Day: December 16, 2021

PALM BEACH, FL – On Wednesday, former president Donald Trump released a statement accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James of ‘prosecutorial misconduct’ and saying she dropped out of governor’s race because her campaign was ‘a complete failure’ and her polling was poor.

The statement comes days after The Washington Post reported James wants Trump to testify in person as part of her investigation into potential tax and financial fraud inside the Trump Organization. The AG plans to depose Trump on whether he overvalued the Trump Organization’s assets to obtain loans and then undervalued them for tax purposes.

Coincidentally, James said she was ending her campaign for governor the same day the subpoena surfaced citing “a number of important investigations and cases that are underway,” and that intends to finish them.

I have come to the conclusion that I must continue my work as attorney general. There are a number of important investigations and cases that are underway, and I intend to finish the job. I am running for re-election to complete the work New Yorkers elected me to do.

New York Attorney General Letitia James

I have come to the conclusion that I must continue my work as attorney general.

There are a number of important investigations and cases that are underway, and I intend to finish the job.

I am running for re-election to complete the work New Yorkers elected me to do.

— Tish James (@TishJames) December 9, 2021

“Letitia James wants to politically weaponize her position as Attorney General instead of exemplifying impartiality and protecting the interests of all New Yorkers. While she pretends that she suspended her short-lived campaign for New York Governor to go after me, she conveniently fails to mention that she couldn’t garner any support and her poll numbers were abysmal—she had no chance of even coming close to winning despite weeks of campaigning, she was losing to Governor Hochul by what would have been a massive landslide. She didn’t drop out of the race for a higher purpose, or to “finish existing business” (I wonder hat that would be?) She dropped out because her campaign was a complete failure, possibly because citizens of New York saw how unfairly and viciously she and other highly partisan New York Democrat prosecutors were treating President Donald J. Trump. It’s called Prosecutorial Misconduct. Rather than continue to waste her time and taxpayer resources on a long continuing Witch Hunt against the Republican Party and me, she should focus her attention on helping to resurrect the once Great State of New York were crime and poverty continue to wreak havoc, with murder, rape, drug sales, and just about every other form of crime at record levels, and now with a just-announced highest unemployment rate the Nation. New York is dying before our very eyes, and all the Democrat Prosecutors are focused on Is how we can get and punish Donald Trump, who many would say has done, over the years, a spectacular job for New York.

45th U.S. President, Donald J. Trump

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America pic.twitter.com/wxFPu5GrjH

— RSBN

Posted on 2021-12-16

Opinion: A Tuition-Free CUNY is an Investment in New York’s Recovery

‘Winning a New Deal for CUNY would benefit literally hundreds of  thousands of New Yorkers—an affordable high quality education right here in NYC can lift up families while creating a long term, sustained boon for our local economy.’

I would not be standing where I am today without our city’s public university system. As the representative of thousands of CUNY students, parents, and faculty in Southern Brooklyn, I believe that everyone should receive the same opportunity I did—the chance to get a high quality, affordable education in the best city in the world. 

The COVID-19 pandemic created an economic crisis of immense proportions and as we work towards a just recovery, it’s clear that a high quality public education is an investment in our students and our city’s recovery as a whole. That’s why I’m standing with the CUNY Rising Alliance to see that 2022 is the year we deliver for hard working college students by passing a New Deal for CUNY. 

The New Deal for CUNY (S4461/A5843) is a bill that Assemblymember Karines Reyes and I sponsor along with 55 of our colleagues that would not only make CUNY free again, but make sure that also means students have access to a first-class education. The funding will restore dilapidated buildings and mandate ratios of full-time faculty, mental health counselors and academic advisors to students. 

We know that higher education can propel people into the middle class. A person with a bachelor’s degree earns, on average, 65 percent more per week than a person with no college degree. The unemployment rate is nearly double for a person with no college versus a person with a bachelor’s degree. 

