“The Manhattan Democratic Party is proud to support the selection by the 30th Senate District Committee of Cordell Cleare as their Democratic Nominee for the New York State Senate,” the party said in a Saturday evening release.
Adi Talwar
125th Street in Harlem, at the heart of the 30th State Senate District.
On Saturday, Members of the Manhattan Democratic Party selected Cordell Cleare—who served as chief of staff to outgoing Councilmember Bill Perkins for close to two decades—as the Democratic nominee in the upcoming Nov. 2 special election to replace Brian Benjamin in the state Senate.
Senate District 30 spans Upper Manhattan neighborhoods including Harlem, East Harlem, and the Upper West Side. Benjamin was elected to the seat in a special election in 2017, serving nearly one full term before he was selected last month to be new Gov. Kathy Hochul’s second-in-command as lieutenant governor.
The special election for the now-vacant seat, which drew interest from area electeds including Assemblymembers Inez Dickens and Al Taylor, who represent adjoining parts of the district, will coincide with New York’s November general election, where city residents will vote for their next mayor, comptroller, borough presidents and City Council members.
Read more elections coverage here.
Although candidates can still run in the 30th Senate District race as independents, the Democratic nominee in this special election was chosen via the party’s competitive county committee process, and not a primary. Instead, hundreds of the group’s members vote for a nominee.
“The Manhattan Democratic Party is proud to support the selection by the 30th Senate District Committee of Cordell Cleare as their Democratic Nominee for the New York State Senate,” the party said in a Saturday evening release, adding that Cleare won with 57.4 of ballots after three rounds of voting against Athena Moore, who earned 42.6 percent of votes.
Both Cleare and Moore were one of more than a dozen candidates, including Perkins, to run in the June primary for City Council District 9. Cleare was eliminated in round 12 of ranked-choice voting; Moore in 13. Cleare also ran for the Council seat in 2017, later losing to Perkins.
Cleare, of Harlem, could not immediately be reached for comment. If she wins the November race—likely, given the heavy Democratic enrollment in the Senate District—she will have to run again next year to keep the seat.
“Until today, the NYPD has been using private information from sealed arrests in over a dozen of their interconnected surveillance databases, and has trained its officers that it is okay to violate the law,” said Niji Jain, an attorney at the Bronx Defenders.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
The Bronx Defenders’ yearslong class action suit against the NYPD’s use of sealed arrest records took a critical turn on Monday, when a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled that the police department could not instruct its personnel to use such records without a court order.
Right now, Judge Lyle E. Frank wrote in the Sept. 27 order, an estimated 800 NYPD officers have access to the more than 3.5 million records belonging to New Yorkers whose criminal charges were ultimately dismissed.
The records—which can only legally be accessed by a court order, according to a 1976 state law—are kept in at least 14 different NYPD databases, attorneys at the Bronx Defenders said. In police training materials reviewed by the legal defense group, the NYPD instructs officers to use the sealed information, the lawyers said.
As a result of the Monday decision, the NYPD will be required to inform personnel that they may not access and use sealed arrest information without a court order. It also prompts the agency to declassify and publicly release NYPD training materials on the practice that were obtained by the Bronx Defenders in discovery.
Police officials “freely admit that their prior training regarding the sealing of records was contrary to law,” Judge Frank wrote. “As the NYPD did not properly train as to the sealing statutes before, the best way to ensure this conduct is not repeated is for this Court to issue an order enjoining such future conduct.”
Put simply, “until today, the NYPD has been using private information from sealed arrests in over a dozen of their interconnected surveillance databases, and has trained its officers that it is okay to violate the law,” said Niji Jain, an attorney at the Bronx Defenders. “Now that the court has issued this sweeping ruling, officers will be cut off from that kind of access, so that the sealed information remains private as the law requires.”
A police department spokesperson, responding to questions from City Limits, said the agency is “reviewing the judge’s decision and exploring our legal options.”
In an op-ed published on Monday in the New York Daily News, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea argued that the lawsuit was a “serious setback for public safety.”
