDIA

AIRPORT?By CRISTABELLE TUMOLA from THE QUEENS COURIER

spokesperson for the group said.The newly designed terminal needs

to feature easy access to transportation, including a bus rapid transit stop in front of the facility, as well as a play area for children, the spokesperson added.

In 2012 the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey announced a $3.6 billion renovation plan for LaGuardia. The main terminal, built in 1964, is set to undergo a series of developments over the next 6 to 10 years.

In his State of the State address in January, Gov. Andrew Cuomo brought up LaGuardia’s ranking as “the worst airport in America,” and proposed addressing its woes, as well as those of the neighboring John F. Kennedy International Airport, by having the Port Authority take over control of their rehabilitation.

Cuomo is not alone in his negative assessment of the airport.

Vice President Joe Biden, while speaking about infrastructure in Philadelphia last month, said LaGuardia Airport was similar to a “third world country.”

Though it has endured recent criticism for its outdated look, LaGuardia Airport could have a

sleek, state-of-the-art makeover in the future if an advocacy group created to improve the region’s airports gets its way.

The nonprofit Global Gateway Alliance has released renderings, created by the design firm Neoscape, showcasing its vision for the airport’s main terminal, which is slated to get a facelift.

“This comprehensive vision integrates a modern, efficient and innovative design, including the striking all-glass façade, into LaGuardia’s outdated main terminal,” said Joseph Sitt, the founder and chairman of Global Gateway Alliance. “It maximizes the area’s significant space constraints while seamlessly connecting passengers to the city.”

Global Gateway Alliance hopes that by releasing the renderings it will generate excitement for the project and those bidding on the project will take its ideas into consideration, a

An artist rendering of how a modernized main terminal at LaGuardia Airport could look.

By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union,RWDSU, UFCW

In March, President Obama made a surprise visitto The Gap on 42nd St., buying clothes for hisfamily and praising the retailer’s decision to raise

their base wage for employees up to $10. Aftershopping and speaking with employees, thePresident noted that too many Americans’ wageshave stagnated, and congratulated The Gap for“doing the right thing.”

The RWDSU supports retailers when they raisewages for their employees, as well as the President’s executive orderincreasing the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour.We also applaud the efforts by activists and lawmakers to raise theminimum wage in New York and beyond above the woefully meager $7.25federal hourly rate. However, low-wage workers shouldn’t have to wait forothers to pick and choose when they’ll be able to have a decent income.

While these moves are positive actions, raising wages alone is notsufficient. The real problem is that the retail industry has shifted awayfrom stable jobs towards part-time, on-call work that denies employeesthe opportunity to work the amount of hours that they need to earnenough to support themselves and their families.

When workers are under-scheduled and hours are subject to change on amoment’s notice, they have no certainty as to how they’ll survive. Theproblem isn’t just low wages; it’s also insufficient hours in the retailindustry. Part-time work has become the new norm, but people still havefull-time families and full-time responsibilities.

The bottom line is that even as wages go up, part-time workers cannotprovide for their families without adequate, stable and predictable hours.If we want to make sure that working families are able to supportthemselves, we need to support them in building a collective voice toaddress all of their concerns in the workplace, including the hours theywork. Wage increases and other workplace improvements are neverguaranteed without a contract. Collective bargaining is the only vehiclefor workers to democratically decide how to build family-sustaining jobs.

When retailers like the Gap raise their minimum pay rate to $10 an hour,it’s a step in the right direction. What would truly make a difference inretail and in other low-wage industries would be to provide workers withlivable hours and regular schedules that their families can rely on – and aunion contract which guarantees the gains they have made can’t be takenaway. Collective bargaining – and fairness for workers who seek it – hasalways been and will continue to be the single most important means forcreating jobs that can build better lives and stronger communities.

Visit us on the web at www.rwdsu.org

Our PerspectiveRaising theMinimum Wage isn’t Enough

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new city law forces the manufacturers of refrigerators and air conditioners to take

responsibility for the disposal of the environmentally harmful gases that keep the appliances cold—and the trade association for companies like Whirlpool and Friedrich is suing to block the measure.

The New York City Department of Sanitation already removes the chlorofluorocarbon cooling compounds before sending old appliances to landfills, in compliance with federal law. When released into the atmosphere, chlorofluorocarbons contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer.

Under a 2013 law primarily sponsored by then City Councilman (and now congressional candidate) Domenic Recchia, the manufacturers must set up their own chlorofluorocarbon-recapture programs or pay a fee for each discarded item.

The law is scheduled to go into effect July 1. The Department of Sanitation is currently reviewing rules for the program, which set the charge to manufacturers at $20 per appliance.

In a lawsuit filed in late 2013 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, a national trade group, alleges the city is unconstitutionally imposing requirements on companies that cannot be fulfilled.

In a court filing, the manufacturers’ association calls the city law “a discriminatory, protectionist measure” designed solely to get the companies to help pay for the Sanitation Department’s refrigerant-removal program, which costs an estimated $1.8 million a year.

“This regulation has zero impact on curbside recycling or on the environment,” said

APPLIANCE INDUSTRY FIGHTS GREEN GRAB

By WILDER FLEMING from THE NEW YORK WORLD

Kevin Messner, vice president of state government affairs at the Association.

Messner asserts that although the city has informed manufacturers that they are welcome to set up their own programs, the new law makes it nearly impossible for them to do so.

“They have prohibited the manufacturer from even picking up an appliance at the curb,” Messner said. “We don’t believe they’re really expecting the manufacturers to set up their own programs.”

The city Law Department has denied the allegations in court. In a statement, a Department of Sanitation spokeswoman, Belinda Mager, vigorously defended the law.

“Manufacturers reap huge profits from city markets and should, as a cost of doing business, manage harmful materials used in their products,” Mager said via email. “Extended Producer Responsibility laws such as this one are used across the country to shift costs from overburdened sanitation departments and incentivize the use of environmentally friendly materials.”

Sanitation’s plan emerged from a package of laws seeking to stop scavengers from stealing appliances and other recyclables valued for their scrap metal before the Department of Sanitation can pick them up.

Trashed refrigerators and air conditioners are being stolen

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES MANDATE FOR MANUFACTURERS TO CLEAN UP OZONE-DEPLETING GAS

FROM JUNKED REFRIGERATORS AND AIR CONDITIONERS

from sidewalks in great numbers. And when unauthorized recyclers dismantle them, there’s a high chance that the gases won’t be properly disposed of.

One factor driving the thefts—not addressed by the City Council’s legislative package—is New York City’s elaborate curbside cleanup system, under which one team heads out and removes the gases right there on the sidewalk, tags a fridge as serviced and then leaves it there for a recycling truck to pick up later, leaving ample time for scrap metal thieves to strike. In many cities, refrigerators go straight to a central location for cleanup.

“DSNY’s current refrigerant recovery program is tailored to the unique challenges of collecting waste in the largest and most dense city in the country,” Mager said.

Recchia’s campaign office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The Sanitation Department will hold a public hearing on the matter on March 27 at 2 p.m., in the third floor hearing room at 125 Worth Street.

The New York World produces accountability journalism devoted to deepening public understanding of the ways city and state government shape life in New York City. The project, which is published by Columbia Journalism School, is online at www.thenewyorkworld.com.

A

New York AREA’s membership includes someof the state’s most vital business, labor and

community organizations including the NewYork State AFL-CIO, Business Council of New

York State, Partnership for New York City, NewYork Building Congress, National Federation of

Independent Business and many more.

S P E C I A L S P O N S O R E D S E C T I O N

Let’s InvestWisely inNew York’sInfrastructureBy Richard T. Anderson

One issue most New Yorkers can agree on is the need to invest in ourcity’s aging infrastructure. That part is easy. The big challenge isfiguring out how to pay for the tens-of-billions of dollars that arerequired annually to maintain, improve, and expand the City’s vastnetwork of roads, bridges, schools, mass transit, and other vitalinfrastructure, including the generation and transmission of electricity.

History shows what happens when New York City ignores itsinfrastructure. During the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, New York Cityand State deferred critical maintenance because they lackedsufficient resources. The results were disastrous. Signal failures andequipment breakdowns removed entire subway lines from service. Asection of the West Side Highway collapsed, closing the road fromthe Battery to 57th Street. Portions of the highway were notcompletely replaced until 2001.

The situation has improved. In 2011 alone, New York City andState, as well as the Port Authority and the federal government,invested $18 billion to maintain and improve infrastructure systemsthroughout the five boroughs.

But much more needs to be done. New York City is expected to addone million residents by 2030, and investments need to be made nowto ensure that our already overburdened infrastructure will be able tosupport the additional stress this growth will put on the system.

Last December, the New York Building Congress underscored thisreality when it unveiled an innovative study that warned ofgovernment’s increasing and unsustainable reliance on debt to financeinfrastructure needs. That report urged lawmakers to consider andultimately adopt a series of user-generated revenue streams that wouldbe dedicated solely to capital spending.

The need to adopt dedicated revenue streams is particularly acute atthe State-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). TheMTA, which is responsible for approximately 30 percent of themass transit ridership in the nation, currently devotes about16 percent of all its revenues simply to meet its debt serviceobligations. By 2018, the Building Congress expects debt service toconsume 22 percent of annual revenues.

In our report, we endorsed a plan that would charge vehicles auniform fee for crossing bridges and tunnels within the fiveboroughs, or for entering Manhattan below 59th Street. The plancould initially lower the cost of some currently-tolled crossings,while generating more than a billion dollars of new revenueannually for the MTA’s capital program.

Keeping New York as the premier global business, financial andtourist center requires an equally world-class infrastructure. Let’sinvest now, invest wisely, and invest in the future of this great cityand region.

Richard T. Anderson is President of the New York Building Congressand a member of the New York AREA Advisory Board. A copy of theinfrastructure report can be found at:http://www.buildingcongress.com/pdf/infrastructure-report.pdf.

W W W . A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G

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POLL: SUPPORT ERODES FOR DE BLASIO, FARIÑA ON KEY EDUCATION ISSUES

Mayor de Blasio climbed to power by promising to expand prekindergarten

through a tax on the wealthy and to clamp down on charter schools. But voters aren’t in agreement with him on those issues now, according to a new poll.

In the wake of the city’s recent and fiercely debated decisions to keep schools open during snowstorms and

to deny public space to a few charter schools, a majority of those voters now disapprove of the way de Blasio and his education chief are running the school system, according to the survey by Quinnipiac University.

The poll found that 55 percent of voters with children in public schools disapprove of the way de Blasio is handling the school system, compared with about half of all surveyed voters. The mayor’s overall job approval rating is 45 percent, according to the same poll.

Forty-five percent of those public school parent voters disapprove of the way Chancellor Carmen Fariña is doing her job, compared with 36 percent of all respondents.

The survey showed very strong overall support for de Blasio’s plan to increase access to prekindergarten. But it also underscored voters’ preference for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to fund that program without raising taxes rather than for de Blasio’s plan to tax the wealthiest New Yorkers, with 54 percent backing Cuomo’s plan and 35 percent backing the mayor’s.

That is a shift from the Quinnipiac poll released in mid-January, which found that 74 percent of voters approved of the pre-K tax. Public support for the tax appears to have eroded as its odds of passing the state Legislature grow slimmer and as Cuomo promises to fund a pre-K expansion at the scale de Blasio seeks but without the tax.

The new poll also shows that voters are still split over whether the city should have more charter schools, but they don’t necessarily want the schools to pay rent. Among voters with students in public schools, 54 percent say charter schools should not pay rent to operate in public space. Among all voters, 47 percent think charter schools should not pay rent, up from 43 percent last October.

That change follows the city’s decision to block plans for a few planned Success Academy charter schools, spurring an outpouring of support from charter school backers and the governor.

Chalkbeat New York is a nonprofit news organization covering educational change efforts in the communities where improvement matters most. The Chalkbeat network has bureaus in New York, Colorado, Indiana, and Tennessee. Its mission is to inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families by providing deep, local coverage of education policy and practice. Visit ny.chalkbeat.org for more information.

By PATRICK WALL from CHALKBEAT NEW YORK

LOCAL 1000 AFSCME, AFL-CIODANNY DONOHUE, PRESIDENT

Take a good look at the proposed state budget … big tax breaks for banks and the wealthiest New Yorkers will further erode

essential public services that people and communities depend on.NEW YORK CAN DO BETTER – WITH A BUDGET THAT WORKS FOR ALL OF US.

“ Our children should not be forgotten or left behind.”

“ The needs are far greater than our limited resources can address and it’s getting worse.”

“Ove” Overmyer works in Rochester’s Public Library system. It’s getting harder to provide help and resources to a public that not only needs them but has almost no other alternative. When access to knowledge is cut off, it harms our democratic society.

Reuben Simmons is a maintenance worker in the City of Beacon. Like many other cities across New York, years of being shortchanged by state budgets has undermined the ability to adequately maintain deteriorating roads, water and sewer systems.

Jennifer Colon is a direct care professional at Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Center, Long Island’s only long term treatment center for children. The facility, targeted for closure last year recently received a short-term reprieve. But mental health services are shamefully inadequate and the future continues to be murky for people in need and the dedicated people who provide care.

“ It’s harder and harder every day just to keep up.”

More frontline workers offer reality check for the

real “New” New York

9049_Advertorial 7.458x10 CS.indd 1 3/21/14 9:16 AM


THE WAY TO REACH ELECTED OFFICIALS

LOOK WHO’S READING

POLITICS - POLICY - PERSONALITIES

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THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD IS THE JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTIONER OF NEW YORK CITY’S CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW. AS ALBANY EYES THE CFB AS A MODEL

FOR A STATEWIDE PUBLIC FINANCING SYSTEM, CITY & STATE PROBES HOW THE AGENCY HAS WIELDED

ITS ENORMOUS POWER OVER CITY ELECTIONS.

By NICK POWELL

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John Liu stood stoically during a press conference earlier this month in a law office above

Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. His attorney, Richard Emery, was reading a federal lawsuit Liu had filed against the New York City Campaign Finance Board, an avenue of recourse against an agency that he holds responsible for stymieing his political ambitions, at least for the time being.

Mere months ago, Liu was the second highest ranking elected official in the city, a smooth-talking, savvy and telegenic politician who had effectively wielded the bully pulpit of his office to be one of the sharpest thorns in the side of former mayor Michael Bloomberg. The most prominent Asian-American elected official in New York history, from the moment he took office in 2009 Liu immediately vaulted into the top tier of contenders to be the next mayor. By the time Liu officially announced his candidacy for the mayoralty in March of 2013, however, his campaign was immediately dismissed as quixotic at worst and a long shot at best—though not because of anything that had to do with his personality or politics.

In October 2011 The New York Times cast a spotlight on Liu’s campaign finance reporting, noting roughly two dozen irregularities that raised questions as to the legitimacy of his donations and indicated a failure to comply with basic campaign finance laws. A federal investigation would eventually ensnare Liu’s 25-year-old campaign treasurer, Jia “Jenny” Hou, and Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan, one of his fundraisers, both of whom would be convicted—she for attempted wire fraud, obstruction of justice and making false statements, and he for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and attempted wire fraud—for taking contributions from “straw donors,” people whose names were entered as campaign contributors even though someone else had provided the money.

The three-year probe did not result in any charges against Liu, despite law enforcement officials reportedly wiretapping the comptroller for 18 months. The by-product of the investigation was arguably just as significant, however. As a result of the evidence revealed in the trial of Hou and Pan, as well as findings from its own investigation into Liu’s campaign, the Campaign Finance Board denied Liu $3 million in public matching funds for his mayoral campaign in a unanimous decision issued roughly a month before the Democratic primary—a crushing blow that essentially extinguished any hope Liu had of victory.

Eight months after the demise of his

campaign, it seemed fitting that Liu would be standing in a bland conference room overlooking the celestial St. Patrick’s Cathedral as Emery read the complaint filed against the CFB—the city’s church of campaign finance law.