CUNY’s role in this is significant. CUNY colleges are consistently ranked among the most successful in lifting students into the middle class nationwide, and almost 80 percent of CUNY students stay and work full time in our state after graduating. That means that the 1.4 million alumni who graduated over the past 50 years are earning collectively tens of billions of dollars and are investing it right back into our local economy. We know that if we invest in our students that we’ll get a real return on this investment—and we know how to do it. 

While a true public education is the pathway to the American dream and middle class, decades of chronic underfunding has put CUNY’s original mission, to be a college for the “children of the whole people” and not only a “privileged few,” at risk. Where CUNY was once free for all, now a patchwork approach to programs like the Excelsior scholarship creates anxiety and uncertainty for students. And where CUNY was once appropriately funded to provide core services, today CUNY students are increasingly unlikely to encounter full-time faculty to receive the mentorship or support they need while on their educational path. The average building at CUNY is more than 50 years old, and decades of deferred maintenance have led to unsafe working conditions and crumbling infrastructure. Library, computer lab and writing center hours and staff have been reduced and class sizes have increased CUNY-wide. The list of preventable problems goes on and on. 

After years of Albany divesting our education system, we finally have an opportunity to make life better for New Yorkers. Last year, in the midst of the on-going pandemic, we finally made good on the state’s obligation to fully fund New York City’s public schools. This year we must turn our attention to CUNY. Investing in CUNY is the fiscally prudent thing to do and when I say that this is the moment to invest in CUNY, that is exactly what I mean. As we recover from the economic perils caused by the COVID19 pandemic, expanding economic opportunities is exactly what we should be thinking about.

With the New Deal for CUNY we can start to turn this ship around. At a time when our city and state is focused on economic recovery, an affordable and world class university education is more important than ever. Winning a New Deal for CUNY would benefit literally hundreds of  thousands of New Yorkers—an affordable high quality education right here in NYC can lift up families while creating a long term, sustained boon for our local economy.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes represents New York’s 22nd State Senate District. 

The post Opinion: A Tuition-Free CUNY is an Investment in New York’s Recovery appeared first on City Limits.

Tune into a virtual conversation Wednesday at 10 a.m., where New Yorkers will share their personal stories of navigating the homeless shelter system, and discuss how the city can better help families secure permanent housing. The panel is hosted by Trinity Church of Wall Street and the Family Homelessness Coalition; City Limits’ Editor Jeanmarie Evelly will moderate.

On Sunday night, more than half of the people sleeping in New York City’s homeless shelter system were families with kids, including nearly 15,000 children. While that number has declined in recent years—there were more than 24,000 kids in city shelters in 2015—it’s remained stubbornly higher than in decades past, and children saw longer stays in the system during the most recent fiscal year.

It’s also an incomplete tally: In addition to the kids staying in shelters run by the Department of Homeless Services, tens of thousands of others lived “doubled up” with friends or family in crowded apartments, or slept in cars or other public spaces during the 2020-2021 school year.

How can the next mayoral administration better support the city’s homeless families, predominately headed by Black and Latina women? How can lawmakers address some of the factors that contribute to family homelessness, such as domestic violence and evictions? What can be done to ensure families find and secure permanent housing?

A panel of experts and advocates will discuss these questions and more during a virtual discussion Wednesday entitled “Home for the Holidays: Ending Family Homelessness in NYC.” The event, hosted by Trinity Church of Wall Street and the Family Homelessness Coalition, will feature three mothers who’ve experienced homelessness directly, who will share their personal stories and offer insights on how the city can address this ongoing crisis. City Limits’ Editor Jeanmarie Evelly will moderate.

The discussion will be streamed online Wednesday, from 10 to 11 a.m. You can RSVP here.

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City Limits’ series on family homelessness in New York City is supported by Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York and The Family Homelessness Coalition. City Limits is solely responsible for the content and editorial direction.

The post Ending Family Homelessness in NYC: 12/15 Event appeared first on City Limits.

The Office of Temporary and Disability Administration (OTDA) has sent out more than 26,000 notices informing property owners that they will miss out on money they qualify for because they haven’t claimed the cash within 180 days.

