Hotel Trades Council Spies on NYC-DSA + Next Steps for Queens

Local News

• Politico detailed NYC-DSA’s rank and file strategy to push the City’s unions to the left. One of the most conservative and Cuomo-aligned unions in the City, the Hotel Trades Council, is believed to have recently ordered its staffers to spy on NYC-DSA chapter meetings.
• This past Monday, Gregory Russ began his tenure as NYCHA chairperson. Formerly head of Minneapolis’s public housing authority, Russ has faced criticism for embracing the controversial federal RAD program, which allows private non-profit developers to control public housing units through funding for repairs. Russ replaces former NYCHA chairperson Shola Olatoye, who resigned in April following a lead paint inspection scandal. Russ will be paid an annual salary of $402,628, a 73% increase from his predecessor’s.
• City Council members Mark Gjonaj and Margaret Chin have proposed a bill to legalize hostels in NYC.
• The New York Times’ crime reporting is offering a skewed, pro-police narrative regarding the Brooklyn crime rate.
• Despite the passage of the Raise the Age bill, which raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18, only 32% of the newly eligible teenagers are being tried in the new youth courts set up by the law.
• Last Monday Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that will expand workplace sexual harassment protections in New York State. It removes the standard that harassment be “severe and pervasive” in order to be legally actionable. The new laws also require all employment contract non-disclosure agreements to allow employees to file complaints of sexual harassment or discrimination, and extends the statute of limitations to file sexual harassment claims with the Division of Human Rights from one to three years.
• Thousands of renters are owed back payments after New York’s highest court ruled that, because the landlords reaped millions of dollars in tax benefits under a 1995 program, their tenants should have had stabilized leases. The program was meant to enable lower and moderate income residents to live in lower Manhattan by incentivizing developers to convert office buildings into residences and reserve some units as “affordable.”

Elections

• Some members of the progressive coalition that supported Tiffany Cabán are looking to challenge District Leader incumbencies in Queens in 2020.
• Politico reported on the Brooklyn DSA Electoral Working Group’s plans to contest 2020 state legislative primaries.
• The New York Times profiled Tiffany Cabán and considered her next steps in Queens and nationwide politics.
• After Max Rose’s victory in last year’s Congressional election, the previously moribund Staten Island Democratic Party is looking for a new leader.