Emery’s remarks took the form of a fiery sermon inveighing against an institution that had “evolved into a nitpicking, bureaucratic, oppressive prosecutorial agency which sees [as] its mission to undermine democracy by harassing candidates and contributors and destroying campaigns.”

Liu, by contrast, played to perfection the role of lapsed “believer”—a formerly devout disciple of the CFB system who had lost his religion as a result of his ordeal.

“I am a strong supporter and believer in the New York City campaign finance system, which for a long time has been touted as a model that should be adopted statewide and nationally,” Liu said. “The problem is it has now been adulterated by some out of control bureaucrats and board members … It is a broken system that needs to be reformed, and I look forward to helping flesh out these issues that will benefit all New Yorkers.”

With the exception of those who are

philosophically opposed to publicly financed elections, few people would dispute the Campaign Finance Board’s widely held reputation as a model for sensible campaign finance reform. Advocates hail the CFB system as one that has leveled the playing field for candidates of limited means to compete with the well funded, while also precipitating a marked increase in low-dollar donations, amplifying the impact of small money contributors and boosting citizen participation in campaigns. The widely acclaimed success of New York City’s system has led to a very vocal campaign to expand public financing statewide, and the most ardent CFB proponents suggest that it could be a template for the nation to adopt.

Despite the CFB’s accolades, Liu’s lawsuit brings to the fore a larger question that has been quietly debated by campaign finance experts and candidates for some time now: whether the weight of carrying the campaign finance reform banner has become too heavy a burden for the agency. Numerous critics, both sympathetic and hostile to the agency, believe the CFB has become morally self-righteous in upholding

the tenets of the city’s campaign finance system, while bogging down candidates with a burdensome auditing process and meting out punishments inconsistently.

“I worry that they confuse the support they get from the New York Times editorial board with the idea that everything’s fine,” said Laurence Laufer, a leading New York City election lawyer and former general counsel at the Campaign Finance Board. “All kinds of campaign people and candidates say there’s something not right, and the CFB always finds a way to skirt around dealing with that as opposed to seizing on this sentiment to make improvements.”

HISTORY OF REFORM

Before delving into the CFB’s perceived deficiencies, it is important to recognize that as

one of the first agencies of its kind, the board has experienced growing pains parallel to the evolution of campaign finance reform as a whole in the United States.

The CFB was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of former mayor Ed Koch’s Campaign Finance Act. Mirroring the frustrations of today’s campaign finance reform advocates, the state Legislature was slow to embrace the concept of public financing and campaign spending and contribution limits, despite the best efforts of then Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink and his successor, Mel Miller. At Koch’s behest, the New York City Council picked up the reform baton and ran with it, passing a similar bill to the one that had stalled in the Legislature. The new law established the outlines of the current public financing system, setting contribution and spending limits for citywide and Council candidates who voluntarily agreed to accept these restrictions in exchange for becoming eligible for public matching funds.

The Campaign Finance Board was created to administer the new system. It was designed as a five-person body—and remains so today—with two members appointed by the mayor and two members appointed by the Speaker of the City Council. The mayor, in consultation with the Speaker, appoints the chairperson of the board.

How the CFB allocates the public’s funds has been the most fluid aspect of its structure. Initially candidates who opted in to the system had to reach a monetary threshold of contributions collected from a specific number of city residents in order for the CFB to match

John Liu, the former New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, has filed a federal lawsuit against the city’s Campaign Finance Board.

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the candidates’ donations dollar-for-dollar, up to $500 per contributor. In 1998 the City Council, led by then Speaker Peter Vallone, introduced and passed legislation to increase matching funds from a 1-to-1 match to 4-to-1, dramatically changing the equation in terms of incentivizing candidates to participate in the program.

Campaign finance experts say that the advent of 4-to-1 matching changed the CFB’s approach to oversight and enforcement by raising the stakes. Tasked with handing out a much greater amount of taxpayer dollars than was previously the case made the agency more wary of committing errors at the public’s expense.

That level of risk was magnified in 2004, when the City Council mandated that even candidates who declined to participate in the system had to abide by the CFB’s disclosure requirements. All candidates were also forced to adhere to the CFB’s contribution limits and ban on corporate donations, except for those able to entirely self-fund their campaigns. In 2007 another law change further intensified the CFB’s

responsibility by upping the matching ratio to its current level of 6-to-1 for the first $175 raised per individual.

“The cautions have been very well founded. The staff is very mindful of the fact that the candidates are eager to get their funding, but it is taxpayer money, and it has to be protected, and the burden is on the candidate to show that the candidate is in compliance, not the other way around,” said Nicole Gordon, who served as executive director of the Campaign Finance Board from 1998 to 2006. “That’s something that gets lost sometimes, when people think as a candidate, ‘[Matching funds are] my money,’ whereas in fact we do have an audit process which is protective of the taxpayer dollar.”

In response to numerous specific questions posed via email and phone by City & State for this article, Matt Sollars, a spokesman for the CFB,

offered only this blanket written statement: “For more than 25 years, New York City’s landmark small-dollar matching funds program has amplified the voices of average New Yorkers and reduced the influence of big money in city elections. While the program cannot fix all of the ills of our political system, it brings elected officials closer to the voters they represent. The program has succeeded in large part because the CFB’s enforcement creates a culture where the rules matter. Our enforcement has always been tough, but fair. It holds candidates accountable for the conduct of their campaigns, and safeguards the public’s investment in our elections. The legislators who wrote the law in 1988 wisely gave the CFB a mandate for regular self-improvement. We have sought constructive, meaningful ways to improve our work after every election, and we are engaged fully in that process now.”

PRESUMPTION OF GUILT

Historically, the CFB has vigorously defended its practices, characterizing its

auditing process as a wholly necessary aspect of the matching funds system and insisting that each and every campaign is audited thoroughly and equitably.

Yet several former political candidates interviewed for this story, all of whom had participated in the matching funds program, suggested that the process has become onerously burdensome—that it was no longer a basic review of campaign paperwork and financial statements but rather a procedure with an overly stringent “gotcha” mentality.

“I understand that when public money is involved, a public authority has to be very diligent,” said Mark Green, a former New York City public advocate who has participated in the matching funds system on numerous occasions. “But it is offensive and time-wasting for the CFB to presume every qualified recipient is Al Capone until he or she proves differently. They have turned a regulatory function into a prosecutorial function.”

Green should know. Not only was he an author of the 1998 law to raise the matching funds threshold to 4-to-1, but in his 2001 mayoral campaign Green, thanks in large part to the public financing program, spent more money on his race at the time than any other candidate in the city’s history—except, of course, for the man who defeated him, billionaire Michael

Bloomberg. Yet despite his extensive knowledge of the system, a CFB audit resulting from that campaign

determined that Green had to repay over $71,000 in public funds based on a calculation of unspent campaign dollars. For his infraction, the board levied a $36,569 penalty against him.

“The accounting firm doing my filing, a professional firm—my accountants demonstrated how I had zero in the bank at the end of [the campaign], but the CFB accountant said I had [$71,000] in my bank account,” Green recalled. “[The CFB] demanded that they would either prosecute me or [I had to] write a personal check to them for [$71,000]. It was a big percentage of my net worth, and I was frankly pissed that they would impose this price on a candidate who obviously was trying to cooperate.”

The irony in Green’s case is the dichotomy of enforcement as it applies to the self-funder; almost all the stringent compliance requirements with which a publicly funded candidate has to grapple under threat of financial penalty are largely inapplicable to the person with the greatest means to satisfy them. “Bloomberg tells the state and the city, ‘I have one donor, my filing is one page long,’ [meanwhile] I file a telephone book,” Green said.

“You don’t want to be Ahab going after the whale; that’s when prosecutors are at their worst,” said a former city official who has participated in the matching funds program. “For whatever reason, the Campaign Finance Board really seems to have forgotten that their purpose was to pursue democracy and get big money out. They’ve made it harder for good candidates to follow the law.”

Indeed many candidates and campaign finance experts complain that the board does not provide enough

guidance about penalties and how they are assessed. The CFB has a unit within the agency that specifically deals with candidate services. However, even when campaigns are dutifully trying to comply with CFB regulations, notes Leo Glickman, a lawyer and former chief of the board’s Candidate Services Unit, there is almost a “gamesmanship” in how the agency determines eligibility for public funds.

Glickman gives as an example the case of a campaign contributor living in a new condo that was previously a commercial property. Until the contributor proves otherwise, Glickman said, the CFB will classify his contribution as having come from a business, a violation of the board’s rules.

Another notoriously difficult area of compliance Glickman points to is that of substantiating expenditures on campaign staff wages. If a campaign does not keep signed, detailed, daily records with the Social Security number of each person working for the campaign, Glickman says—even an employee doing a mundane task like handing out literature on Election Day—the CFB presumes that money was spent on nonelection purposes, and will often make demands that a candidate return some public money on that basis. Such stumbling blocks inadvertently weed out the sort of candidates the CFB system was meant to empower, Glickman argues.

“[These regulations] have a disparate

impact on candidates who are running in less affluent and communities of color—where actually having people hand out flyers is a more important way to advertise to people than doing mailers,” Glickman said. “Because in public housing, a lot of people don’t get their mail reliably, for example. So what you do is you hire people to go and put fliers under doors. To substantiate an expenditure on a mailer, you have to show an invoice and that’s it. To substantiate expenditures on $10-an-hour wages, on people who are doing

“It is offensive and time-wasting for the CFB to presume every qualified recipient is Al Capone until he or she proves differently. They have turned a regulatory function into a prosecutorial function.”

Amy Loprest, executive director of the Campaign Finance Board.

Rose Gill Hearn, chairwoman of the Campaign Finance Board.

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the grunt work on a campaign is extremely challenging.”

DUE PROCESS

“Death penalty.” That is what Martin Connor called the board’s decision

to deny John Liu matching funds at a CFB hearing held last summer just as the mayoral campaign was beginning to heat up.

Connor is now months removed from working as counsel to the Liu campaign, but his disdain for the CFB’s practices still drips off of every word he utters about the agency.

“I don’t think, constitutionally, a governmental body like [the Campaign Finance Board] with a program like [the public financing system] can simply use any discretion in deciding who gets money,” Connor said. “If they’re going to disqualify somebody [from receiving matching funds], they have to have a real hearing with real evidence, an opportunity for both sides to present evidence … Then all

the facts come out and everybody has a fair chance to make their case—and their system doesn’t do that.”

This call for due process lies at the heart of many critics’ complaints about how the CFB decides its penalties for candidates. Legislation passed by the City Council in 2007 established administrative hearings as the default provision in the law for how post-election cases would be determined should a candidate pursue recourse against a board ruling on fines or, as in Liu’s case, the denial of matching funds. The hearings allow both sides to present evidence in discovery and question witnesses before an administrative law judge, who in turn decides the validity of the matching funds claim.

For Liu, however, because the board’s determination was made so late in the election cycle, actually taking full advantage of the appeals

process was not feasible.“People have to ask for it,” said one

legal expert who declined to be named so as to not undermine a relationship with the CFB. “It’s more expensive, more time-consuming, and more of a commitment to the litigation process.”

By the time an administrative judge would have ruled on Liu’s case, Connor noted, the primary election would have long since been over, effectively rendering the judge’s decision moot.

“Even if you win [in administrative court], it’s going to take a couple of days for the judge there to write a decision,” he said. “The CFB can then appeal to the appellate court, and that automatically stays until a Supreme Court judgment. If you can get the appellate court to act within four or five days, you are now a couple of days before the primary, and if you happen to win … what are you gonna do with all the money, with three days to go? You’re running for mayor—what, you’re gonna spend $3 million in three days? It’s too late to do TV commercials, too late to do all of the stuff you need to do.”

Complicating matters further for Liu was the CFB’s delay in resolving the 2009 postelection audit of his comptroller campaign, which nearly five years later has still not been completed, despite the fact that a standard CFB audit takes roughly 8 months to 2 years to finish, according to experts familiar with the board’s inner workings.

Connor said the CFB had nearly completed the audit and had a final agreement that Liu would refund between $7,000 and $9,000 in contributions over the limit. However, when the Times story ran in October 2011 alleging fundraising violations in Liu’s mayoral campaign, the CFB decided to put a hold on the audit until the criminal investigation was concluded.

CFB defenders argue that continuing the auditing process during a criminal investigation is counterproductive—that the constant turning over of paperwork and financial statements is an inadvertent obstacle to law enforcement officials in helping to build their case. Yet of the handful of lawyers and election law experts interviewed for this article, none indicated any legal grounds for delaying civil enforcement for these reasons.

The current special prosecutor’s investigation into Staten Island Councilwoman Debi Rose’s 2009 City Council campaign involves a similar instance of the CFB inexplicably delaying civil enforcement, when simply resolving the matter could actually be of assistance to investigators.

Courtney Hall, one of the Campaign Finance Board’s five board members.

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Fifteen years after its bipartisan passage, New York’s Charter Schools Act is still a model for states nationwide. While other states have watered down public charter school quality through loose oversight, or held back innovation through hyper-regulation, New York’s balance of school autonomy and careful authorizing has given rise to a vibrant new sector of public education, concentrated in some of our most historically underserved communities. For fifteen years, though, there has also been a conspicuous hole in our charter school laws: inequitable funding, and in particular a lack of dedicated public support for charter school facilities. This flaw has been most evident in New York City, where sky-high real estate prices are daunting for any educator or community member hoping to found a new school. Let’s be clear: without public facility funding, charter schools in private space operate at a significant disadvantage compared to traditional public schools. This is the consistent and undisputed finding of every single published comparison. In the absence of public facility funds, charter schools are forced to re-direct operating funding away from classroom needs, to pay the rent. Under this regressive “bring-your-own-building” system, the other alternative is to scramble for large private donations—an unsustainable solution for any charter school and an unrealistic hope for many. As Queens charter school parent Erin Boyle Acosta testified in 2012, “the rent we pay for [private] space is not covered by outside donors…Instead, we stretch our share of what New York City spends to operate a school—our money for teachers and sup-plies, in other words—and extend it to also pay the rent.” The facility-shaped hole in their budgets has real consequences for charter schools’ programs, and by extension their students. With hundreds of thousands of dollars going to a private landlord or mortgage payment, charter schools increase class sizes, forego enrichment programs, scale back teacher pay, and even do without important building amenities. Even special education, an essential service that many charter schools are working to expand, is naturally harder to build out when there is quite literally no money provided for classrooms. Our state leaders were able to ignore this unpleasant reality for many years because former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose to make space available in school district buildings, free of charge, to a majority of charter schools in the city. Whatever the merits of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s philosophical shift away from co-location, in Albany it has called the question: shouldn’t all public schools receive public support for something as basic as a school building? There are states where the answer would be no. There are states where “go figure it out” is a perfectly adequate response to inequality, and where grant applications and bake sales can substitute for a capital budget. I don’t think New York is a state like that, and I hope our leaders soon prove me right.

Fixing the Hole in the Charter School ModelBy James MerrimanCEO, New York City Charter

Visit CharterNYC.org

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Rose, now a deputy leader of the Council, allegedly did not report the full value of services rendered by the Working Families Party’s for-profit campaign operations arm, Data and Field Services, in her successful 2009 bid for office. A source familiar with the investigation said that the CFB has been less than cooperative in resolving the Rose case, in part by failing to complete a postelection audit of the 2009 campaign, but also by not responding to numerous requests by investigators to meet with CFB Chairwoman Rose Gill Hearn, who was appointed to a five-year term by Mayor Bloomberg on Dec. 30 of last year in one of his final acts in office. [Liu’s suit questions Gill Hearn’s appointment, alleging that the mayor’s appointment was not made with the approval of then Council Speaker Christine Quinn, as required by law.]

