“Dear Play Fair Coalition Members,
Thank you to those of you who joined us at City Hall for the final Council Parks Committee Budget Hearing, and today for the final City Council Committee on Finance Hearing on the Executive Budget!
We are entering the most critical phase of the Play Fair Campaign, as we approach the end of the budget cycle between the Mayor’s Office and the City Council. As you may know, there is currently no City Council Parks Committee Chair, so we need everyone to champion the Play Fair campaign now that we are in the home stretch.
Here’s what you can do now to help Play Fair:
1.The City Council Committee on Finance is accepting public testimony about the FY20 City Budget until 5pm on Thursday, May 30th submit a statement in support of adding $100M to the Parks Budget, we would encourage you to do so before the deadline. Testimony can be submitted to financetestimony@council.nyc.gov. You can read the testimony NY4P delivered at today’s final City Council Finance Committee hearing on our website
2. Here is the link to NY4Parks petition to the Mayor and City Council: Now is the time to boost the message of Play Fair as much as possible –
Spread the word to boost the number of signatures to the letter. Each letter gets sent to the signee’s Council Member, and all go to the Mayor. The link to our petition is here
3. Call Council Member Chin’s office and urge them to support Play Fair in the budget! to find office phone numbers.
Speaker Corey Johnson mentioned parks in his tweet about today’s final Executive Budget hearing. If you use Twitter, please retweet his tweet using #PlayFair and tag us @NY4P. Please thank him and tell him to #PlayFair for Parks. The Speaker’s tweet can be seen here
This week, NY4Parks delivered almost 40 letters to City Hall from members of the Play Fair Coalition – thank you to the organizations who provided a letter for us to send! We have already received responses from the Mayor’s staff, so the good news is they are listening.
There were also two great op-eds that ran this week, one by NY4P’s very own Lynn Kelly, and one by Eli Dvorkin at the Center for an Urban Future (CUF). Please read and share widely!”
Opinion: Mr. Mayor, it’s Time to Play Fair for Parks (City Limits, Opinion, May 22, 2019)