“What is taking place today is that a handful of plaintiffs want to push the courts to stretch the bounds of the original intent of the sealing laws far beyond what anyone contemplated when the law was passed in 1976,” Shea wrote, claiming that police officers would be blindfolded by the change to its current practice.
“If the city loses this lawsuit, all these sealed records could become completely invisible to police,” he added. “We wouldn’t even be able to know they exist.”
El evento marcará el lanzamiento del Salón de la Fama de City Limits, que honrará a cuatro líderes comunitarias de Nueva York por sus contribuciones a la justicia, los medios de comunicación, la vivienda y el desarrollo económico. Podrá participar en el evento de forma presencial o virtual el próximo 18 de noviembre.
City Limits, un medio de comunicación sin ánimo de lucro dedicado al periodismo de investigación que ha informado y empoderado a los neoyorquinos durante cuatro décadas y media, invita al público a unirse a la celebración de nuestro 45º aniversario este otoño.
El evento marcará el lanzamiento del Salón de la Fama de City Limits, que honrará a cuatro líderes comunitarios de Nueva York por sus contribuciones a la justicia, los medios de comunicación, la vivienda y el desarrollo económico. Podrá participar en el evento de forma presencial o virtual el próximo 18 de noviembre.
Los galardonados son:
Afua Atta-Mensah, exdirectora ejecutiva de la organización Community Voices Heard (CVH)
Jenna Flanagan, periodista y presentadora del premiado programa de noticias MetroFocus del grupo WNET
Christine Quinn, presidenta y directora ejecutiva de la empresa que provee refugio familiar y vivienda de apoyo Win
Kathryn Wylde, presidenta y directora ejecutiva de la organización sin ánimo de lucro Partnership for New York City
Anteriormente City Limits ha galardonado a: Wayne Barrett, Preet Bharara, Adam Blumenthal, Richard Buery, Angela Fernandez, Laura Flanders, Henry Garrido, Elizabeth Cooke Levy, Gabe Pressman, Tom Robbins y Sean Straub, quienes también serán miembros del Salón de la Fama de City Limits.
“Estamos encantados de dar la bienvenida a nuestros anteriores galardonados de City Limits al Salón de la Fama de City Limits”, dijo la directora ejecutiva Marjorie W. Martay.
Las ventas de entradas, donaciones y patrocinios para la celebración del 45º aniversario de City Limits y la entrada al Salón de la Fama se destinarán directamente a apoyar el periodismo investigativo que City Limits produce cada día.
Además este año estamos recaudando fondos para lanzar becas de $25.000 dólares cada una, nombradas en honor de dos notables colaboradores de City Limits:
La beca Jarrett Murphy de información sobre el medio ambiente y la salud apoyará el trabajo de un periodista en estas dos importantes áreas temáticas, llamada así en honor al antiguo editor de City Limits, Jarrett Murphy, quien dirigió nuestra redacción durante más de una década.
La beca Mark Edmiston para la innovación en medios de comunicación y negocios apoyará a un líder empresarial emergente para que se centre en las iniciativas de nuevos productos de City Limits sobre el desarrollo estratégico de los negocios. Lleva el nombre del veterano de los medios de comunicación Mark Edminston, antiguo presidente de la junta directiva de City Limits.
“Durante décadas, los reporteros y editores de City Limits han tenido el privilegio de contar las historias de los neoyorquinos, examinar las políticas de nuestra ciudad y hacer que nuestros líderes locales rindan cuentas”, dijo la editora ejecutiva Jeanmarie Evelly. “Su apoyo es esencial para nuestro futuro y para garantizar que podamos seguir haciendo ese importante trabajo”.
Fundada en medio de la crisis fiscal de Nueva York en 1976, City Limits existe para informar y equipar a los ciudadanos para crear una ciudad más justa. Lo que empezó hace 45 años como un boletín para organizadores de la vivienda ha crecido hasta convertirse en una premiada redacción con una plantilla de ocho personas a tiempo completo.
Además de la cobertura en profundidad de la vivienda, las personas sin hogar, la resiliencia climática, los adultos mayores, la política gubernamental, entre otros temas, City Limits también dirige un programa de formación periodística para estudiantes de secundaria, opera el proyecto Voices of Nueva York, así como Una Ciudad Sin Límites, una iniciativa informativa en español.