New York could soon redistribute more than $250 million in rent relief checks not yet claimed by landlords, state officials said Tuesday.

Barbara Guinn, executive deputy commissioner of the Office of Temporary and Disability Administration (OTDA), said her agency has sent out more than 26,000 notices informing property owners that they will miss out on money they qualify for because they haven’t claimed the cash within 180 days. Under New York’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) rules, low-income tenants can apply for funding to cover arrears that built up as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the money going directly to their landlords. To receive the money, landlords must send in an application of their own.

In some cases, property owners have opted not to make an application, but in many other instances, the state has struggled to match renter and landlord submissions, tenant and property owner groups say.

About 20,000 tenant applications submitted between June and August and approved by OTDA have not yet been connected to a landlord, according to agency data. The payouts for those applications would cover roughly $250 million in arrears.

Regardless, Guinn said the state could redistribute unclaimed checks to a backlog of applicants still awaiting payment if property owners do not claim the money they are approved for.

“The goal is to continue with outreach over that period to resolve those arrears,” Guinn told assemblymembers at a hearing on homelessness Tuesday. “To the extent that doesn’t happen, those funds are certainly available.”

The agency said it will not automatically clawback the approved money after 180 days and will instead consider each application on a case-by-case basis.

“Each rent relief application is unique and the process of getting both the proper landlord and tenant submissions can be time consuming,” said OTDA spokesperson Justin Mason. “OTDA continues its outreach efforts to connect landlords to provisionally approved applications. We do, however, anticipate that a majority of these provisionally approved applications will ultimately result in a payment to a landlord.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered OTDA to close the ERAP portal last month after the amount of money owed to applicants exceeded the program’s $2.4 billion allotment, which mostly came from the federal government. More than 288,000 households applied for ERAP funding before the portal closed, and the state has so far paid $1.13 billion to property owners, according to a Dec. 6 ERAP report from OTDA. The agency has approved another $924 million on behalf of 73,884 tenant households, but has not yet sent that money to their landlords. 

Hochul has asked the federal government to replenish the ERAP fund with nearly $1 billion to at least cover applicants who got their submissions in before she closed the portal. Guinn said Tuesday that the unclaimed money will go to applicants stuck on what amounts to a waiting list for unpaid property owners. 

“We have a number of applications in house that cannot be covered by the funds available,” she said. 

Guinn also told lawmakers that if the state does receive substantial funding from the federal government, it would only take “a few days” to reopen the portal. That pledge may encounter skepticism from New Yorkers who recall the program’s slow start as well as persistent failures by the politically-connected firm contracted to stand up and operate the web portal.

Tenant advocates and state lawmakers have urged Hochul and OTDA to reopen the portal immediately even without a federal infusion, in part because an ERAP application serves as a defense against eviction in Housing Court.

The Legal Aid Society sued OTDA in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday to force the agency to resume accepting ERAP applications. 

The class action lawsuit earned the support of Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, chair of the Social Services Committee that held the hearing Tuesday.

“The state’s closure of the program, particularly in light of the fact that it has requested and is likely to receive billions in additional ERAP funds from the federal government, is baffling as it unfairly denies tenants this protection,” Rosenthal said in a statement.

Legal Aid Housing Attorney Ellen Davidson said she fears tenants blocked from applying for ERAP may end up getting evicted before the program reopens at a later date. The state’s eviction protections expire Jan. 15.

“I think we’re going to see people who are eligible for the program get evicted and then the program will reopen,” Davidson said. “And people who would have been eligible for rental arrears payments will be homeless.”

An OTDA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

The vast majority of tenant applicants in New York City are among the most vulnerable to homelessness, OTDA reports show.

Across the five boroughs, 90 percent of ERAP applicants earn less than 50 percent of Area Median Income (AMI), or no more than $53,700 for a family of three. About 71 percent of all ERAP applicants reported earning less than 30 percent of AMI—or $32,200 for a family of three.

Still, an untold number of eligible renters did not apply before the portal closed, BronxWorks Assistant Executive Director Scott Auwarter told City Limits last month.