In settling a lawsuit filed against the WFP by Randy Mastro, an attorney and former deputy mayor in the Rudy Giuliani administration, Rose agreed to pay $8,800 to Data and Field Services, acknowledging that her campaign had received some services for which it had not fully paid. Based on the unaudited reports Rose filed with the CFB, which do not include the $8,800, when the payment to DFS is added to her filings, the Rose campaign will be over the spending limit for her 2009 campaign, a clear violation of campaign finance law. But because of a quirk in the law, though the Rose campaign has reported its $8,800 payment to the state Board of Elections, it has no vehicle for reporting it to the CFB because it closed the books on the 2009 campaign early in 2010.

“What if they found out somebody won his or her election because of [Rose’s lack of disclosure]?” said the source familiar with the Rose investigation. “What does that say about [the CFB] system?”

In both Liu’s and Rose’s cases, Liu’s current attorney Richard Emery believes that these delays in resolving audits are a way for the board to hold candidates over a barrel.

“The CFB is well-known for dragging out audits for years and years,” Emery said. “They resolve things incredibly slowly, they don’t give anybody comfort, and it allows them to extend their oversight and extend their power over candidates with a pending audit.”

Meanwhile, because of the timing of the board’s decision, Liu essentially lost the opportunity to exonerate himself. Even more troubling is the fact that it appears the CFB did not follow its own historical precedent of allowing a candidate to continue to collect matching funds despite running afoul of campaign finance law.

During his 1997 mayoral campaign, Rudolph Giuliani was fined $220,000 after the CFB found $342,602 in campaign contributions that were over the limit—which amounted to $7,700 per donor at the time. The Giuliani campaign agreed to have the amount deducted from the matching funds it had already received, but the board did not unilaterally revoke his matching funds, as it would do with Liu.

A CFB decision involving former mayor Michael Bloomberg also reflects the board’s apparent inconsistency in meting out punishment for campaign finance violations. In 2009, shortly after winning re-election for a third term, Bloomberg wrote two checks totaling $1.2 million to the state’s Independence Party but did not report those payments in its postelection filings. The CFB determined that Bloomberg’s campaign did not violate the city’s campaign finance law because the disclosure requirement of reporting contributions to political committees had not yet gone into effect when the payment was made.

Liu’s own federal complaint cites the case of Sheldon Leffler, a 2001 candidate for Queens borough president. The board found that Leffler submitted matching funds claims for 38 contributions in groups of sequential money orders and bank checks, after noticing discrepancies in the contribution cards submitted with those money orders and checks. The CFB allowed Leffler to continue participating in the matching funds program, withholding the claims for those contributions, while also referring his case to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Leffler would later receive $296,084 in matching funds, despite the board’s suspicion of criminal activity. While Leffler was subsequently indicted by a grand jury on 13 criminal counts—and later convicted on six of those charges—the board had agreed to postpone its decision whether to penalize Leffler until after his criminal appeal was filed. In August of 2004, three years after the CFB’s initial findings of wrongdoing, the Board fined Leffler for the false matching funds claims.

Unlike it did in the instances of its investigations into Giuliani, Bloomberg and Leffler, the CFB did not detail the rationale behind its decision in Liu’s case, saying only in its statement by then chairman Rev. Joseph Parkes that there was “reason to believe” Liu committed violations of the Campaign Finance Act and CFB rules. The board cited “evidence” suggesting these violations to be “serious and pervasive” across Liu’s financing, but gave no hints as to what exactly that evidence

was, aside from citing the convictions of Pan and Hou—an investigation, it should be noted, that did not implicate Liu.

The Campaign Finance Board declined to comment on the specifics of Liu’s suit for this article, citing its policy on not discussing pending legal cases.

STATEWIDE PUBLIC

FINANCING

A s the clock ticks down toward the deadline for the state’s final executive budget, one of

the major questions good-government organizations and campaign finance reform advocates will be waiting to resolve is whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo will expend some political capital to cajole the Legislature into adopting a statewide public financing system.

Many reformers would like to see a statewide system based on the one New York City has with the Campaign Finance Board, although campaign finance experts and advocates are decidedly split on whether the CFB model can be expanded on a macro level.

“It’s so much more complicated on the state level, because you have competitive primaries and generals, you have two viable political parties, a two-year election cycle, 213 [legislative] seats as opposed to 59,” said election lawyer Laurence Laufer. “The smart thing to do is to create a core program, administer it and work the bugs out, but no one’s talking in ‘phase-in terms,’ which is the obvious compromise.”

As it stands now, there are two proposals on the table, one from Cuomo and one from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, both of which have traces of CFB DNA. Both proposals include a 6-to-1 matching funds program for the first $175 contributed by an individual, though Silver’s program would begin with only the comptroller’s race this year, legislative races in 2016 and the governor’s race in 2018. Cuomo’s proposal would establish 6-to-1 matching funds for all legislative races starting in 2016, with a voluntary public financing program available to statewide candidates in 2018. Cuomo is also calling for the creation of a civil enforcement arm of the Board of Elections. Silver’s proposal has a similar mechanism with regard to campaign finance only, a proposal some good-government advocates say would be calamitous.

“We would like to see something separate from the Board of Elections, because we think the Board of

Elections is a disaster,” said Blair Horner, the legislative director for the New York Public Interest Group. “To put something new into something that doesn’t work would be a recipe for disaster. We believe you can make a new campaign finance enforcement system that would have its own board, similar to the New York City Campaign Finance Board in that way.”

It is still an open question as to whether there is a real appetite for a public financing system throughout the state, Horner said, given how different the politics are from New York City, which has a nominal two-party system but is solidly Democratic.

“[Whether] it will have the same candidate appeal at the state level as it does in New York City is an open question—you don’t have to [opt in to the system] if you don’t want to,” he said. “The more attractive the current system is, the less likely that somebody will opt in to a system of public financing unless they have to. The appeal, we believe, at the state level is that 99 percent of New Yorkers can actually contemplate running for office, which they can’t even do now because it’s such a wealthy special interest game—it’s almost impossible for outsiders of any sort to really compete in a meaningful way unless you have a system of public financing, or you happen to have the last name Bloomberg.”

Gale Brewer, the Manhattan borough president and a vocal supporter of the city’s public financing system, sees areas where a statewide program could even improve upon parts of the Campaign Finance Board model—for instance, educating candidates on the ins and outs of compliance.

“It would take a great deal of training, because you have so many more people you’re dealing with,” Brewer said. “It would take a huge training and education budget. I’ll be honest with you, as a candidate, [the Campaign Finance Board is] a pain in the ass, it’s so much paperwork. It’s important, but it is a pain in the ass.”

The Campaign Finance Board’s record of inconsistency remains a cautionary tale, however. A John Liu situation in New York City, with major questions about due process toward electoral candidates, would be significantly magnified if it occurred with statewide ramifications to an Andrew Cuomo or Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

There is a common observation among CFB critics: The New York City system looks better the farther you are from it, and the agency’s wrinkles and cracks are only visible under a microscope.

Kristen Meriwether contributed reporting.

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City & State magazine is pleased to present our Spring 2014 resource guide for graduate and law programs in and around New York. In this special supplement you will find the recently released rankings from U.S. News & World Report for business and law programs in New York, including enrollment tuitions and fees for each; learn where New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received their undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as the educational backgrounds of the recent mayors and governors before them; and peruse statistics from a recent United States Bureau of Labor report on the success of high school graduates versus college graduates and beyond.

GRADUATE & CONTINUING EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT

New York’s law schools maintain a healthy standing among the rest of the country’s graduate law schools. Here are the top ten law programs New York has to offer, including their enrollment and tuitions fees, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

Source: New York Daily News / U.S. News & World Report

4. Columbia University; NYC; 1,248; $57,838 6. New York University; NYC; 1,418; $54,678 13. Cornell University; NYC; 576; $57,270 36. Fordham University; NYC; 1,109; $50,996 64. Yeshiva University (Cardozo); NYC; 983; $51,778 83. Brooklyn Law School; Brooklyn; 909; $1,795 per credit 100. SUNY Buffalo Law School; Buffalo; 607; $23,986 (in-state); $40,056 (out-of-state) 107. St. John’s University; Jamaica; 671; $49,750 107. Syracuse University; Syracuse; 605; $46,050 113. CUNY Long Island City; 378; $14,472 (in-state); $22,912 (out-of-state)

10 BEST NY LAW SCHOOL PROGRAMS 10 BEST NY BUSINESS GRAD PROGRAMSNew York’s business schools are also very competetive compared to the rest of the country’s graduate business schools. Here are the top ten graduate business programs the state has to offer, including their enrollment and tuitions fees, as ranked by U.S. News &World Report.

8. Columbia University; NYC; 1,279; $63,302 10. New York University (Stern); NYC; 786; $59,844 17. Cornell University (Johnson); Ithaca; 558; $58,328 37. University of Rochester (Simon); Rochester; 249; $50,946 74. University at Buffalo—SUNY; Buffalo; 190; $15,652 (in-state); $23,690 (out-of-state) 76. Binghamton University—SUNY Binghamton; 53; $13,984 (in-state); $22,004 (out-of-state) 79. Syracuse University (Whitman); Syracuse; 75; $40,308 82. CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College (Zicklin); NYC; 151 $13,480 (in-state); $26,220 (out-of-state) 87. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Lally); Troy; 56; $47,083 87. University at Albany—SUNY Albany; 78; $505 per credit (in-state); $840 per credit (out-of-state)

LOOK WHO’S READING

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An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity InstitutionPhoto: James Ewing

THE NEW SCHOOL

An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity InstitutionPhoto: James Ewing

Many studies show that the more education a person has, the more likely he or she is to have a job—and to earn more money. In 2012, for example, 8.3% of high school graduates were unemployed, compared with just 4.5% of college graduates, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For high school dropouts, unemployment soared to 12.4%. The lowest unemployment rates were found among those with doctoral degrees, at 2.5%, and professional degrees, at just 2.1%. Earnings varied widely as well: the median paycheck per week was $652 for high school graduates in 2012, versus $1,066 for college graduates. Those with professional degrees had the highest median earnings, with $1,735 each week, while those with doctoral degrees earned $1,624. High school dropouts made only $471 per week on average.

Over a lifetime, that adds up to a huge difference. Over the course of their working years, the median earnings of college graduates totals $2.3 million, compared with $1.3 million for high school graduates, and just under $1 million for high school dropouts, according to a Georgetown University study. Those with advanced degrees earn even more during their working lives: $2.7 million for a master’s, $3.3 million for a doctorate and $3.7 million for a professional degree.

NYLS.EDU185 West Broadway, New York City

WE ARE NEW YORK’S LAW SCHOOLSINCE 1891

New York Law School

• Full-time day and part-time evening programs

• New two-year J.D. honors program

• Special merit scholarships available to members of NYC’s uniformed services and other public servants

Bill de Blasio (2014-present)De Blasio received his undergraduate degree in 1984 from

New York University, where he was a Metropolitan Studies major. Coursework in that urban studies program included classes like “The Working Class Experience” and “Politics of Minority Groups.” He was also deeply involved in student

activism on campus. In 1987, de Blasio received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and

Public Affairs, where he focused on Latin American politics.

Michael Bloomberg (2002-2013)Bloomberg received his undergraduate degree, a bachelor of science in electrical engineering, from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. At Hopkins, Bloomberg also served as president of his class, as well as of his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. To help pay his tuition, Bloomberg took out loans and worked as a parking lot attendant. In 1966, Bloomberg received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001)Giuliani graduated in 1965 from Manhattan College, where his studies included political science as his major, and philosophy as a minor. At the time, Giuliani was considering the priesthood, and he also studied theology in college. He

served as president of his class during his sophomore year and was later elected president of his fraternity, Phi Rho Pi.

He received a J.D. in 1968 from New York University Law School, where he served on the school’s law review.

David Dinkins (1990-1993)Dinkins, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, attended Howard University on the G.I. Bill, graduating with a B.S. in Mathematics in 1950. Although initially not a serious student, who vowed, “don’t let your education interfere with your recreation,” Dinkins went on to graduate with honors. He received a fellowship to study mathematics at Rutgers, but after a semester decided instead to pursue a career in law. He moved to New York to study at Brooklyn Law School while working at night, and received an LL.B. in 1956.

Ed Koch (1978-1989)Koch attended the City College of New York from 1941 to 1943, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II, serving in the infantry in Europe. He returned to New York City in 1946. Despite having only completed two years of college, he was admitted to New

York University Law School under the G.I. Bill, with an NYU professor noting that “two years at CCNY is four years at

any other school.” Koch received his law degree in 1948 from NYU. In 1981 City College awarded him a bachelor’s degree.

GRADUATING TO MAYOR

GRADUATING TO GOVERNOR

Andrew Cuomo (2011-present)Cuomo attended college at Fordham University, graduating

with a bachelor’s degree in 1979. During his college years, he also helped manage his father Mario’s unsuccessful cam-paign for mayor of New York City in 1977. Cuomo went on to attend Albany Law School, receiving his J.D. in 1982. In addition to his family political work, Cuomo held various

jobs during college and law school, including landscaping and automobile repair, and even did a stint as a security guard.

David Paterson (2008-2010)Paterson studied history as an undergraduate at Columbia Uni-versity, where his impaired vision caused his academic per-formance to vary widely. At times he was honored on the Dean’s List, while at others he nearly failed out of school. After temporarily leaving college to work at a credit union, he returned to Columbia to receive his B.A. in history in 1977. He later attended law school at Hofstra University, where he received a J.D. in 1982.

Eliot Spitzer (2007-2008)Spitzer attended Princeton University, receiving his B.A.

in 1981. While an undergraduate, he was elected head of the school’s student body, and worked at summer jobs in cluding tomato-picking in upstate New York and digging ditches and mopping floors at Georgia Tech. After Princ-eton, he went on to receive a J.D. in 1984 from Harvard Law

School, where he was an editor on the school’s law review. At Harvard, he also worked for Professor Alan Dershowitz on the

Claus von Bülow case, later depicted in the book and film Reversal of Fortune.

George Pataki (1995-2006)Pataki received his undergraduate education at Yale, where he studied history and was closely involved in campus political life. He served as a member of the Yale Political Union and chaired its Conservative Party. Pataki’s athletic pursuits on campus included basketball, touch football and track. After graduating Yale in 1967, he attended Columbia Law School, where he served as editor of the law review. He got his J.D. in 1970. Pataki was awarded academic scholarships to attend both schools.

Mario Cuomo (1983-1994)Cuomo attended St. John’s University in Queens as a scholarship

student, majoring in English and excelling as a baseball play-er. His outstanding academic and athletic skills led him to be voted “Best All-Around Student” by classmates. While still in college, in 1951, Cuomo was recruited by the Pittsburgh Pirates, but after being hit in the head with a baseball he

returned to school, receiving his B.A. in 1953. Cuomo also attended law school at St. John’s, where he graduated tied for

first place in his class, getting his J.D. in 1956.

