Hi friends,
We’re definitely finding going to have to look for the good news in the bad news this week.
NJ Governor Phil Murphy’s had to re-up his declaration of a public health emergency last week, which reactivated the state’s early release law.
Earlier in the pandemic, NJ released more than 5,300 people from prison early. According to an attorney for the ACLU,
“What we know about the last round is that they were exceptionally successful, people were able to return to families and communities without any increase in risk to public safety.”
“We’re excited to see another round.”
As is often the case when public safety is involved, the public is blamed for avoidable tragedies, which are then papered over as ‘accidents’. This was certainly the case with the tragic fire in the Bronx last week.
The blaze was indeed reportedly sparked by a malfunctioning space heater. This alone was not enough to kill 17 tenants, including eight children, and leave dozens more hospitalized in critical condition. According to reports, the fire itself was contained to one apartment. Dense black smoke, meanwhile, spread through the entire 19-story building, through an apartment door that, were it in line with New York City codes since 2018, should have been self-closing.
Many of the residents of the building who have been displaced had federal Section 8 housing vouchers to help cover rent. As these are non-transferable, folks may have difficulty finding other stable housing. The governor has promised not to forget them.
Yet survivors of a previous apartment fire in the Bronx in March 2020, which killed four people, remained without stable housing 18 months after the deadly event, City Limits reported in September. Chestnut Holdings, the management company in that case — the owner of one of the city’s largest portfolios of rent-stabilized apartments — has failed to complete necessary renovations, prompting legal action from tenants who fear that the property owners are trying to force them to abandon their rent-regulated homes.
Tenants who rely on housing vouchers have little leverage with landlords, who collect federal rent checks and tax credits regardless of conditions.
Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres and Senator Kristen Gillibrand will introduce legislation in Congress to require heat sensors in all federally-funded housing. The goal is to hold landlords accountable for providing sufficient heat and hot water.
If passed, Torres said, the federal government would be able to suspend rental payment to a landlord who failed to install a heat sensor.
We will, of course, support these measures AND we are not seeing a significant and structural government response.
Yesterday, I shared Ibram X. Kendi’s idea that there are two stories unfolding in the US at the same time: the more popular story of racial progress and the counter-narrative of what he calls “widening inequity and injustice.”
As part of our continuing efforts to understand nuance, I wanted to highlight another pair of opposing themes, also running on parallel tracks: isolation and connection. Anand Pandian’s discussion of social and political polarization emphasizes the bunker mentality that seems to be prevailing right now.
Pandian is an anthropologist, and his discussion of increasing indifference to others is tempered by his acknowledgment that, at the same time, some Americans are building and rebuilding the commons.
Movements for mutual aid, racial justice and cultural solidarity have also brought Americans together, spurring more radical commitments to collective care-taking, redrawing the line between stranger and kin. The vitality of such movements depends on adequate space and support.
Calls abound to redesign our personal and public spaces for conviviality rather than isolation. Commons, parks and open streetscapes; living quarters and resources arranged to encourage social awareness, not solipsism; communication platforms that nurture contrary lines of thought: these spaces can nurture the capacity to live and thrive alongside others unlike oneself, working against the tendency to reject and retreat.
The KWT fridge crew is mourning the loss of Michelle Nitto, of the East Flatbush Library, who met with us last year to show us the zines they were producing to inform community members about mutual aid efforts and resources.
When we’re down, coming together to do something lifts us up.
So, we’re continuing to mobilize to feed some hospital staff at Kings County Medical Center and possibly at some other locations. And we’d like to share handmade messages of appreciation with the meals we send.
Share this link for a free card-making Zoom workshop with Emily Waters, this Thursday afternoon. Zoom link is included!
Sometimes, in the quest for good news, we have to look at what visionary people are thinking about and discussing. I came across two items that I plan to spend some time with and thought I should share them with you.
Read Justin Garrett Moore’s vision for a NYC Department of Care and the Municipal Art Society’s proposal for a Deputy Mayor for Placemaking and the Public Realm.