Como organización sin ánimo de lucro, City Limits depende del apoyo de fundaciones, patrocinios, publicidad y donaciones. La meta que nos hemos propuesto alcanzar es sumar $300.000 dólares para poder seguir sirviendo a la ciudad de Nueva York durante los próximos 45 años y más allá.
Para más información en español sobre la celebración del aniversario, escríbele a Greis Torres enGreis@citylimits.org
The initiatives come just over two weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused flash-flooding that killed over a dozen New Yorkers and after a summer of multiple record-breaking heat waves.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Office
Gov. Kathy Hochul with EPA Administrator Michael Regan during a Climate Week announcement.
During New York City’s annual Climate Week, local and state legislators served up a litany of environmental policy announcements to improve infrastructure, invest in clean energy and promote climate justice.
These initiatives come just over two weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused flash-flooding that killed over a dozen New Yorkers and after a summer of multiple record-breaking heat waves.
Following are some of the highlights from the week, culminating in a report released Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio on how the city to better prepare for extreme weather:
Green light on green energy
On the first day of Climate Week, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she had approved two proposals to bring wind, solar and hydropower to New York. The projects are two of seven submitted in response to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA’s) January request for proposals. Combined, they would bring enough renewable energy to heat 2.5 million homes in the state.
Hochul also directed NYSERDA to create a roadmap this fall outlining how the state can reach a goal of 10 gigawatts of solar energy by 2030 (the state is almost at its current goal of six gigawatts by 2025).
Hochul said she’d also invest $36 million in the creation of “regional green energy hubs” to help improve community engagement in climate-focused efforts — particularly in disadvantaged communities.
And the governor said she’d allocate $59 million to the Clean Green Schools initiative, which will launch next year and strive to improve indoor air quality and energy efficiency in public and private schools.
Focus on environmental justice
Hochul announced last week that under her direction, the Department of Environmental Conservation will conduct hyperlocal air monitoring in 10 areas around the state, with a focus on disadvantaged communities. The effort will measure levels of pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
Communities of color, including the South Bronx and areas of Queens, have historically high asthma rates and are overburdened with highways, waste transfer facilities and power plants, all of which contribute to poor air quality and detrimental health effects for the residents.
“For generations, black, brown, and low-income communities have been the reluctant hosts of polluting infrastructure and toxic emissions from fossil fuel plants, highways, solid waste, and diesel trucks to name a few, creating a legacy of historic health disparities,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, director of the Sunset Park–based group UPROSE, in a press release. Earlier this summer, Yeampierre met with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and expressed the need for local, community involvement in creating solutions to the climate crisis.
Investing in infrastructure and resiliency
The governor also announced she was allotting $600 million in grants to invest in infrastructure that would make communities statewide more resilient to storms and flooding, and proposed an additional $1 billion — for a total of $4 billion — for Environmental Bond Act, which would finance projects to improve resiliency infrastructure, water quality, conservation and climate change mitigation.
The act, which was set to be considered by voters in November 2020, was pulled from the ballot by the Cuomo administration. It will instead be considered by voters next fall. Gov. Hochul also said she would rename the act the “Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act.”
“Increased funding for clean water infrastructure and the Environmental Bond Act – including critical nature-based solutions like restoring and enhancing wetlands and salt marshes – will provide direct support to communities that are experiencing the impacts of climate change,” said Erin McGrath of Audubon New York in a statement.
Other legislators also used the week to push forth agendas related to storm resiliency.
In a Coney Island press conference on Friday, mayoral candidate and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams pledged to, if elected, implement a resiliency plan for the city that includes an early warning system with sirens, an effort to bring basement apartments up to code and the appointment of a climate czar.
“Mother Nature’s not going to wait for us to build out a 20-year plan,” he said.
And on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio released a report outlining the city’s plan to prepare for and respond to extreme weather. The plan calls to appoint an extreme weather coordinator in City Hall, create a “Rainboots on the Ground” program to conduct outreach in disadvantaged communities and make upgrades to the city’s sewage and drainage systems.