New York Law School is located in the heart of New York City’s legal, financial, government, and emerging tech centers. Our campus sets the standard for teaching law, for the use of technology, and the exchange of ideas. Our exceptional professors and passionate students collaborate on projects that have real-world impact. We embody the qualities that make New York City the indisputable capital of the world: talent, energy, diversity, and independence of spirit. New York Law School has long emphasized clinical and experiential learning. We offer a rich array of classes and programs that can broaden students’ ability to perform core lawyering tasks. These opportunities include clin-ics; externships and workshops; project-based learning courses; simulation courses; upper-level writing electives; and competition teams. We recently doubled our clinical offerings from 13 to 26 and guarantee that every student who wants a clinical or externship experience can have one. National Juristmagazine cited us as one of the best law schools for practical training, and U.S. News & World Report ranked us as among the top schools for clinical training. New York Law School was one of the first law schools in the country to offer a part-time evening program for working professionals, and that program was also listed as among the top by U.S. News. Today we continue to innovate with the launch of our two-year J.D. honors program, which cuts the cost of tuition by a one-third. In addition, special merit scholarships are available to members of New York City’s uniformed services and other public servants. This is New York. We are New York’s law school. Find out more at www.nyls.edu

HONORING 25 WOMEN OF PUBLIC AND CIVIC MIND

Thanks to the following organizations for their support:

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– A Wonderfully Diversified FamilyWDF Holiday Party Celebrates Its All-Star Team at the Mandarin Oriental

On Friday, December 13, WDF Inc. held its annual Holiday Party at the Man-darin Oriental on Columbus Circle in New York City. The festive evening was both a celebration of a banner year for the company and a way to give

thanks—thanks to WDF’s “all-star team”—one of the most dedicated groups of employees ever assembled; and to give thanks with humility to the many public and private clients that WDF is working for on many of the City’s most complex and challenging projects. The key to WDF’s success is and always has been its people. Headquartered in Mount Vernon, New York, for nearly three decades, the firm draws and develops members of its highly skilled workforce from the diverse community in its imme-diate neighborhood, from surrounding areas in Westchester and the Bronx, and from various sites throughout the tri-state region. WDF workers come together from diverse backgrounds and unite with a common goal: to serve clients with a virtually unparalleled standard of excellence. WDF remains known throughout the industry as the one-stop shop for self-perform plumbing, heating, sheet metal and fire protection as well as specialty construction. In fact, WDF installed the plumbing for the Mandarin Oriental, just one of the many NYC landmarks it has served including Cajan music festivals, NY all four towers of the WTCC; Madison Square Garden; Columbia University and hundreds of other iconic projects.

Larry Roman launched the evening, introduc-ing the National Anthem and several key speakers.

The Rev. Jacques DeGraff delivered an impas-sioned and inspiring speech.

Dan Castleman, managing director of FTI Consulting spoke of WDF’s vigilant compliance record saying that the company is number one and that “WDF is composed of hard-working, responsible, smart and committed professionals.” He praised workers’ around the clock efforts following Hurricane Sandy.

Neil Walash, mounted the stage to introduce key executives.

Standing to the “Star Spangled Banner”: L-R: Anthony Altimari, Jim Orlando, Joe Petriello, Roger Wilson, Jimmy Romagnoli, David Aloni, Vlad Levin, Glen Moody, Jason Celantini

“WDF’s Got Talent” contestants Keith DiBuduo, Tom Deegan, Robert Blau, Daryl Thomas, Bob Jackson and Neil Walash, emcee.

L- R Anthony Lara, John Vazquez, Vania Lopes, Aidee Reyes, Leon Foo

L-R: Bruce Kelley, Jim Orlando, Liam McLaughlin, Robert Goldin, Joey Krajczewski

L-R Sal Alonge, Robert Goldin, Anatoliy Korostyshevsky

L-R Tyrone McGee, John Mallin, George Murman, Donovan White, Steve Kooger, Ike Cantos

L-R Dave Romano, Dave Aloni, Chris Maguire Neil Walash, Marguerite Nowlin, Larry Roman L-R Joe Petriello, Robert Blau, Meghan Marckini, Jim Walsh, George Moody, Glen Moody, Dina Cardoso, Boris Boyko

L-R Denise Alvarado, Melissa Trinidad, Joe RogosichL-R Becky Tung, Paul Gemmola, Vania Lopes, John Cutrone, Anthony Lara, Mirsada Ibric, Aidee Reyes, John Brehmer, Dina Cardoso, Melissa Fife (front)

(Clockwise from top) Daryl Thom-as, Pat Behler, Amiela Saminarine, Dina Cardoso

Pat Behler, Amiela Saminarine, Aidee Reyes, Vania Lopes, Mirsada Ibric

Daryl Thomas and Doreen PeartL-R Joe Palmer, Johnny Maziarz Paul Gemmola, Nikiya Bennett, Mar-guerite Nowlin

Larry Roman and Chuck Connor

L-R Steve Underberg, Becky Tung, Joe Petriello, Robert Goldin, Pat Lara

L-R Bob Burger on guitar, Joe Bella on drums, guest artist Gene Cornish of The Rascals singing “Good Lovin’” and Jim Leahey of Dennis DeYoung and Styx The Marckinis met at WDF and

are now married and parents of a baby boy. Chris is a Project Man-ager, Meghan studied, trained, worked her way up at WDF and is now a Project Manager as well.

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L-R Tom D’Alessandro, Peter Badini, Robert BlauTHE NEW STANDARDOF CONSTRUCTION

L-R Sal Alonge, Ryan O’Neal, Joe DelGrosso, Dan Masi

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City & State’s third annual Above & Beyond Awards recognizes 25 enormously accomplished women for their excellence. This year’s winners are all leaders

in their respective fields, be it business, public service, media, the nonprofit sector or labor. While we could write volumes extolling the virtues and achievements of each

of these women—among them the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the editor of Newsday, a founding member of the New York City Taxi

Workers union, and the vice president of global communications and public affairs for Google—the following profiles should at very least provide an introduction

to who they are—truly women of “public and civic mind.”

Profiles by Azure Gilman, Matthew Hamilton, Alison Hibbs, Kristen Meriwether, Morgan Pehme and Nick Powell

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Susan Kent has been president of the Pubic Employees Federation for only two years,

but she has been working in public service for nearly 35 years.

“Things are constantly moving for me,” Kent said. “That’s just the spirit that I inherited from my family: that you never stop trying to improve yourself, and you never forget that you were put here for a reason.”

After many years of working at the state Department of Education, Kent became involved in the agency’s Labor-Management Committee, and was soon nominated to chair it. A year later the local union president retired and Kent took his place, and in doing so doing became responsible for 1,000 union members in Albany and 2,000 statewide.

Unhappy with the concessions the previous PEF administration had made in contract negotiations with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Kent ran for president of the statewide union in 2012.

“We took a very hard line on the need to have a negotiating team in place that was not going to be one that was going to be bullied, as the last team was, or one that was not going to really be negatively impacted by threats,” she said.

Kent speaks openly about the paradigm shift between old union organizing, and the need for new, more specific rhetoric that highlights what the union members do for society.

“That has been a huge challenge for this union, to show people that

moving to these kind of service-driven campaigns is really going to be better in the long run … for the stability of the individual workers as well.”

But Kent always keeps an eye on the bigger picture.

“You cannot just be interested in what is going on in your particular union. You have to be involved in what is going on with other unions, the labor movement in general and public policy,” she said. “The horrific factory fires that happened in Bangladesh this past fall just really go to show why we have to be so concerned about what all these trade agreements are doing, and what is happening in terms of the lack of safety for those workers now.”

—A.G. PRESIDENT,

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES FEDERATION

Bhairavi Desai first realized the power of labor organizing by watching her mother.

“My mom was a union member when I was a kid,” she said. “I would see the difference when she worked in a factory with a union versus a factory with no union.”

Those early memories inspired Desai to begin organizing for New York taxi drivers 17 years ago when she helped set up the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. When Desai first started, she would often clock in 70-hour weeks, spending time with drivers all over the city and at both airports.

“Everything I learned about this industry I learned through the drivers,” she said.

Desai is a uniquely independent

figure as a female organizer in an industry popularated largely by men. Being of Asian descent often helps her to connect to the workers, many of whom are first-generation immigrants.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance aims to give a voice to the drivers in a business that has traditionally been dominated by the economic and political influence of fleet owners.

“For years, I remember we couldn’t go to a monthly Taxi & Limousine public hearing without a threat of being kicked out,” Desai recalled. “On the city level, [fleet owners] pay lobbyists in one month retainer fees what we pay staff in a year.”

After years of dealing with what Desai perceives as tone-deaf Taxi &

Limousine commissioners, drivers are now recognized as people who belong at the negotiating table thanks in part to Desai’s efforts. In addition, two years ago the TLC granted the first raise to go entirely to a driver’s income, and created a health and disability fund. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance was chosen to administer that fund; now Desai is just waiting on the mayor’s office to send over the paperwork.

“It’s really historic,” Desai said. “It’s the first time that independent taxi drivers anywhere in the country will have benefits on the job. And it’s among the very first times for independent contractors in any industry to have benefits of this nature.”

—A.G. FOUNDING MEMBER,

NEW YORK CITY TAXI WORKERS ALLIANCE

Bhairavi Desai

With so much of the healthcare discussion in New York City currently

focused on keeping public hospitals open, Jill Furillo’s career experience is particularly well suited to the moment.

As a former emergency room nurse at Brookdale Hospital in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Furillo witnessed firsthand the ripple effect of hospital closures, when a nearby hospital shut down, driving an influx of patients her way.

“We started to get the onslaught of patients coming over to Brookdale Hospital, where they just didn’t have the staff,” Furillo said. “That sparked me into activity in that hospital as an activist in the nursing room, but also on our bargaining team.”

Furillo’s star really began to rise when she took a job as the government relations director of the California Nurses Association. Furillo worked tirelessly on an eight-year campaign and helped shepherd the nation’s first ever nurse-to-patient ratio bill through the California state Legislature in 1999. Her work in California caught the eye of the New York State Nurses Association, which hired her as its executive director in November of 2012.

At NYSNA, Furillo’s membership has become engaged politically, endorsing candidates for the first time during the 2013 election cycle in New York City—a move she believes helped plant the seed in the minds of elected officials like Mayor Bill de Blasio to become more active in the

fight to save hospitals. Furillo has also mobilized her members to fight for better access to quality patient care, winning an important battle when the State University of New York, which operates Brooklyn’s Long Island Community Hospital, agreed to solicit proposals to keep a functional inpatient medical facility on campus.

“We have incredible unity with other unions,” Furillo said. “We’ve united with other unions like never before to protect care for our patients, and as a result we feel that we’ve been able to stop the epidemic of hospital cuts and closures. And that’s the first step in trying to end the healthcare disparities that are hurting our patients.”

—N.P.EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NYS NURSES ASSOCIATION

Susan Kent

Jill Furillo

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It is all too appropriate that Kathleen Donahue’s first taste of advocacy work came when she

was an elementary school student.“I was in fifth grade, and I didn’t

like where they put the new mirror in the school girl’s bathroom, so I wrote a letter to the principal on behalf of all the girls and we got them to move it,” recalled Donahue.

Donahue’s passion for education led her into teaching, where she became involved in her school’s union. For 24 years she was the president of her local, as well as the Monroe County Federation of Teachers. From there she went on to become the vice president of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), an organization of more than 600,00 current and retired

employees from schools, colleges and healthcare facilities.

“In terms of what we do and who we represent and what the climate is currently, this is a critical time to be in labor and involved in a union,” Donahue said.

Donahue works mostly with different constituency groups, from retirees to school healthcare professionals, and provides a voice for them back at NYSUT headquarters.

“I was a teacher myself for over 30 years,” she said. “I did elementary and secondary, and I was an adjunct at SUNY Brockport. So when they discuss with me issues of concern or what they want as an agenda item moving forward, I have a frame of reference that is quite realistic.”

In her position at NYSUT

Donahue has done a little bit of everything, including advocating for secure retirements, getting school-related professionals recognized and representing the organization at international conferences.

The job does come with perks, with her personal favorite being the ability to travel all over the state.

“To see and meet so many different people from so many walks of life, and be able to find ways that we can work together—the world really becomes much, much smaller than we ever thought it could be.”

—A.G.

Janella Hinds was having a gut-check moment. She was working for a nonprofit in Harlem, helping

with youth in the community, but the organization was struggling financially. Her father, a career-tech teacher at a local high school, gave her a challenge: She should become a teacher, he told her. She would still be working with youth, but the job would provide more stability and opportunities.

Recalling her own youth when her father would tell her stories of the students in his classroom—and remembering how invested he was in their success—Hinds took his suggestion and became a high school social studies teacher.

From her earliest years in the classroom, Hinds was active in the United Federation of Teachers (UFT),

volunteering for its political action department, working in the grievance department and helping get teachers certified in the licensing department. Like her father, she became a chapter leader (a title known as “building representative” in his day).

In 2004 she stepped away from teaching and the UFT, taking a job at the New York State AFL-CIO. In 2006 she returned to the UFT, taking on a second job.

After almost nine years away from teaching, Hinds also recently stepped back in to the classroom, a space she said she missed.

With positions at both the UFT and Labor Council, she is now juggling a great deal of responsibility—but the one period of high school social studies she teaches provides her with

the perspective she needs to continue advocating for teachers and students.

“Being in the classroom, connecting with students and being a part of a school community gives me the perspective of the [UFT] members,” Hinds said. “I am always grounded in what is actually happening in their schools with their students while I am here sitting at a desk with all of my colleagues.”

—K.M.

Jill Eisenhard never intended to become an agent of change in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In 2002 she was

a health educator training women with the hope that they would pass along the knowledge she imparted to them to their families, friends and neighbors.

The program, which was supposed to last only a year, caught on, and within a few years she had broken away from the hospital and established her own nonprofit.

“It almost happened and I didn’t realize it,” Eisenhard said with a laugh. “It’s not like it happened to me. There was plenty of work that went into it. But it was never my intention or something I was trying to build from day one.”

Today the Red Hook Initiative

continues to empower community members by giving them the tools to teach their peers, but it has also widened its scope to address a broader range of social issues.

“Originally it was a women’s health program, but as people started to walk in the door with different needs we recognized you can’t actually impact health without also looking at the other social [factors].”

Superstorm Sandy, which hit in the organization’s tenth year, had a devastating impact on Red Hook. Fortunately, 10 years of training people to identify problems and looking for the skills needed to solve them paid off, Eisenard said. Red Hook Initiative, whose facility was not damaged in the storm, became a hub for the community. Despite

being victims of the storm, the youth who worked there used their newfound problem-solving skills to do everything from getting doctors to come out from NYU to checking on homebound residents to organizing a phone charging line.

Twelve years in Eisenhard is starting to see her work come full circle with teens returning postgraduation to pay it forward. That enthusiasm, she said, is what keeps her going.

“To be able to watch young people grow up and to watch a community change is such a privilege,” said Eisenhard.

—K.M.

VICE PRESIDENT, NYSUT

VP FOR ACADEMIC HIGH SCHOOLS, UFT

FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RED HOOK INITIATIVE

Janella Hinds

Jill Eisenhard

Kathleen Donahue

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Deborah Lynn Williams’ career has not gone exactly the way she expected. She

graduated with a master’s degree in the sciences, aiming for a future in molecular biology research and academia.

“I had this grand plan: I was going to teach biology in some small New England college somewhere with a dog and bad sweaters,” Williams said.

However, after several years of working as a researcher, she started volunteering for her neighbor, a local Buffalo assemblyman.

“After about six weeks, he had offered me a job,” Williams remembered. “Of course, everybody I know said, ‘That is the worst idea ever, don’t take that job, you’re a scientist.’ … But there was something about that

opportunity that appealed to me.”That job, her introduction to

politics, turned out to be blessing in disguise, and Williams used it as a launching pad—eventually landing with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, working as his Western New York regional director.

Eventually Williams decided it was time to move on, and her career took another unexpected turn when she accepted the position of CEO of the YWCA of Western New York, an organization she took over in particularly troubled times.

“The economy collapsed right as I was starting … the United Way funding that we had had for two decades was cut by $200,000 with 17 days notice, and then the bleeding kept going,” Williams said.

She spent the first two-plus years doing damage control. Despite the organization’s money problems, Williams knew some programs had to be saved: youth and domestic violence initiatives, as well as leadership opportunities and job access for women. Thankfully, the YWCA began to turn the corner about two years ago.

“We’ve done some key staff changes, and we’ve developed a stronger funding model,” Williams said.

As the steward of a 144-year-old institution, Williams seems to have hit her stride. “They’ve gone through the financial crisis of the Depression and two world wars,” Williams noted. “The organization has been through a lot of things, and this is my time.”

—A.G. CEO, YWCA,

WESTERN NEW YORK

Deborah Lynn Williams

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Lorie Slutsky has had the kind of uninterrupted job tenure most people can only dream

about. President of the New York Community Trust since 1990, Slutsky got her start at the organization as a grants officer in 1978, and became executive vice president in 1987. She credits her initial success to a strong liberal arts education at Colgate University “coupled with the analytical skills I got in graduate school.”

