Gowanus Rezoning Process Starts in January + AM Mosley Challenging Souffrant Forrest in General Election

Local News:

• Deputy Mayor for housing and economic development Vicki Been announced that the City will start the Gowanus neighborhood rezoning process by January. City Council Members Stephen Levin and Brad Lander support the new timeline, which allows nearly a year for the plan to get through the City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

• The New York City Council’s Committee On Standards and Ethics voted to recommend expelling Bronx Council Member Andy King from the City Council. King has been disciplined by the Council several times for conflicts of interest violations and sexual harassment allegations; until now, he has refused to pay the associate fines or cooperate with the monitor. The full Council will vote on his expulsion this week.

• Ronald Lauder, billionaire heir to the Estée Lauder fortune and long-time donor and ally of Governor Andrew Cuomo, has donated $1.7 million to an independent expenditure group dedicated to electing Republicans in State Senate swing districts.

• New York officials released a smartphone app that can alert users if they have been within six feet of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and that person also has the app.

• At a press conference, Cuomo called for police to arrest individuals who use drugs in public. In a sick irony outlining the governor’s failures on drug policy, Cuomo has previously failed to approve four overdose prevention sites in NYC which would allow users to safely and privately inject drugs.

• Moody’s downgraded New York City and State’s bond ratings for the first time in about three decades.

• A federal appeals court has denied the Trump administration’s request to finish counting for the census in September. Thus, the deadline for getting counted for the census is back to the initial deadline, October 30th. If you haven’t responded to the census yet, you can fill it out online here. 

• A lawsuit is underway alleging a violation of the Voting Rights Act by the Long Island Town of Islip, for supposedly diluting the vote of the Latino population.

• While subway ridership is still significantly below pre-Covid levels, a new study found no direct evidence linking it to the spread of the disease.

• Tenant activists, including Housing Justice for All, want the State legislature to reconvene to address a looming eviction crisis, calling Governor Cuomo’s claim to have extended the eviction moratorium “misleading and disingenuous” since he merely expanded protections in pre-Covid legislation, an inadequate protection for tenants who have fallen behind on rent since the pandemic.

• Mayor De Blasio is seeking to close schools and non-essential businesses in 9 New York City ZIP codes, mostly in South Brooklyn and Central Queens, where Covid-19 rates are increasing.

Elections: 

• Despite losing the Democratic primary and the Working Families Party now endorsing Phara Souffrant Forrest, Walter Mosley is continuing to campaign in the general election and will appear on the WFP line.

• A new publication called Labyrinth Magazine released an extensive analysis of progressive 2021 city council candidacies across NYC.

The New York City Board of Elections is going to resend absentee ballots to 100,000 Brooklyn voters after an unknown number received ballots with the wrong names and addresses printed on the envelopes. The BOE blamed the mistake on a “vendor error.”