School Chancellor Confusion + WFP Vs. IDC

Local News

• City Hall suffered a major setback this week when Alberto Carvalho, Mayor de Blasio’s pick for new NYC School Chancellor, reneged on his initial decision to accept the offer. Carvalho chose to stay in Miami-Dade after a dramatic meeting with his school board, in which he apparently asked for a recess so he could call de Blasio to break the agreement they had in place.
• The NYPD is facing heavy criticism this week due to the release of statistics showing that 86% of marijuana arrests in NYC are of people of color.
• A new coalition of criminal justice reformers, Court Watch NYC, is planning to sit in on arraignments in order to hold the DAs in Manhattan and Brooklyn–where Cy Vance and Eric Gonzalez both claimed they would limit requests for bail, but offered no data to support those claims–accountable. About 150 “court watchers” have already been trained.
• New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer suggested allocating $40 million annually from the Battery Park City Authority’s (BPCA) surplus for NYCHA; this is a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated $2 billion needed just to repair the housing authority’s heating systems. The BPCA is supposed to route its profits to affordable housing programs, but this often doesn’t happen.
• Cuts to the Section 8 program proposed by the Trump Administration could lead to the loss of thousands of units of affordable housing in NYC in the coming years.
• New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson may be looking to push the de Blasio administration to fund half of the cost for MTA repairs as negotiations for the City’s 2019 budget ramp up.
• Mayor de Blasio has called for an outright ban on plastic bags, although he previously passed a bag tax in 2016 and was overridden by the State government.
• Mayor de Blasio’s ferry subsidies could improve commutes for far more New Yorkers if they were directed towards the bus system instead.
• Speaker Carl E. Heastie and the New York State Assembly announced the (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, A.3080B/S.4784A, as part of its Criminal Justice Reform package in February. Over 180 organizations across New York State and over 100 New York legislators now support the HALT Act, many of whom will gather on March 13th in Albany, New York on March 13th, for CAIC’s annual advocacy day.

Elections

• The Working Families Party endorsed seven challengers to IDC State Senators across the NYC area. A Cuomo aide was also publicly embarrassed at an uptown Democratic club in response to the Governor’s tacit support of the IDC.
• Run for Something, a political organization started by an ex-Clinton staffer meant to encourage millennials to run for office, endorsed Andy Gounardes for State Senate over Ross Barkan in this fall’s District 22 (Southern Brooklyn) Democratic primary. However, Gounardes is considering dropping out of the race to run for indicted Assemblywoman Pamela Harris’ seat instead. This would save him from having to challenge incumbent Senator Marty Golden, whom he challenged and lost to in 2012.
• Andrea Marra, a transgender activist from Jackson Heights, has announced her entry into the race against Jose Peralta (District 13, Queens). The race includes Jessica Ramos, a former de Blasio aide endorsed by the Working Families Party, and Tahseen Chowdhury, the Stuyvesant High School student body president.