As one of the country’s largest community foundations, the New York Community Trust provides early risk capital for a range of projects and services. The private organization’s financial support extends to everything from community gardens and feeding the hungry to jobs

training. “It is really interesting work in a

city like New York with a rich and diversified nonprofit sector that provides hundreds of millions of dollars of contracted services to the city and state,” Slutsky said.

Since the outset of Slutsky’s presidency, New York Community Trust has grown from having $400 million in assets to $2.4 billion at the end of last year. In 2012 the trust made grants totaling $136 million to more than 2,000 charitable funds.

Slutsky describes herself as “demanding but fair.” As president she manages three primary areas: fundraising, investments and grant making.

“I approach my job by hiring and training the best talent and then

supporting them in their tasks,” she said. “It also requires that I spend a good deal of time with donors, prospective donors, nonprofit executives and government officials to let them know about and understand the work we do.”

Other important aspects off her job include identifying good proposals, a “passion for New York and New Yorkers,” and explaining why a strong community foundation “is essential for a strong community,” Slutsky said.

“If I succeed at that, the hallmark of my tenure will be a strong, well-endowed community foundation that is at the heart of making New York a better place for all New Yorkers to live and work.”

—A.G. PRESIDENT, NEW YORK

COMMUNITY TRUST

After-school care may be getting more press coverage these days thanks to New

York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s education proposal, but Lucy Friedman has been talking about it for years. In 1989 Friedman led a study group under Mayor David Dinkins that resulted in the creation of Beacon Schools. Almost 10 years later Friedman founded The After-School Corporation, which aimed to build a citywide system of after-school programs for all students.

As a teenager Friedman got her first taste of helping children through her first job, at Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side. Seeing the change arts, music and sports brought to kids who didn’t have access to them otherwise,

Friedman concluded all young people should have the same opportunities. It was not until several years later, however, while volunteering for the Peace Corps, that she realized helping children reach their full potential would be her life’s work.

While working in the Dominican Republic, Friedman once again saw how much more kids learned when they had an environment that included extracurricular activities.

“I think traditional learning is really important, but I also saw the value of kids having exposure to lots of different kinds of activities and being in a nurturing environment,” she said.

Today Friedman is excited that de Blasio is pushing for more after-school programs, especially since funding has been scaled back through years of

budget cuts. As the ideas she helped pioneer begin to take shape under the mayor and schools chancellor’s leadership, Friedman’s focus will be on maintaining quality programs, she said.

After seeing her own four children, now grown, struggle to stick with less than comprehensive after-school programs, Friedman wants to spare other parents the same problem, with programs that not only teach but also engage students’ interest.

“I saw, through my own kids, that voice and choice was very important,” Friedman said. “We have certainly taken that lesson into our work in developing after-school programs.”

—K.M.PRESIDENT, THE

AFTER-SCHOOL CORPORATION

Susan Birnbaum never encountered anti-Semitism until she left her hometown of Great

Neck on Long Island. But when she did, it drove her to her first job out of college with the philanthropic United Jewish Appeal organization.

“It really inspired me to start my career in the Jewish community,” she said. “But after many years, I really wanted to bring those skills to a much broader community.”

During her time at UJA, Birnbaum managed solicitations and coordinated fundraising events, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the organization before leaving to manage the Columbia College Fund, which grew by 90 percent in 10 years. At Columbia Birnbaum also managed the Fund’s annual

budget, planned its annual leadership conference, coordinated a large staff, and collaborated with deans and administrators.

“Growing up, my parents really taught me that we were fortunate and it was important to help others,” Birnbaum said. “That was something that was really instilled in my upbringing.”

After leaving Columbia, Birnbaum went to work for the New York City Police Foundation.

“I had my experience with UJA in social services, and then in higher education, and now I’ve moved into public safety, where it’s the public-private partnership that’s really very exciting for me,” she said.

As president and CEO, she oversees all tactical and strategic activities,

works closely with the NYPD commissioner, cultivates donors, builds the board of trustees, develops policy, garners support for NYPD programs and manages staff.

“The importance of public safety in a post-9/11 world was something that I was really drawn to,” she said. “Being able to get the word out to New Yorkers about the importance of supporting public safety and not taking that for granted. Being able to raise money to support the priorities of NYPD, the best police department in the world.”

It is the people, she said, who ultimately inspire the work she does. “To help people be charitable, to help them think about how they can help,” she said, “I think that is probably my very favorite part of what I do.”

—A.H.PRESIDENT & CEO, NEW YORK

CITY POLICE FOUNDATION

Lucy Friedman

Susan Birnbaum

Lorie A. Slutsky◊

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Vilma Huertas remembers spending summer days on Delancey Street on the Lower

East Side when she was a little girl. While most 8-year-olds were playing or selling lemonade, Huertas was registering people to vote. Her earliest memory is of riding in a car with her father encouraging people to come out and vote over a loudspeaker mounted on top of the car.

“My parents came from Puerto Rico. They were very poor, but they had a commitment to service,” she said, adding that for her, public service has “definitely been a lifelong commitment.”

Huertas always knew she wanted to go into law. After graduating from an all-girls Catholic school in New York, she attended Fordham University

and then went on to get her J.D. from Queens College in 1989. While in law school she found the time to work legal internships at the U.S. Attorney General’s office and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, as well as to volunteer at Henry Street Settlement, where her mother had worked for more than 40 years. At Henry Street Huertas taught adult basic education and counseled minority youth on education, college and possible career paths.

After college she went on to work as an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, and for a nonprofit organization offering housing services, where Huertas spearheaded a merchants’ association. She next served as a chief of staff in the New York State Assembly.

After three years Huertas left the state arena to join the New York City Housing Authority as legislative liaison, working closely with the City Council. She rose to become the director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, before moving into her current position.

As the corporate secretary to the board of NYCHA Huertas works with tenants deemed incompetent who are facing administrative proceedings.

“Sometimes it can seem challenging,” she said. “But the rewards outweigh that. It’s very gratifying when you can help someone solve an issue, especially as it pertains to their home.”

—A.H.BOARD SECRETARY,

NYCHA

Vilma Huertas◊

39

The United Federation of Teachers

SaluteS the

City & State3rd Annual

Above & Beyond Award Ceremony

We join in honoring

UFT Vice President Janella Hindsand the other 24 women who take a leading role

in the public and civic life of New York

Michael Mulgrew, President52 BroAdwAY, New York, NY 10004 • www.UFT.org

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cityandstateny.com

Emily Rafferty grew up just blocks away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She and her five siblings would occasionally visit the exhibits, though young Emily had no idea when she was strolling through the halls of one of the most famous and beloved museums in the world that she would one day be its president.

In her mid-20s Rafferty was committed to working for VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps. Following a serendipitous meeting, however, she took a fundraising job in the development department of the museum she explored as a child. It was in this position that Rafferty first saw great opportunities for the museum’s growth.

Much has changed in the 38 years

since Rafferty fell in to that first job at the Met. The museum now welcomes roughly six million visitors a year, triple its attendance when Rafferty started. The building’s square footage has doubled, and its budget has more than doubled as well.

In 2004 Rafferty was named the museum’s first female president, replacing David McKinney.

After spending a decade at the helm of the Met and four decades as an employee of the institution, Rafferty says she has no plans any time soon to step away from the place that has been such an integral part of her life.

“I live, breathe, believe and am committed to the mission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I can recite it in my sleep. That is why I stayed here all these years,” she said.

Though she walks past hundreds of classic works each day as a matter of course, Rafferty still makes sure to take notice of the exhibits, often coming in early to work or staying late. She heeds the advice given her long ago by an assistant: Stop before a different work of art every day and contemplate it.

“We are all running on skateboards over here,” Rafferty said. “But you can’t help [but] stop and never be jaded.”

—K.M.

PRESIDENT, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Emily Rafferty◊

When Pamela Brier was an undergraduate at Berkeley in the 1960s, she learned

some early lessons from the Free Speech Movement that have served her well ever since.

“People need to participate in the discussions that affect their lives,” Brier said.

After briefly working at RAND, she got her master’s degree in public health from UCLA, where as a new mother she agitated for the administration to set up an early child-care center.

Brier moved to New York in 1976, and eventually got a job in the city health department just as former mayor Ed Koch was entering office.

“They put me in the reimbursement office, a field about which I knew

nothing,” Brier said. “Only in government do these great things happen. I was almost the only woman and surely the only non-accountant.”

When she noticed that hospitals did not fully understand the importance of the statistics they were required to collect, Brier set about designing an educational curriculum for them.

After 15 years working at the Health and Hospitals Corporation, Brier was asked to run Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. She introduced herself to every single employee, got the hospital more involved in the community, and created a day-care center for children with AIDS.

Brier would later go on to work at Bellevue hospital in Manhattan before becoming CEO of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. She

recalls walking through Maimonides’ halls, thinking that Bellevue seemed friendly by comparison, “which, believe me, is saying something.”

Eighteen years later Maimonides feels like a different place, in part due to her leadership.

“You are never done trying to engage people and getting them to work together regardless of title, salary, or education level,” Brier said. “You cannot convince me that the housekeeper who mops the patient’s floor doesn’t know a lot about what’s going on with that patient. And if there’s an issue and the staff wants to make something better, at Maimonides, that housekeeper … participates in trying to figure out solutions to do a better job.”

—A.G. PRESIDENT AND CEO,

MAIMONIDES MEDICAL CENTER

Dr. Ann Kirschner might be the only person with both “Victorian literature lecturer”

and “National Football League employee” on her résumé.

“I seem to be one of those people who is always drawn to the new,” Kirschner said. “Learning about new industries, new technologies, new forms of education has always been my great joy.”

Kirschner launched the NFL’s first website, but was lured back into education when she created Fathom, an “interactive knowledge network” she ran at Columbia for almost three years. Eventually she started to hear about a new CUNY school called the Honors College, which stoked her enthusiasm for the city’s public university system and led her to take a job there.

“I met some students and I fell in love,” Kirschner said. “I’m a New York City public school graduate, lifelong New Yorker, and the feeling of CUNY’s place in New York City and the opportunity to change lives through education was a mission I couldn’t resist.”

She was appointed dean of the Macaulay Honors College 13 years ago. The school’s goal is to attract well-prepared students ready to take on challenging work, and “to match their challenge and ambition with the right opportunities.” A hallmark of Macaulay—and one might say of Kirschner herself—is an emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach.

“It’s all about how you break down barriers between disciplines,” she said. “That’s how we do it in the real

world.”Macaulay currently boasts a Rhodes

scholar, a champion Quidditch team and an award-winning a cappella group.

Kirschner’s mother, a Holocaust survivor whose education stopped in the sixth grade, considered education of paramount importance, and made it a family priority when Ann was growing up.

“I identify with these kids,” Kirschner said of her Macaulay students. “About 60 percent of our students are immigrants or children of immigrants, so this is the American dream of reshaping life through education, and I think my own background has given me a tremendous appreciation for what we do.”

—A.G. DEAN, MACAULAY COLLEGE OF CUNY

Ann Kirschner

Pamela Brier

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Our morning email delivers daily exclusives from

City & State, as well as a curated summary of the

day’s most pertinent headlines, editorials, news

tidbits, schedules and milestones from across the

political landscape in New York—all before 7 a.m.

The Must-Read Morning Roundup of New YorkPolitics and Government


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OR


for more information.www.cityandstateny.com/subscribe

CS_FirstRead_FP_2014.indd 1 3/21/14 8:05 PM

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cityandstateny.com

If a clockmaker is interested in how things tick, consider Lindsey Boylan a clockmaker for

government.Boylan, the vice president of

municipal finance client strategy for RBC Capital Markets, has had an interest in what makes governments work since she was a high school intern on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

A political prodigy, so to speak, at the same time she was interning Boylan also sat at the helm of a state marketing organization, in which capacity she lobbied federal lawmakers.

From there, her interest in government’s ticking blossomed.

“Part of having had that experience at such a young age made me really

want to learn about the management side of things, which is what I find so compelling about New York City and what municipalities have to do,” she said.

Trying to find a way to make New Orleans work after Hurricane Katrina didn’t hamper her passion, either. The storm happened during Boylan’s senior year at Wellesley College, spurring a debate about how to make sure that a municipality rebuilds in a fair and equitable way after a disaster. That dialogue led her to the question of how to make cities work for their people, she said.

Having previously worked as an executive for such public-private partnerships as the Bryant Park Corporation, 34th Street Partnership and the Chelsea Improvement

Company, Boylan has found in RBC insight into the tax-exempt financing market that cities and municipalities take advantage of to fund their public works projects, she said. That type of funding source is something she believes will continue to be of interest to policy makers and municipal leaders for some time to come.

While RBC is a good place for her at this point in her career, Boylan said, she has aspirations to get closer to the inner mechanisms of government.

“I’d love someday to be involved in government,” she said. “And I love New York City, so I would love to be involved with governmental management with the city or the state.”

—M.H.

When she was 8 years old, Denise Arbesu passed out from malnourishment on

the streets of Montreal. Her family, political refugees

from Cuba, had just moved from Indonesia, where her father was the Cuban ambassador. “This was before things like social services or socialized medicine were available there,” she said of Montreal. “My dad hadn’t been given the permits to work yet, and we ran out of money very quickly.”

Young Denise was revived and helped home by a stranger, a doctor who became a family friend—and whose selfless generosity would help shape Arbesu’s commitment to community service. With the family subsisting on bread, cheese and coffee,

Arbesu’s parents were mortified when the stranger returned the following day with food and clothing. He told them, “I don’t want money. I’m doing this because I want you to do this for someone else when you can.”

That philosophy has guided Arbesu’s life. “There are always going to be people who are better off than you, and people who are worse off than you, and so I always try to do as much as I can,” she said. “I’ve always felt a pull to community service.”

Arbesu excelled in school and attended Concordia University before moving to New York in the early 1980s. Today she is a senior executive at Citibank, helping entrepreneurs secure financing. She is the first woman and Latina to chair the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce,

where she has been a passionate member for almost 20 years.

Arbesu is also a prolific and effective fundraiser—netting more than $40,000 for the American Cancer Society at her own wedding—and is active on several community boards. In 2013 the state Legislature named her Brooklyn’s Woman of Distinction.

This year Arbesu is returning to Indonesia for the first time.

“It’s always been a wish of mine to go back,” she said. “Of course, you can never replicate the past, but the point is that it was a part of me and led me to be the person that I am today.”

—A.H.

VICE PRESIDENT, ROYAL BANK OF CANADA

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CITIBANK / CHAIR, BROOKLYN

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Heidi Springer usually shows up when a business is in the middle of a major change—

be it in the process of handing power from one generation to the next, finding a new building or generally looking for new opportunities to survive and grow.

“I love working with smaller companies that are multigenerational,” Springer said. “Grandfather started the business, and now it’s the grandkids’ responsibility to make sure they carry out the vision. And there’s a lot of pressure for people like that.”

Springer has made a career out of helping New York businesses succeed. She spent 13 years at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where one of her personal highlights was helping to develop the FRESH

program, bringing supermarkets into food-desert neighborhoods that otherwise didn’t have access to fresh meat and vegetables.

“This was a way to bring some of that knowledge and expertise to aid the development of neighborhoods that generally don’t get a lot of investment,” Springer said.

In September Springer started working for the New York Grant Company, a private consulting firm. In this capacity she helps companies find new markets, and guides them through various incentives that might be available to them.

“A lot of my successes here have been helping deliver information that I’ve learned at the city level as far as how incentives are viewed, what types of projects the city wants to see and

to a lesser degree what the state is looking for,” she said.

Finding real estate remains a daunting necessity for many businesses in a city where so many previously industrial neighborhoods have been converted for housing, and retail operations have priced businesses out of areas, she noted.

For someone who has spent years learning the intricacies of tax relief and incentives that business might be eligible for, the biggest challenge remains getting information out to businesses. Despite such obstacles, Springer keeps a positive spirit.