De Blasio also said he’s investing $2.1 billion in funding for the Department of Environmental Protection, and another $500,000 toward the Parks Department, Department of Transportation and other agencies.
“We will plan for the worst-case scenario in every instance,” the report says.
Tenants say they fear the property owners are waging a war of attrition, waiting the renters out until they give up, move on and forfeit the rent-regulated apartments.
Adi Talwar
Discoloration due to the fire in March of 2020 was still visible above the top floor windows.
First came the fire that ripped through her apartment building, killed four neighbors and left her homeless in March 2020. Then came the September rainstorm that flooded the city and knocked out a wall of the basement where she was staying while she awaits repairs. Now, after 18 months in hotels, shelters and family members’ apartments, Bronx nurse Oneka Dunbar just wants to go back home with her two children.
The problem for Dunbar, and eight other families displaced by the fire at 1560 Grand Concourse, is that the landlords haven’t yet completed the necessary renovations—despite a judge’s order to have the work done by the end of August 2020.
The group of tenants took legal action against the landlord, 1560 GC LLC; the management company, Chestnut Holdings; and the Chestnut executives, Jonathan Wiener and Ben Rieder, to force the repairs and reclaim their apartments in April 2020, a month after the fire. A year and a half later, it’s unclear if the owners have started fixing the damage caused by firehoses or removing the asbestos they say they found in the ceiling.
Through it all, Dunbar has continued working as a nurse, now with the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. She has stayed in a shelter in Queens, at her sister’s home in Connecticut and with her daughter’s father in the flooded basement. She has been mostly separated from her 12-year-old son while he stays with his father in Brooklyn, she said.
“I just want to get back into my place as soon as I can so I can give my kids somewhere that’s stable and not be bounced from place to place,” she said. “But Chestnut Holdings has been stalling.”
Dunbar and two other tenants say they fear the property owners are waging a war of attrition, waiting the renters out until they give up, move on and forfeit the apartments. The landlord’s history gives them reason for concern: Weiner, who owns one of the largest portfolios of rent-stabilized apartments in the Bronx, evicted more tenants than all but six other property owners in the city in 2019, according to the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition.
The Grand Concourse building has 111 rent-regulated units, including the nine affected apartments. New York’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 limits the amount that landlords can raise rents after completing an individual apartment improvement (IAI), but the property owner does not need the tenant to sign off on the renovations if the unit is vacant.
“I think it’s so unfair,” said third-floor tenant Mary Avery, 69. “I’ve been there almost 40 years, it’s home to me.”
Avery said she stayed in Pennsylvania with her daughter for a year, forgoing medical appointments in the Bronx, until Chestnut agreed to temporarily rent her a fifth-floor unit in another nearby building. She said the apartment is nice, but the elevators frequently malfunction and the neighborhood is unsafe. Still, she said she’s glad to be near her doctors again.
The property owners agreed to a stipulation stating that they would not seek an IAI as long as Avery has a claim to the Grand Concourse apartment.
Chestnut and its attorneys did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
In court filings, they have given various justifications for the delays.
“It would be remiss not to point out that this fire and subsequent proceeding all occurred during the very height of the pandemic,” they wrote in documents filed in November. “The roof of the building melted because of the severity of the fire. Four people lost their lives. These are not violations that contemplate a little spackling and plaster.”
In the course of assessing the damages, inspectors discovered asbestos in the ceiling, they added. “It is very likely that the asbestos remediation will not be complete until early 2022 given that it is going to take approximately one month per apartment that was affected, 15 in total,” they continued.
The tenants’ lawyers, from the organization Mobilization for Justice, say the landlord hasn’t produced specific information to back up those “fluffy” assertions, or a number of other reasons for delay raised in court.
Chestnut “cited to the loss of life, the fire marshal’s investigation, its insurer’s investigation and the pandemic as impediments to commencing reconstruction,” MFJ Supervising Attorney Rochelle Watson wrote in court documents last December. “However, Respondent produced no affidavits or documentation evidencing how any of these factors were related to its failure to commence work to restore the apartments.”
They still have not provided specific information about the extent of the asbestos either, the attorneys said. “Instead, the statement as to the asbestos finding is completely uncorroborated and magically appears out of thin air,” Watson wrote in December.