This next item is not a serious proposal, unless someone with know-how and vision can take it there. The city has decommissioned the John F. Kennedy ferry, which was part of the Staten Island Ferry fleet beginning in 1965, and is auctioning it off this week. The hull is in good condition, but the propulsion system is not.
The starting bid for the ferry, which is also eligible for placement on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, is $125,000. I see waterfront housing. Or a community center.
Bid on a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry!?
Although he was infamous in Brooklyn for allowing city employees to park in public space with impunity, Mayor Adams has come out in favor of shrinking NYC’s fleet of vehicles, which includes close to 30,000 sedans, SUVs, police cars and sanitation trucks, among others.
[H]e supports reducing the number of take-home cars driven by city employees — which totals 2,857 — and plans to evaluate where cuts could be made. The gratis vehicles come with free gas and sometimes free tolls, and it’s a benefit that has historically led to widespread misuse.
“The city must make better use of our subway and buses, and it is time that City Hall led by example,” he said.
On this issue, Adams has been leading by example. In contrast to De Blasio, who made regular trips with a fleet of SUVs from Gracie Mansion to his favorite Brooklyn YMCA, Adams has been commuting to City Hall on subways and Citi Bikes.
A 2016 California law is now fully implemented to give farmworkers overtime wages above a 40-hour week if they are employed as part of crew of more than 25 workers.
This is an extraordinary win for agricultural workers, who have long faced a
wage gap [that] can be traced to the legacy of slavery, and was codified at the behest of Southern members of Congress in the 1930s, when the federal government intentionally excluded farmworkers and domestic workers—then majority Black—from the bulk of labor protections afforded by the New Deal-era Federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act.
New York State has more than 55,000 agricultural workers who are waiting on the decision of the state’s Farm Wage Board. Currently, NYS farmers are only paid overtime when they work more than 60 hours a week.
“The demographic that is doing that work has shifted, but the fundamental exclusion has not,” said Emma Kreyche, advocacy director for the Worker Justice Center of New York (WJCNY), which conducts outreach and political campaigns on behalf of agricultural and other low wage workers.
The Farm Wage Board is holding hearings this week to consider overtime pay equity for farmworkers, meaning that workers would be eligible for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week.
Unsurprisingly, farm owners are claiming that they cannot afford to pay overtime. Because New York is not the first state to introduce overtime pay equity for agricultural workers, there are indications that dire predictions of farm failure and economic crisis are unlikely outcomes.
According to Daniel Costa, Director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, paying overtime to farmworkers is not going to destroy the agricultural sector.
“If it can work [in California], it can work anywhere,” he said.
In California, despite industry predictions, the number of agricultural businesses in the state has actually increased during the state’s roll-out.
There’s a bill in NYS, (S2690), that would extend the date for the Farm Wage Board to make its report until the end of 2024. Hearings are going forward this week and farmworkers should not have to wait two more years for progress toward fair pay.
Contact your state senator to let them know that you support overtime pay equity for farmworkers in NYS and ask them to oppose S2690.
I remain puzzled by the fate of the new all-in-one voting rights bill, which I thought was designed to bypass the filibuster.
Apparently, there’s more than one kind of filibuster in play; Catie Edmondson explains:
The Senate on Tuesday will begin to debate legislation that combines two separate bills already passed by the House — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — and folds them into an unrelated measure.The move would allow the Senate to bring the bill directly to the floor, avoiding an initial filibuster.
But that strategy would still allow Republicans to block it from coming to a final vote, and Democrats lack the unanimous support needed in their party to change Senate rules to muscle through the legislation themselves.
The bold above is mine. It is at times like these when I turn to A.A. Milne.
[Christopher Robin:] “Don’t you know what ther means?
“Ah yes, now I do,” I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it is all the explanation you are going to get.
Sign the AFL-CIO’s petition to sideline the filibuster and pass the new voting rights bill.
Sign up to phone bank with Common Cause to get federal voting rights legislation passed!
I’m going outside to look at the sky. I owe you some good news and will let you know when I find some.
with love,
L