“Persevere and get out there, and there will be a positive outcome,” she said. “And that’s something I take to work with me every day.”

—A.G. MANAGER,

NEW YORK GRANTS

Denise Arbesu

Heidi Springer

Lindsey Boylan◊

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◊

The Madison Square Garden Company Proudly Congratulates

This Year’s Distinguished Honorees For Their Leadership & Accomplishments

Including Our Very Own Irene Baker

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Ellen West has done it all. Her secret? She didn’t plan on any of it.

The daughter of a New York City police officer, West grew up on Long Island, then moved to Florida with her family. She returned to the Northeast to attend the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania before getting her J.D. from Stanford Law School.

After beginning her career in investment banking with Goldman Sachs, she made the first of several life-shaping professional moves.

“I really wanted to do something in public service; I got that bug during law school,” she said.

Heading to Boston, West worked developing course material for a newly developed program in business ethics at Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. In the

late 1980s West began volunteering at the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, eventually leaving Harvard to run the AIDS group’s financial housing and legal services program. After several years West moved with her husband to Moscow, where she took a job with United Way providing technical support for NGOs, nonprofits and economic development projects.

“That’s where I got really motivated by what business can do to have an impact on social issues,” she said.

West’s next move was to London, where she joined Charities Aid Foundation, which advises large companies on philanthropy. From that role she transitioned to corporate citizenship.

Ultimately West accepted a job building a communications team

at Google. Today she looks for ways to support the development of New York’s technology sector, coordinates community outreach and has helped expand the company’s communications operaration in Latin America and Canada.

Her experience has taught her a valuable lesson: “Don’t try and plot out your career in advance. I think you can miss out on opportunities,” West said. ”Things that may, at first, look like a lateral move—if they’re interesting, if they give you a lot of responsibility, if they give you the chance to work with really smart and motivated people—can provide you with ways to stretch and grow that you may not have anticipated.”

—A.H. VP OF GLOBAL

COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLIC AFFAIRS, GOOGLE

Ellen West◊

The Madison Square Garden Company Proudly Congratulates

This Year’s Distinguished Honorees For Their Leadership & Accomplishments

Including Our Very Own Irene Baker

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cityandstateny.com

Joanne Fernandez’s guiding professional philosophy comes from a poem she read in her early

days as a freshman at Brooklyn Technical High School: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “To Laugh Often and Much.”

“I always remembered a couple of lines … it defined what success is,” Fernandez said. “He spoke about being able to laugh often and win the respect of intelligent people, and the appreciation of an honest critic … and to leave the world a bit better.”

For the past eight years Fernandez has directed and managed the day-to-day legislative political activity and community affairs for Entergy in Albany and Westchester County. She is also involved in the company’s long-term charitable contributions and

communications.“I pride myself on being involved…

not only with the company’s development and strategies but also communicating [those] to our external stakeholders, our customers and our community,” she said.

Before beginning work at Entergy in 2006, Fernandez was a legislative assistant in the New York State Legislature, first working for the Assembly majority and then in the New York State Senate. While working for the Legislature, Fernandez was proud to have played a role in drawing up legislation that would help the children of individuals who died on American Airlines Flight 597, which crashed in Queens on its way to the Dominican Republic, to attend CUNY on scholarship. She later became the

director for legislative affairs for then Gov. George Pataki.

Though she worked many years in partisan politics, Fernandez strongly values those with diverse views and interests.

“I pride myself in having friends of various political philosophies and persuasions, and I always learn something by having them in my life in terms of [bringing] a different perspective on things,” Fernandez said.

This approach speaks to the heart of her career-long goal to engage in meaningful dialogue.

“Being able to have the opportunity to have a conversation and provide information in an open mind and setting is both a challenge and an opportunity.”

—A.G.GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS MANAGER, ENTERGY

Irene Baker’s approach to life is that there is nothing you can’t accomplish.

“You need to own your fabulousness,” Baker said enthusiastically, before laughing. “Don’t quote that.”

Baker ought to know what she’s talking about. She is the woman who directed the creation and operation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Councils, an enormous undertaking that is transforming the way that New York State accomplishes its economic goals.

Baker graduated first in her class from the night program at St. John’s University School of Law, something she set out to do from the first day of class. She went on to positions as a law clerk, litigation associate and chief of

staff to the CEO of a large multinational firm.

“It’s funny, because all of my background is Queens,” Baker said. “Tom Manton is from Queens, Judge [Joseph] McLaughlin [was] from Queens and Andrew Cuomo is from Queens.”

Baker joined Cuomo’s staff when he was still attorney general, serving as his executive counsel. Applying for a job running his labor bureau, she instead wound up running his day-to-day operations and helping determine and execute the priorities of his office. When he became governor, Baker followed him into the administration.

“It was a very interesting time to have a front seat to state politics in New York,” she said. Most of all she enjoyed the ability to directly address

issues people had, and to help them find solutions.

Under Cuomo, Baker served simultaneously as director of the Regional Economic Development Councils and as the director of cabinet affairs.

Now she serves as a top executive for Madison Square Garden, a job she clearly also loves.

“It’s a fabulous organization,” Baker said. “We have tremendous community outreach through the Knicks and the Rangers and the Rockettes, through our Garden of Dreams Foundation. The commitment that this company makes to community is very important to me… It’s really kind of my thing.”

—A.H.SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

Irene Baker

At the heart of Laura Walker’s job as the longtime president and CEO of New York Public

Radio is a difficult and unusual ask.“In a way our business model is that

people pay for something they get for free, and that’s a really high bar,” said Walker. “If they’re going to pay for something they get for free—in other words, become members when they don’t have to—they’re paying because they care deeply about it, so every day you think of that person and have to create something that is so compelling and so unique and so high quality that it will pass that bar.”

The approximately 11.5 million listeners who tune in to WNYC monthly to absorb programs like The Brian Lehrer Show, The Leonard Lopate Show and newer favorites like

Radiolab and Freakonomics Radio certainly would not dispute that Walker has succeeded in this endeavor. In addition to overseeing the creation of hours of fascinating content daily, she has significantly expanded the company, acquiring the classical music station WQXR in 2009 and that same year opening New York Public Radio’s state-of-the-art headquarters, which includes the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space.

The next frontier for Walker, who began her career as a journalist and producer for National Public Radio, is ushering her beloved medium to the vanguard of the digital age. With its new app WNYC is catering to listeners who increasingly tune in exclusively via their mobile devices by using technology to personalize their radio

experience. “It’s stage one of a very interesting experiment in how you aggregate and curate audio in the mobile environment,” Walker explained.

Though times have changed, 18 years after Walker took the helm at WNYC the position has lost none of its luster: “I honestly come home and say I have the best job in New York.”

—M.P.

PRESIDENT & CEO,NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO

Joanne Fernandez

Laura Walker

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If you watch PIX 11 Morning News, you already know the show’s co-host, Sukanya

Krishnan.“Morning television is very

intimate,” Krishnan explained. “People know about me, my life, my parents, my culture, my children. It’s just an intimate, intimate place to be, and WPIX has offered me a home and a place where I can do that. They’re very proud I am who I am, and they don’t hold me back.” After 14 years on Channel 11 and 20 years in total on the air, Krishnan has legions of devoted fans in the New York metropolitan area. She is particularly appreciated by a growing population not generally well represented on local television: Born in Madras, India, and raised on Staten Island, Krishnan is the

first South Asian-American anchor of a morning news show in the nation’s No. 1 media market—a distinction of great personal importance to her.

“It’s meant everything to me,” said Krishnan. “I think the media industry as a whole has a lot to learn in terms of diversity, and I think they definitely have to make bigger strides in representing the South Asian community. They are nowhere near where they should be in reflecting the population that they serve, especially in this area.”

While waking up every weekday morning at 2:30 a.m. to go to work might sound like an intolerable grind to many people, Krishnan savors the excitement of living and breathing history as it unfolds each day. And though she has won three Emmy

awards, one for her coverage as a live reporter of 9/11, she also immensely enjoys that her job on Morning News is not just to inform but also to entertain.

“You have to be a three-dimensional person, and that works to my wheelhouse,” said Krishnan. “I’m a journalist, but I don’t define myself just by that. I think that television lends itself to being completely in color, and I am definitely in living color and all the different colors of the rainbow. And I do not make apologies for who I am.”

—M.P.

ANCHOR, PIX 11 MORNING NEWS

Sukanya Krishnan

◊

Representing more than 600,000 professionals in education,

human services and health care.

Affiliated with AFT / NEA / AFL-CIOwww.nysut.org

NYSUT is proud to congratulate Vice President Kathleen Donahue for regularly going ‘Above & Beyond’ in service to her union and community

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cityandstateny.com

Inspired by her mother’s love of reading and literature, Sally Garner knew in high school that

she wanted to be a writer. The first in her family to go to college, she eventually followed her passion and pursued a career in journalism.

“I just did it,” Garner said. “It must have been in my nature.”

Garner started out in local TV, and later became a reporter and producer. Success in the beginning came down to three things: “curiosity, a willingness to work long hours and some really great veteran journalists who were willing to share their experience.”

After working for ABC network news, Garner became the producer of the CBS Evening News. Later she joined WNET 13, New York City’s public television station, writing and producing

the program Worldfocus, and serving as a senior producer at NJToday. Garner also wrote and produced the documentary Treasures of New York: Lincoln Center. Two years ago she was asked to executive produce for a new show, MetroFocus, which started as a monthly program but became a weekly staple.

“We have a very small team, so I do a lot of hands-on work, but I also have the opportunity to work with journalists and multimedia producers and help them as they learn about the business,” Garner said.

Living in New York means access to anyone and everyone.

“I work with our host [Rafael Pi Roman], and together we come up with interviews and segments and people we want to talk to from journalists to scientists to academics … all kinds of

great people,” she said. Garner said that no two executive

producers are alike, but they have one thing in common: They need a sense of humor.

“The challenge is to get the very best quality interviews and stories on the program every week, with limited resources,” she said. “Every newsroom faces that right now.”

Garner observes that journalism has changed radically since her entry into the business, but “it’s never changed its editorial perspective. Everyone gets up every day and tries to do the best they can to find the truth and ask the hard questions.”

—A.G.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER,WNET

Sally Garner◊

cityandstateny.com

title: ad for City and Statetimeline: the ad is due today at 2 pm. Yikes! I’d like to show it to Eliza and Jill by 11 am so that there is some time for feedback and changes.

for more information.

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that hits inboxes before 5 p.m. The afternoon

email highlights newly released reports, crucial

in-depth analysis pieces and long-form profiles,

as well as calling attention to some of the day’s

top tweets from city and state politicians and the

reporters who cover them.

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The Must-Read Afternoon Roundup of New York Politics and Government


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Jeanine Ramirez sometimes feels like a one-woman news bureau. And she loves it.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Ramirez has close ties to the community she covers for Time Warner Cable News NY1. She says Brooklynites are used to seeing her standing in front of an unmanned camera reporting local news.

“I just travel around the boroughs with this camera, and I shoot all my own stuff, and I really like the independence,” she said. “I know my community really well, and I know where the stories are.”

In addition to covering all of Brooklyn, Ramirez is the lead reporter on many Latino issues for NY1. Besides reporting around New York City, she traveled to the Dominican Republic to

report on hurricane damage, to Cuba to cover New York entrepreneurs’ attempts to find a new market on the communist island, and to Puerto Rico in 2001 following protests and the arrests of New York legislators.

After getting her degree in communications from Fordham University, Ramirez went to work at Channel 11 WPIX-TV. It was there she decided she really wanted to be a reporter. At the recommendation of a friend, Ramirez took a job in Texas to gain the experience she knew she would need to be on the air in a larger market like New York.

“I was covering cook-offs and rodeos, but I was … learning every day,” she said.

She eventually returned to NY1 as its Brooklyn reporter, pairing her

connections in the community with the experience she had gained in Texas.

During her time with the station, Ramirez has made a name for herself covering everything from natural disasters and politics to education and human interest stories.

“I stood on the boardwalk for Superstorm Sandy in Coney Island and had to escape. I covered 9/11,” she said. “And those things stand out. But just this past week I covered a man who turned 112! He just walked right into his own party, and I had a whole conversation with him. I’m still amazed.”

—A.H.

BROOKLYN REPORTER,TIME WARNER CABLE NEWS NY1

Jeanine Ramirez

◊

Deborah Henley is not a native New Yorker, but New Yorkers are lucky to have her

here. Raised in Virginia, Henley knew

from a young age that she wanted to go into journalism. In high school she wrote for her community paper. Studying at the College of William and Mary, she decided to major in government.

“I thought that would be a good background,” she said. “A good area to understand to go into journalism.”

Since graduating Henley has worked for newspapers in Virginia, Delaware and Kentucky, as well as New York State.

“I enjoy being a part of organizations that provide strong local coverage,” she said. “That’s what I looked for in the

places I went.”Henley has worked for Newsday,

where she is now executive editor, in three separate tours of duty.

In 1992 Henley was a member of a New York Newsday team that won a Pulitzer for coverage of the 1991 Union Square subway crash. When New York Newsday closed in 1995, she spent some time at the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and then worked as executive editor of The News Journal in Delaware before returning to Newsday in 2004. In 2008 Henley was again honored as a Pulitzer finalist for the paper’s coverage of accidents occurring at Long Island Rail Road stations.

“We went through records. We talked to people. We searched through data. And we burned up a lot of shoe leather to tell a good, important local

story,” she said.Henley is passionate about the

importance of strong local journalism and the role of journalists as community watchdogs. Executive editor of a paper that has 19 Pulitzers and been a finalist for 18 more, she commends her staff for producing the kind of journalism she believes is so fundamental.

“There’s nothing we can’t aspire to,” she said. “If you look around at the people that City & State and others have honored in our field, there are lots of amazing role models.”

—A.H.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, NEWSDAY

Deborah Henley◊

ABOVE &

BEYOND

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SPOTLIGHT:

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

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Working With:• NY City Department of Transportation• NY City Metropolitan Transit Authority• Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority

Kieran Ahern • President • Dan O’Connell • General Counsel

• NY State Department of Transportation• The Port Authority of NY/NJ• NY State Bridge Authority

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REBeneath Manhattan, crews are

slowly tunneling to what is expected to be billions of dollars’

worth of transportation treasure.The question is: How are they going

to pay for it when they get there?That’s the scenario the Metropolitan

Transportation Authority is grappling with as its 2010–14 capital plan comes to a close and it plots out its next five-year upgrade and improvement plan. While the capital plan is supposed to create a road map for system-wide improvement, Superstorm Sandy, a bubbling labor spat and the general cost of megaprojects has created uncertainty.

“It’s the 800-pound gorilla,” said Assemblyman James Brennan, who chairs the Authorities committee. “The MTA is currently completing a $25 billion plan over the past five years, and borrowed about 60 percent of the money for it—and the main factor in raising fares is the debt service on those borrowings in the operating budget. So the next plan will have to continue vital, critical investment in track and rail, as well as the big expansion projects—and it’s estimated to be about $31 billion. And there aren’t identified sources of funding at this time for this.”

One critical question is how to pay for one of the biggest projects in the current plan. The East Side Access project will connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, a long talked-about project. But cost and completion time estimates keep rising, with the latest figures indicating that the project will run upward of $6.5 billion over budget ($10.8 billion total) and finish in 2023—14 years past the initial 2009 estimate.

What’s more, East Side Access is only one of many projects. An overwhelming majority of the current plan consists of upgrades to crucial existing infrastructure, such as subway tracks. Though it has gone through revisions, the capital plan was initially approved at more than double the cost of East Side Access ($23.8 billion). Superstorm Sandy repairs brought it

THE PRICE OF TRANSPORTATION

GOLDBy MATTHEW HAMILTON

AS MTA NEARS END OF CURRENT CAPITAL PLAN, FUNDING FOR NEXT ONE UP IN THE AIR

over $30 billion.The Manhattan Institute’s Nicole

Gelinas cautions that fare hikes will not be enough to offset massive new debt the MTA may have to take on to fund the next capital plan. Add to that questions about state funding for the agency, and the recipe for uncertainty gets stronger.