“I am very concerned that some of the most needy tenants have not yet applied and won’t until the eviction moratorium is lifted,” said Auwarter, whose organization received a $5 million city contract to help Bronx tenants apply for rent relief.

Landlord groups have also asked the state to reopen the application portal to ensure their members can recoup money lost during the pandemic, and to get a clearer picture of just how many tenants owe rent statewide.

“That’s the only way that the government will know the extent of the need, and then we can have a bigger conversation about permanent solutions,” said Jay Martin, president of the rent-stabilized landlord group Community Housing and Improvement Program.

Martin said few of his members have elected to forego money available to them. Instead, he said, ERAP has failed to match many tenant applicants with their landlords, leaving them unable to collect the cash. Those owners could miss out on funds they may never be able to replace, he said. 

“There may be a handful of owners who aren’t trying to get this money, but there are tons of tenants and tons of owners who are trying to get it,” he said. 

Under ERAP rules, property owners who accept the state payment must renew their tenant’s lease for at least another year—a provision that has made some property owners think twice about the program. But a housing court backlog and the pace of proceedings mean tenants can likely stay in place another year with or without the ERAP money, which makes rejecting the cash a bad business strategy, Martin added.

“If you’re getting an eviction, you’re not getting that money,” he said.

The post New York May Redistribute 20,000 Unclaimed Rent Relief Checks, Top Official Says appeared first on City Limits.

In statements Tuesday afternoon, both Moya and Adams, who are Queens Democrats, projected victory in the coming contest for speaker. The body will officially vote on one speaker—who essentially sets the legislative agenda and liaises with the mayoral administration—after its members are sworn in at the beginning of the year.

City Council members Adrienne Adams and Francisco Moya both claimed to have secured enough votes from their colleagues to win the speaker seat on Tuesday, sending the once-crowded race to lead the lawmaking body in a puzzling direction.

In twin tweets Tuesday afternoon, both Moya and Adams, who are Queens Democrats, projected victory in the coming contest. The body will officially vote to choose one speaker—who essentially sets the legislative agenda and liaises with the mayoral administration—after its members are sworn in at the beginning of the year.

“After much discussion and collaboration with my colleagues, I am honored to have received the necessary votes to become the next speaker of the New York City Council,” Adams announced in a Tuesday afternoon tweet. “As speaker, I look forward to being a partner with every member to help advance the needs of our communities. As a member of the Council, I will always prioritize my colleagues, labor, and the people of New York and have an open door for every voice.”

Today is a historic day for New York City. After much discussion and collaboration with my colleagues, I am honored to have received the necessary votes to become the next Speaker of the New York City Council.

— Adrienne Adams (@AdrienneEAdams1) December 14, 2021

“I am humbled to announce that our diverse coalition of Council Members and leaders from across New York City has collected a majority of votes to elect the next speaker of the Council,” Moya, the reported favorite of Mayor-elect Eric Adams, said in a tweet. “I look forward to leading this body into a brighter future for our great city.”

I am humbled to announce that our diverse coalition of Council Members and leaders from across New York City has collected a majority of votes to elect the next speaker of the Council. I look forward to leading this body into a brighter future for our great city.

— Francisco Moya (@FranciscoMoyaNY) December 14, 2021

Neither official immediately addressed the differing statements in responses to City Limits Tuesday.

READ MORE: The NYC Council Speaker Candidates on Their Legislative Priorities

Days before the close of the year, speaker aspirants—which included Council members Adams, Moya, Diana Ayala, Justin Brannan, Keith Powers, Carlina Rivera, and incoming Council member Gale Brewer—have worked to lobby their colleagues for the post.

On Monday, the New York Daily News reported that Ayala, Brannan, Brewer and Powers had dropped out of the race and opted to support Adams. The move was aimed at weakening Moya’s bid for the seat, the Daily News reported, following reports that the Mayor-elect, Eric Adams, was lobbying for him to be speaker.

The post A Tale of Two Speakers? Adrienne Adams And Francisco Moya Both Declare Victory in Race to Lead Council appeared first on City Limits.