An engineering firm hired by Chestnut has submitted a pro forma “Asbestos Abatement Protocol” document to the insurance company, which describes rules for wearing protective clothing and posting signs about the asbestos. That document was included in court papers, but Chestnut has not yet submitted information about just how much asbestos there is. The engineer, from the firm H2M Architects + Engineers, did not respond to a phone call.
And, despite citing the complications of the pandemic, Chestnut filed applications for major projects in at least 31 of its buildings last year, including gut renovations in two other apartments inside 1560 Grand Concourse, the MFJ attorneys added in court papers.
“From the commencement of the court proceedings, the landlord has shown no compassion for the plight of the tenants and zero urgency to correct the conditions in the vacated apartments. As a result, many of the tenants believe that the landlord is attempting to use dilatory tactics to frustrate them from returning to their homes,” MFJ said in a statement.
The aftermath of a deadly fire
The three-alarm fire began in unit 603, on the top floor of the six-story building at 1560 Grand Concourse. The 118-unit property is less than a block from Bronx Healthcare System, the medical facility formerly known as Bronx-Lebanon, where Avery’s doctors are located.
Some 140 firefighters converged on the building as the blaze grew around 7:20 p.m. on March 30, 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.
Four women died as smoke consumed their apartments. Another was injured. Below the sixth floor, ceiling sprinklers turned on and doused the other units, including the home of 90-year-old Edith Thompson.
Adi Talwar
1560 Grand Concourse viewed from Mount Eden Malls.
Thompson had lived in the apartment for 45 years. The night of the fire, she was able to make it to an elevator on the other side of the building after people outside alerted her, said her daughter Cynthia Hammond. Water sprayed by FDNY firefighters caused the ceiling to cave in in several rooms, prompting a Department of Buildings (DOB) vacate order, so Thompson moved in with Hammond in a New Jersey suburb.
She spent the next year hoping to return to the place she called home since the mid-70s, Hammond said.
“It was just a horrible situation,” Hammond said. “My mom was like, ‘When can I come back home?’ I’m quite sure she was depressed. She liked staying here but there’s nothing like being home.”
Thompson died in March, without ever returning to the apartment, or getting a satisfactory answer from the property owners. Another daughter, who lived with her since 2009, is now attempting to secure legal tenancy in the unit.
“What is the hold up?” Hammond said. “It was excuse after excuse.”
The DOB issued vacate orders on the nine damaged units following the fire but does not yet know when the owner will complete the necessary repairs. A DOB spokesperson said asbestos abatement is underway in the building and that the agency has reached out to the engineer to find out how long the work will take.
The landlords did complete temporary roof repairs by Oct. 20, 2020 and filed an application to fully repair the roof and the fire-damaged apartments in December 2020, DOB said.
The 1560 Grand Concourse tenants aren’t the only New Yorkers fighting to recover their homes following a disaster.
More than 60 Jackson Heights tenants displaced by an April fire have sued their landlord and management company to hasten renovations. An untold number of other tenants experienced damage to their homes following flooding from Hurricane Ida earlier this month, with just over 270 families moving into temporary city shelters following the storm; the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has approved payments totaling $37 million to more than 8,200 New Yorkers. The city and state will make another $27 million available to undocumented immigrants affected by the flooding but who do not qualify for FEMA relief, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
But the relief funding and the legal challenges are just early phases in what can turn out to be years-long struggles.
The parties are due back in court Thursday, after Bronx Housing Court Judge Howard Baum ordered the landlords to allow the tenants, their attorneys and their inspectors to enter the apartments and assess the damages last month. Baum also instructed the landlords to turn over documents about their insurance reimbursements and the asbestos work.
The process will continue to drag on, but Dunbar, the Bronx nurse, said she has no intention of giving up.
She said she already had to battle to win the right to the two-bedroom apartment after first moving in in 2015 to care for her grandmother. When her grandmother got sick and later died, Dunbar stayed in place, finally winning a three-year legal dispute for a lease in January 2020.
She said she returned the signed lease just a week before the fire displaced her and her two children.
“I’ve just been waiting to get back into my place,” she said.