“They’ll pay $2.3 billion in debt service costs this year. By 2017 it will be closer to $3 billion,” Gelinas said, referring to the $11 billion in debt for the 2010–14 plan. “That’s not even with new debt for the next capital plan. … If they have to borrow $11 billion for the next five-year capital plan, they’re going to need some kind of new source of revenue.”

MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said the current plan is fully funded and pointed out that long-term debt and debt service is part of an ongoing process. He said the MTA would have to determine how to find the money it needs without increasing its reliance on borrowing.

The MTA could face hurdles in boosting its revenue, though. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already put a damper on proposed fare hikes and is pushing for lower tolls on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. He also is trying to divert $40 million from the MTA to offset state debt in the next budget plan.

“The needs of the system way exceed what the existing available revenue sources are by three- or fourfold in many cases,” Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director Veronica Vanterpool said. “The question is how large that gap is. And what are the potential revenue sources to close that gap?”

Further complicating the MTA’s fiscal outlook is an ongoing labor spat between the A uthority and the Long Island Rail Road workers’ unions, which could turn ugly this summer. MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast has said the agency would need to slash more than $6 billion from its next plan in addition to hiking fares, or raise fares by 12 percent to make up for the money the unions are looking for.

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An Agenda for New York’s Future

n Protect New York’s assets by adequately funding critical infrastructure needs: Make capital investments exempt from the property tax cap; allow use of pension funds to support infrastructure improvements

n Support NY Works and job creation: Pass mandate relief measures that will free up funds for public works and put New Yorkers back to work

n Implement Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) and Design-build: Accelerate infrastructure projects, leverage public dollars and reduce costs

n Extend Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS): Allow public authorities and public benefit corporations to use QBS to achieve higher quality design and lower project life-cycle costs

n Deliver infrastructure projects cost effectively: Increase use of private design firms

n Indemnify design professionals: Ensure that design professionals are responsible only for the work they perform

Build a Better

Business Climate

Leaders in the business of engineeringwww.acecny.org

An Agenda for New York’s Future

n Protect New York’s assets by adequately funding critical infrastructure needs: Make capital investments exempt from the property tax cap; allow use of pension funds to support infrastructure improvements

n Support NY Works and job creation: Pass mandate relief measures that will free up funds for public works and put New Yorkers back to work

n Implement Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) and Design-build: Accelerate infrastructure projects, leverage public dollars and reduce costs

n Extend Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS): Allow public authorities and public benefit corporations to use QBS to achieve higher quality design and lower project life-cycle costs

n Deliver infrastructure projects cost effectively: Increase use of private design firms

n Indemnify design professionals: Ensure that design professionals are responsible only for the work they perform

Build a Better

Business Climate

Leaders in the business of engineeringwww.acecny.org

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Gelinas said that quickly making a deal with the unions might not be the MTA’s best option. “It would be better to take a short-term hit of the strike and everyone can be miserable for a week, than to have everyone miserable forever because there is no money for capital upgrades,” she said.

So far MTA brass has been mum on when the next plan will come out, but advocates are already calling for more of the infrastructure upgrades that constitute most of the current plan.

More upgrades could mean less money for flashy headline projects, which transportation and fiscal advocates and some at the MTA view as far less important. MTA Director of Special Project Development and Planning William Wheeler said at a City & State transportation forum last month that the MTA needs to focus on its current network before it looks to heap on major projects, such as a rail extension to LaGuardia Airport.

While capital plans represent tens of billions of dollars in funding, Lisberg said, they are a small portion of the MTA’s roughly $1 trillion value. And part of keeping up that value is investing in infrastructure.

“While a capital plan of—our current was $24 billion to start—is a lot of money, that’s putting in 4 percent of its entire value to reinvest and make sure it’s running. That’s a

relatively small percentage,” Lisberg said. “It is an enormously expensive undertaking to keep a century-old system in a state of good repair, but all of New York learned in the ’70s and ’80s that the price of not taking care of it is much larger.”

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign wants more investment in smaller projects. The group is looking for a universal fare system for MTA riders and an expansion of select bus service options, among other possibilities.

Some of those infrastructure upgrades aren’t just wish list items, either. A recent report from the Center for an Urban Future on the city’s infrastructure argues that subway signal upgrades (no small undertaking at an expected $2.4 billion in the next capital plan), general subway station modernization and additional station access points are essential as the MTA’s ridership continues to increase.

Some worry that major projects from the current capital plan might hinder future movement, however.

“Before projects can be tackled in the next capital program, the MTA needs to really bring to the public what it’s doing to keep these megaprojects on time and on budget moving forward,” Vanterpool said.

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ELouis J. ColettiPresident & CEOBuilding Trades Employers’ Association

Scaffold Law Reform Will Build More New Classroom Seats

• The NYC School Construction Authority (SCA) 2015-2019 $12Billion Capital Plan was recently the subject of a New York City Council Education Committee meeting chaired by Councilman Daniel Dromm (D) Jackson Heights.

• ThePlancallsforbuilding32,500 new classroom seats. That is only 66% of the 49,000 seats the Plan itself says is necessary to reduce overcrowding.

• Thousands of the 32,500 seats will never be built unless the 129-year-old Scaffold Law is reformed NOW.

• It will cost the SCA $234 million in 2014 to pay for legal costs and insurance claims. Money that should be spent building new classroom seats.

• Multiply$234millionx5years and that means $1.17 billion will be diverted from building new classroom seats to pay for legal costs and insurance claims related to the Scaffold Law.

• WhyshoulditcosttheSCA$234million–anincreaseof142% over last year’s $95 million – when it cost the NJ School Authority with the same size budget only $25 million last year?

• Thereare398“temporary”trailers located at 119 schools. Shouldn’t we be using taxpayer money to put our students and teachers in classrooms?

• We could build 14 new schools, thousands of new classroomseats and pay for legal costs and insurance claims with that $1.17 billion, if the 129-year-old Scaffold Law is reformed.

• TelltheGovernor,AssemblyandSenateleadership and all of our state elected officials that we need to reform the Scaffold Law now.

• Isn’t it timetoput theneedsofourchildren,parents, teachersandtaxpayersabovethatofgreedy,richtriallawyers?

1 Center for an Urban Future NYC Infrastructure Report “CautionAhead” 2014

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THE ROUNDTABLE

Q: The Port Authority has been under scrutiny since the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge. What needs to change? JB: The New York State Legislature enacted a number of laws called the Public Authority Reform Act and the Public Authority Accountability Act several years ago to overhaul the ways in which the governance and accountability and transparency of public authorities conduct themselves. Those laws did not apply to the Port Authority because you have to pass identical pieces of legislation in New York and New Jersey and have both governors then sign them to change anything about the Port Authority. That’s a difficult task. My office sponsors a bill to apply the Public Authority Reform Act and additional reforms of that agency related to toll procedures, public hearings, more public accountability, reports on interstate cooperation, and duties to report fraud and corruption. That bill has passed the New York State Assembly twice already and is now in the Ways and Means Committee. A similar but less comprehensive bill about the Port Authority passed the New Jersey State Legislature in 2012, and was vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie. So in 2013 neither the New Jersey Legislature nor the New York State Senate, where the legislation had also been introduced, reintroduced those bills. My office is now working with the New Jersey Legislature and the New York State Senate to get an identical piece of legislation in all four legislative bodies so that it can be advanced.

Q: Is Metro-North taking necessary steps to improve safety? JB: Obviously the president was replaced. Tom Prendergast, the president of the MTA, testified at a hearing we did that they are reviewing everything and the National Transportation Safety Board recommendations. A number of years ago the MTA board had a safety committee, which used to meet on a regular basis, where issues like accidents, injuries, deaths, safety and security issues would be regularly discussed. My office is sponsoring a bill to compel the agency to re-establish that safety committee and have it in law and a mandatory meeting at least once a year.

JAMES BRENNANChair, New York State Assembly Committee on

Corporations, Authorities and Commissions

YDANIS RODRIGUEZ ROBERT ZERRILLOChair,

New York City Council Transportation CommitteePolicy Director,

New York Public Transit Association

Q: Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Vision Zero” plan takes steps to prevent traffic fatalities, but how much of the responsibility for reducing accidents falls to pedestrians and how can city lawmakers help change pedestrians’ mentality to make them think more safely?YR: We cannot let jaywalking become the new stop-and-frisk in our city. While I think these concerns may be premature, it is a concern when deaths are blamed on the victim rather than the driver. That being said, pedestrians and cyclists play a role as well in ensuring their own safety on our streets. As a city, rather than arresting or issuing summons to those who jaywalk, we should be using our resources to mount an informational ad campaign similar to those effectively utilized by the past administration on issues such as smoking and nutrition. Jaywalking can almost be considered a New York pastime, and the real goal is: How can we ensure drivers are not in a position to kill in the first place? A car going 20 mph can break with greater ease than one going 30 mph, and the chances of survival increase dramatically at lower speeds.

Q: A recent Taxi & Limousine Commission report showed that a large majority of the city’s taxi drivers are immigrants. What do those numbers signal to you in terms of the future of New York’s transportation industry as to who will work in its jobs, and where the city is going in terms of being a haven for immigrants?YR: As an immigrant and someone who drove a livery car myself, I embrace the changes in the industry as I do any industry that sees higher levels of diversity. Our city is changing as a whole, but in many ways it is continuing the trends it has seen throughout its history, with perpetual influxes of immigrants from all over the world. When it comes to transportation, anyone who has obtained the necessary skills and has a firm grasp of the job at hand should have the opportunity to work in New York City. In many cases these are good-paying jobs, in the taxi/black car/livery industry as well as at the MTA. We should be helping all those interested apply for these jobs, regardless of background. This has been and always will be a city of opportunity for millions of immigrants, myself included.

Q: MTA ridership increases are making headlines, but is public transportation ridership up elsewhere in the state? What does the state of upstate’s public transit systems mean for residents in those areas and the regional economies?RZ: There have been increases across upstate. Some of the examples I know of are: Capital District Transportation Authority is up 5 percent, the transit system in Ithaca is up 6 percent and [the] Rochester-area transit system is up about 7 percent in the past year. It’s showing that people want to ride transit, especially the younger generation. They’re not as interested in purchasing a car right away when they get out of high school or college. They’re interested in mobility; they’re looking for a more urban lifestyle. It’s a positive sign in that the economy upstate is not growing as well, in some areas, as we might like. So the fact that transit ridership is growing, even when an economy is not, and oftentimes not growing as fast, is a very positive sign for transit.

Q: Feelers have been put out for a possible high-speed rail link along the Empire Corridor. How big of a boost to the state would that project—or a similar project between Buffalo and New York City—be?RZ: Having high-speed rail and connecting those cities would be a tremendous improvement in infrastructure. It would provide an alternative for folks who don’t want to drive. And the air service between those upstate communities is almost nonexistent. Improved rail service would certainly be a benefit. It would also help transit. Folks traveling by rail between cities when they get to their destination will need a way to get around within those cities. The big question is the competing interests in funding. Can you find the funding to make those kinds of costly infrastructure improvements? That’s going to be the difficult part. Would the high-speed rail service be helpful? Yes. What level we can afford is what’s got to be debated. If we find the funding, the infrastructure would be very helpful, very important.

Governor Cuomo has made great strides towards improving our transportation infrastructure.

But, we need continued substantial investment for our state’s economy to remain competitive and

for New York to be a better place to live and work.

NEW YORK STATEmust make our transportation infrastructure a

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PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION RIDERSHIP ON THE RISE

A recently released report from the American Public Transportation Association

highlights that public transportation

safety, state of good repair, replacement of worn out rolling stock, upgrades to stations, yards and shops along with system expansion projects necessary to run any transit system.

In the end, quality and frequency of service is dependent upon secure revenue streams generated by fares, tolls and tax revenues earmarked for the MTA’s coffers.

The uptick in ridership can be traced all the way back to one of the late President Lyndon Johnson’s greatest accomplishments, which continues benefiting many Americans today. On July 10, 1964, Johnson signed the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964″ into law. Over time this legislation has resulted in the federal government investing several hundred billion dollars into public transportation in cities across the country.

A more recent factor contributing to the increase was the introduction in 1996 of MetroCards, were introduced which enabled riders to transfer for free from the subway to the bus. This innovation eliminated the old two fare zones, making public transportation an even better bargain. Purchasing a weekly or monthly subway/bus pass reduced the cost per ride and created the option of purchasing unlimited trips over set durations of time.

Another incentive to use the public transporation system for many New Yorkers are transit checks, a means by which employers subsidize a portion of their workers’ travel expenses.

Today millions of Americans utilize various public transportation alternatives on a daily basis. The modes they use include local and express buses, ferries, jitnies, light rail, subways and commuter rail services. All of these systems use less fuel and move far more people than conventional single occupancy vehicles. Most of these systems are funded at least in part with tax dollars thanks to President Johnson.

The ability to travel from home to one’s workplace, school, shopping or entertainment destination, medical facility, library, and everywhere else is a significant factor for many people now when moving to a new neighborhood. Economically successful communities are not 100 percent dependent on automobiles as the sole means of mobility. Seniors, students, low- and middle-income people need these transportation alternatives. Investment in public transportation today contributes to economic growth, employment and a stronger economy. Many experts agree that dollar for dollar, it is one of the best investments government at the municipal, state and federal level can make.

By LARRY PENNER from THE QUEENS COURIER

ridership in 2013 was greater than any time since 1956. Various operating agencies of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, including

New York City Transit bus and subway, MTA bus, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, had a 3-percent plus increase in ridership during the same time period. This increase in ridership occurred despite a fare hike in 2013.

Fare hikes are periodically required if the MTA is to provide the services millions of New Yorkers count on daily. They are inevitable due to inflation along with increasing costs of labor, power, fuel, supplies, materials, routine

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THE STATE

The cornerstone of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s transportation plans continues to be the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, but the governor added another massive project to the state’s plate in January when he announced New York would take over from the Port Authority the responsibility for upgrading JFK and LaGuardia Airports. The Port Authority has become a headline grabber through the early part of the year, especially across the Hudson River, after appointees and staff members of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie allegedly conspired to close traffic lanes as an act of political retribution. Executive Director Pat Foye, a Cuomo appointee, has avoided the scandal that has plagued his cross-river colleagues. Another entity in turmoil is the MTA, whose ongoing contract spat with Long Island Rail Road workers’ unions has put Chairman Tom Prendergast in tight financial constraints as the agency develops its next capital plan—and tries to keep costs down for projects in its current one. The state Senate Transportation Committee has also had turnover, with former chair Charles Fuschillo resigning and Sen. Joseph Robach replacing him as committee head.

THE CITY

New York City has experienced a complete turnover of top transportation leaders since last year. For one, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has stepped in and placed an immediate focus on pedestrian safety with his Vision Zero plan. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has also gotten in on the action with a step-up of jaywalking enforcement. City Council Transportation Committee Chair Ydanis Rodriguez has voiced support for Vision Zero, though he told City & State that the city must not let jaywalking become the new stop-and-frisk. New Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg is

LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD WORKERS CONTRACTS

A dispute has been brewing between the MTA and Long Island Rail Road unions for some time, as thousands of workers have been without a contract for more than three years. The year has started with threats to strike, which would create major headaches for commuters and MTA brass. The MTA and union leaders have gone to federal mediators to try to sort out their differences, and the latest request for mediation means workers can’t legally strike until July. Still, the agency has begun developing

THE SCORECARDtaking a lead position on Vision Zero and will have to deal with ever-aging city infrastructure.

THE INDUSTRY

Transport Workers Union Local 100 has joined in with Long Island Rail Road workers’ unions, including the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union, to press the MTA for a new labor deal to avoid possible strikes. Construction unions have already thrown their weight at the de Blasio administration on the real estate development front, but have yet to test it on infrastructure.

THE ADVOCATES

The Long Island Rail Road Commuter’s Council will be pressuring both the MTA and unions to stave off a strike and keep trains running. Tolls have become an early focal point for politicians, with Cuomo setting his sights on lowering Verrazano-Narrows Bridge tolls and Tappan Zee Bridge-area legislators like state Sen. David Carlucci and the Senate Independent Democratic Conference calling for reduced tolls across the state at a time when there is talk that New NY Bridge tolls could increase dramatically.

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4.2 Increase by percentage of rail ridership in the New

York City area

10.6 billion Number of mass transit trips taken in the United

States

3.5 billion Number of those trips

that took place on MTA transit options

2.65 billion Number of those trips

made on the MTA’s heavy rail (subway) system.

97 million Number of trips taken on the Long Island Rail Road

83.3 million Number of trips taken on the Metro-North Railroad

SOURCE: AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION’S PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION RIDERSHIP REPORT FOR THE 4TH QUARTER OF 2013

contingency plans that reportedly will rely more on commuters carpooling or telecommuting to work than the shuttles employed during the 1994 LIRR strike. The major repercussion of the discussions on the immediate future of the MTA is the development of its next capital plan, which the MTA’s Tom Prendergast told state lawmakers could be slashed by $6 billion if the MTA agrees to contract terms from the first federal mediation meeting should the agency choose that route over a fare hike.

VISION ZERO

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s hallmark transportation goal early in his tenure is reducing pedestrian accidents with the Vision Zero initiative. The proposal was received warmly—at least more warmly than the NYPD’s crackdown on jaywalking. Though de Blasio had to deal with early gaffes by his caravan—speeding and rolling through stop signs days after announcing the proposal —with those behind him, the city could be in for lower speed limits and—the hope is—fewer pedestrian fatalities.

TAPPAN ZEE BRIDGE

The replacement of the Tappan Zee continues to be a top priority for the state, especially the Executive Chamber. No matter what the New NY Bridge will be named—the Mario Cuomo Bridge? The Pete Seeger Memorial Bridge?—there has been a full court press to move the construction forward and, at the beginning of the year, a super crane made its way from the West Coast to build the spans. Talk about future toll increases is not expected to die down anytime soon, especially in an election year when state and local lawmakers will be looking to prove to their constituents that they are looking out for voters’ wallets.

METRO-NORTH SAFETY

Intense scrutiny of the MTA’s connection to areas north of New York City and Connecticut has evolved from agency and state oversight to federal inquiries, studies and recommendations to improve the rail system’s safety. The December derailment of a Metro-North train in the Bronx put the spotlight squarely on railroad brass, and President Howard Permut retired shortly after. The scrutiny has carried over to his successor, Joseph Giulietti, with the recent release of a federal study that found the Metro-North is part of a “deficient safety culture.”

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Last year, like many political junkies, I traipsed behind the New York City Democratic

mayoral hopefuls from one earnest but repetitive candidate forum to another. As a camp follower, I was most interested in their education proposals.

At the June 2013 NYC Parents Mayoral Forum on Education, sponsored by a coalition of labor unions, community organizations and parents’ advocacy organizations, candidates signed a pledge vowing to making good on their responses to questions about special ed services, school governance,

IRE IN THE EMPIRE (STATE)

parent empowerment, class size, co-locations, testing, privacy, safety, diversity, closing the achievement gap and providing after-school services.

That forum’s pledges—as well as others—can serve as checklists for measuring to what degree Mayor Bill de Blasio keeps his campaign promises.

Back then, like now, a segment of education reformers and parents of children in public charter schools, as well as those on the wait lists to enter them, were fearful of the Democratic mayoral candidates. There was reason for the advocates’ apprehensions: de Blasio and the other leading Democrats denounced co-location, the rent-free space given charters in public school buildings, and railed against Eva Moskowitz, the scourge of the UFT, as they vied for the teachers union’s endorsement.

At the advent of the de Blasio administration, the charter school movement seemed dispirited by the prospects of the post-Bloomberg era. There was talk of running TV commercials to pillory and chasten de Blasio into continuing Mayor Bloomberg’s charter school program.

Since becoming mayor, de Blasio has symbolically eliminated building aid for charter schools in his

preliminary budget. Truth be told, that money was never real. It was a budget booby trap the outgoing Bloomberg administration left behind for de Blasio to obligingly trip over.

It must have come as a surprise to the new mayor that Gov. Cuomo would use his budget “cut,” his pledge to charge some charter schools rent, and his rescinding of three co-locations as bludgeons in their re-election year budget battle. Cuomo’s effective use of de Blasio’s “anti-charter” stance brought new meaning to the statement “with Cuomo as a friend, who needs enemies?”

Despite their education policy disagreements with Mayor Bloomberg, none of the mayoral candidates pledged to abandon Bloomberg’s signature achievement: mayoral control. De Blasio and Thompson fully embraced mayoral control because it puts the city’s chief executive in charge.

At the NYC Parents Forum, de Blasio declined to cede three of his Educational Priorities Panel appointments to direct election by citywide public school parents.

This month Cuomo and the State Senate co-leaders suddenly proposed curtailing mayoral control of city public schools—at least as it pertained

to charter schools. It was a move akin to the Russian navy blockading Ukrainian naval vessels in their home port of Sevastopol.

A wily Cuomo had outmaneuvered de Blasio once again.

The coming weeks and months will provide some insight into the future of the Cuomo–de Blasio relationship in areas of policy disagreement. This isn’t a mere clash of personality; it’s a clash of different approaches to politics. It’s a fight between two old Democratic operatives: a ruthless asymmetrical tactician who plays the angles versus a chummy ideologue who eschews street fighting.

It’s a fight for the soul of the state, if not the national Democratic Party. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Clinton-Obama electoral fracas in 2008.

I think Cuomo knows how that one turned out. No doubt he aims to come out on top in every clash with New York City’s mayor.

Meanwhile, I’ll be traipsing along with everyone else chronicling the “Ire in the Empire (State).”

MICHAEL BENJAMIN

Former Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (@SquarePegDem on Twitter) represented the Bronx for eight years.

WHY THE GOP WILL WIN

CATHARINE YOUNG

This past fall Republicans swept local offices everywhere outside New York City, including

electing seven county executives in the suburbs and across upstate, voting into office a new mayor of Binghamton, taking control of the Erie County Legislature despite being outnumbered 3-to-1 in registrations, and overcoming a Democrat enrollment advantage to win a supermajority for the first time in the Chautauqua County Legislature.

The ebb and tide of political party success in local elections often is a harbinger of the following November state election results. Case in point: In 2009 Republicans across the state fared very well in local elections,

and in 2010 the GOP took back the state Senate majority. The 2013 local elections outcomes for Republicans were even greater than those successes of 2009, building momentum so that Republicans will gain Senate seats this November. You only have to compare and contrast records to understand whom the voters will prefer.

Senate Democrats are synonymous with dysfunction, and no one wants to go back to the chaos of 2009–10 when they were in power. Their $14 billion out-of-control tax-and-spending binge severely hurt the state’s economy, and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers lost their jobs. They burdened families and employers with an incredible 124 new taxes and fees, including the MTA payroll tax and 18-a energy tax, which drove up everyone’s utilities costs when people could least afford it. Their suffocating, out-of-control tax hikes, on everything from health insurance policies to property taxes by taking away STAR rebate checks, hit New York families and seniors hard when they were struggling just to make ends meet.

The Senate Democrats’ wild, irresponsible spending dug a deep fiscal hole that put the state’s financial footing on the brink of disaster. Their gap elimination adjustment has caused our public schools to lose billions of dollars of state aid, resulting in

countless teachers being laid off and students being shortchanged.

Contrast the Senate Democrats’ record with Senate Republicans’ results since 2011. Since we have been back in charge, state government is working again, with responsible and on-time budgets, people getting back to work, the property tax cap and middle class income tax reduction giving our hardworking, overburdened taxpayers much needed relief, and school aid being restored so our kids can achieve.

The key to electoral success is recruiting excellent candidates, and very shortly our contenders will be announced. These community leaders have accomplished records of professional achievements and compassionate caring in their neighborhoods and regions.

Our candidates have raised money to give hope to people suffering from debilitating diseases. They have held the hands of children with cancer and given them their smiles back. They have initiated workforce training so that disadvantaged youth can have the promise of good-paying jobs. They have reached out to give comfort and support to families devastated by natural disasters. Our candidates are charismatic leaders who work hard and have what it takes to be successful. They will deliver our Senate Republican message of empowering all New

Yorkers and creating opportunities.Whether people come from small

towns, suburbs or big cities, millions of New Yorkers share common goals and aspirations. Senate Republicans understand and work for what people want. People want safe, secure, healthy communities. They want a strong, vibrant economy—with thousands of new job opportunities that hold the promise of a brighter future. Parents want outstanding local schools that truly prepare our children for success—and families want young New Yorkers to have an affordable path to a college education. Everyone wants clean air and water, beautiful parks and green, wide-open spaces. People want a New York where women are guaranteed the same rights and opportunities as men. Protecting women’s health is a top priority, and discrimination, violence and abuse are not tolerated. Voters want a government that is responsible, affordable and accountable, that actually helps New Yorkers achieve their dreams.

Those are our Senate Republican priorities. And those will be our candidates’ priorities. I look forward to great success in 2014.

State Sen. Catharine Young is the leader of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

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In progressive cities, transportation officials recognize that personal mobility based on

private car ownership has great costs to the public purse directly in infrastructure and maintenance costs, and indirectly through productivity losses due to traffic congestion and health costs attributable to air quality and commuting stress. Smart land use planning combined with walking,

SHARING IS CARING

cycling, public transit and shared-use vehicles produces public benefits by reducing total vehicle miles traveled, alleviating pollution and congestion issues, and making our communities more livable.

The American Automobile

Association estimates that a mid-size car costs more than $9,000 annually to own and operate. Apart from the financial savings of not owning a car, not spending your valuable time in traffic behind the wheel of a car is an added benefit. If you take public transit, you’ll see people are making best use of travel time to check messages, read and make plans using a wireless device. If personal mobility means walking further than your garage to connect with transit or a shared-use vehicle, you’ll get a small measure of daily physical activity that improves overall health.

Choosing to give up private car ownership is a daunting prospect for many, because—let’s face it—having a car is very useful. Shared-use mobility means you don’t need to own a depreciating asset to access the service a car provides. In places where carsharing is well developed,

consumers can choose from a wide variety of vehicles that can be reserved whenever a car is needed.

New developments like Greenpoint

Landing in Brooklyn are places where shared-used vehicles could play a major role in reducing private car ownership. If planners limit the number of private parking stalls associated with housing units, increase the number of accessible surface-level parking spaces for carsharing vehicles, create a transparent and fair process that allows multiple service providers to offer a range of carsharing services (e.g. station-based, round-trip, free-floating, one-way), consumers will reach their “tipping point” where the benefits of shared-use systems are greater than those offered by the private car. Presently, many city parking facilities and private garages lack competition between service providers, which limits consumer choice and delays the expansion of carsharing.

City, state and federal governments

must make investments in public transportation infrastructure and carsharing systems to break our dependence on the privately owned car

as a primary means of transportation. For policy makers who want communities attractive to business investment and new residents, shared-use vehicles are a part of the solution for personal mobility.

ALAN WOODLAND

Alan Woodland is the executive director of the CarSharing Association—www.carsharing.org.

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City & State: Given that you were the governor of New Jersey, why have you taken such an interest in publicly financed elections in New York State?

Christine Todd Whitman: Because it’s an opportunity for New York to be a leader and to show other states it can be done and the importance of opening up the process. Frankly, I was not a fan early on of public financing, but the more I looked at it the more I felt that it was the only way to give those who don’t have access to great wads of money the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. It’s also a way to help control some of the costs. We have public financing for the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, and when you sign on for that, you agree to limit your expenses. Of course, now we have the outside groups that are able to spend, but at least there’s some discipline [with public financing] to the extent that people start to look at this as being important and an important commitment by the candidate.

C&S: The main opposition to publicly financed elections in New York State comes from Republicans. Why do you think that members of your party bristle at this reform, and what do you think can be done to make them come around to it?CTW: I think that their objection to it was what mine was initially, which was we don’t want government [to get involved in] campaigns in this way, and “I

donors, and for Republicans you point to unions. The Koch brothers aren’t the only people who give a lot of money. There’s MoveOn.org and there are the unions, so it should play to [the Republicans’] advantage too to see some of this and get some of their nontraditional candidates more attention.

C&S: With the Bridgegate scandal, there has been a much greater focus on the composition

of the Port Authority. In your experience as governor, is the Port Authority overly politicized in the way that it is structured?CTW: The Port Authority has always been a delicate balance. I always fought with them because I thought New York was getting too much money. [Laughs.] It depends on which side of the river you sit, who you think is getting the majority of the projects. The important thing that I kept reminding people about the Port Authority is what is good for one side inevitably helps the other. We really are connected as economic entities, and it does help New York to have better ways for people to commute into the city to work. It helps New Jersey for people to be able to get to those jobs because of what that does for the economy of New Jersey and the taxes they pay. But it’s always a tug-of-war between the two states as to what infrastructure projects are shovel-ready, who’s getting the biggest bulk of the money, and that’s why you’ve always had a split between the executive director and the chairman. It shouldn’t be used, obviously, for political ends, but to the extent that infrastructure and policies are political, it’s going to get caught up in that.

C&S: Lastly, as director of the EPA, you received criticism for declaring in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attack that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe. Do you have any regrets about how you handled 9/11?CTW: No. If I could do it over again I would not answer the question I was asked first. I would talk only about the pile, and then answer the question, because the answer to the question as to whether the air quality in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe is absolutely right based on what the scientists were telling us. Every single morning we would have a conference call, we would find out what the readings were, I would reassert that whatever I said was based on fact and the facts were that the ambient air quality in lower Manhattan after the day of the collapse was safe to breathe. On the pile was a different subject, and every day when I answered that question, that I put second because that wasn’t the question I was asked, but I did say those on the pile should wear respirators. Beyond that, we were in meetings every day—we being the EPA—with those who were the emergency responders in the city who were mapping out what was going to be attacked that day on the site, and every day our people were saying, “They’ve got to wear respirators.” We, unfortunately, were not in a position to be able to enforce that. But as far as the information that was given to the public about the ambient air quality in lower Manhattan in general, it was totally based on scientific review. If I could have done something differently, it would have just been to switch around how I answered the question, so I framed it against on the pile, as opposed to the question everybody wanted to know, which was [when] they could move back into lower Manhattan. And by the time they were allowed to do it, it was safe to do.

Christine Todd Whitman made New Jersey history when she was elected the state’s first—and still

only—female governor in 1993. Four years later she made American history when she became the first Republican woman in the nation to be re-elected governor. Term-limited out of office, Whitman joined President George W. Bush’s cabinet as his first Environmental Protection Agency director, a position from which she resigned two and a half years later following some public conflicts with the administration. Since leaving government, Whitman has become a leading voice for the moderate wing of her party and an advocate for reforming the American political process to make it more inclusive. City & State Editor Morgan Pehme spoke with Whitman about campaign finance reform, the Port Authority and her handling of 9/11.

The following is an edited transcript.

To read the full text of this interview, including Whitman’s thoughts on the future prospects of the Americans Elect initiative to mount a bipartisan ticket for the presidency, go to www.cityandstateny.com.

A Q&A WITH CHRISTINE TODD

WHITMAN

don’t want to support somebody with whom I don’t agree.” The bigger picture, though, is the one they have to look at, particularly if they want to reach out to women and minorities. Those are the people who haven’t been playing in the system the way that white men have, and you have to give them some help; this is a way of leveling the playing field so that we send a message that we support this kind of thing because it’s good governance, because it would help deflect some of the influence of the big money

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