Protecting and improving the community for the people who live and work here

From: The People’s Budget Coalition

Hello Allies and Partners in Public Health

Recently the New York State budget disinvested itself to protect funding that has been aiding New York City to provide vital public health services from 36% to 20% (affecting only New York City and no other county across the state).  Otherwise known as the Article 6 cuts, this essentially reduces the State matching dollars, beginning in July 2019, to a number of public health programs.  $59 million is just an estimate of this year’s cut and that reduction of funds will be passed down to organizations in significantly reduced contracts or cut programs unless we act now.

The Article 6 cuts impact both City Council and Administrative funding for many programs including HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and C, Tuberculosis, Access Health NYC, children’s health, maternal and child health, Health +Hospitals Child Health Clinics, School -Based Health Centers, City Sexual Health Clinics, correctional services operated by H+H, and other vital health programs that our communities rely on. 

Attached is a City DOHMH document that provides some general context and information on overall population health impact.  Additionally, here’s a Crain’s article that may be helpful. 

As part of initial advocacy efforts around these cuts, an organizational sign on letter has been drafted by Housing Works, FPWA, Citizen’s Committee for Children, Brooklyn Perinatal Network, and CPHS to be sent to the Mayor this Friday, April 26^th.

The sign on letter is available here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSZOel6m29vTKISy4Ws5pu92JOarSWxzd-bbTk1v5arsAzpw/viewform

We encourage every organization who is interested to please sign on by the end of the day Thursday, April 25^th. You can also sign up for updates on more advocacy efforts coming up. Please share widely as well!

Thanks so much – please let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I’d be happy to assist..

Take care,

— 

Anthony Feliciano

Commission on the Public’s Health System

Director

C/o WeWork

From Justen Ladda Volunteer extraordinaire of the Allen/Pike Mall.

“The benches on Allen Street are failing again.”

He had written to us about this a year or two ago.

“The design of the wooden slats is wrong and it will fail again and again, these benches will never work. The slats were replaced a year or two ago and will have to be replaced again soon. And again and again.”

“I think the benches should be replaced, ideally with the World’s Fair benches that were there originally, they’re strong, comfortable and good looking.

Allen Street Planting

Last fall Justen planted 750(!) tulip bulbs between Delancey and Broome streets hoping to make the park look like a Dutch tulip field.

“I was thrilled when a few weeks ago, the tulips starting to poke through the mulch, hundreds of them. Then a few days later I almost had a heart attack when I saw every last one had been taken out, leaving just little holes in the ground. Thankfully there were a few dozens that hadn’t yet poked through the mulch and came up later.”

Thank you to Justen for his tireless efforts to beautify this part of NYC and the Allen/Pike malls in particular.

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April 18th 2019 BY EASTRIVERALLIANCE

“We Have a Lot of Questions”

“Hear an interview with East River Alliance’s Naomi Schiller about the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan for flood control. She covers the range of our issues including these points”

Listen here.

Craine’s NY

“The choice isn’t paper or plastic any more—it’s bring your own bag, or pay more…”

“This is a big day for climate justice,” said Manhattan Councilwoman Margaret Chin, a co-sponsor of the bill. “We are excited that Albany has finally heard our call to take a meaningful action.”

Chin noted paper bags are in fact 40% heavier than plastic bags, making them in some ways more taxing on the strained municipal sanitation system.”

From Hypoallergic

“The workers report low wages, scarce benefits, and unstable working conditions, calling the conditions unfitting of a museum that was founded to celebrate the labor struggles of immigrant families.” Hakim Bishara

“We are a museum that prides itself on sharing the history of working-class people in New York and the Lower East Side, and sharing the difficult and successful stories of working-class labor,” said Anna Szapiro, an educator and costumed interpreter at the museum, in a conversation with Hyperallergic. “It’s only appropriate that the museum would then, in turn, do everything it could in order help its own workers to achieve that success.”

“..the workers report an amicable exchange with the management, which they attribute to the museum’s new leadership under President Kevin Jennings, a former Obama administration appointee who comes from an education and activism background.”

Read More Here.

We wish all parties well in their efforts to reach an understanding with the help of their new union!

A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like?

A film written and narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and illustrated by Molly Crabapple.

See video HERE.

April 14, 2019

“Dear Friend and Neighbor,

We are writing to invite you and members of your Community Based Organization to join us at a Community Town Hall Meeting on May 6^th 2019 on the Disposition of Catholic and other religiously owned and closed properties, currently slated for luxury housing development. This Town Hall meeting is being Co-sponsored by the Cooper Square Community Land Trust and Community Board #3, the Manhattan Borough President, Habitat for Humanity, Cooper Square Committee, Council Members Carlina Rivera and Margaret Chin, and a number of other political representatives and organizations.

In addition to a motion agreeing to co-sponsor the Town Hall meeting, CB#3 also passed a resolution urging the NY Archdiocese, and all other religious institutions in our neighborhood to agree to a one-year Moratorium on the Sale of any religiously-owned decommissioned property from the date of the Town Hall meeting, to give us time to develop alternative development options..

We are extremely concerned about the loss of houses of worship, community centers and schools leading to the secondary displacement effect of the sale of religiously-owned properties for redevelopment as luxury condos on poor and working class neighborhoods and communities of color.

The Town Hall meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, May 6^th 2019 at Cooper Union in the Rose Auditorium, 41 Cooper Square starting at 7:00PM and ending at 9:00PM.  The Town Hall meeting will consist of a brief presentation, based on the recent Rome Conference entitled “Doesn’t God Live Here Anymore? on the proper  reuse of closed or soon to close religiously-owned properties, where we were invited to make a presentation,  followed by three different panel discussions (supplemented by Power Point Presentations) covering:

1.      Churches and other places of worship and schools being sold for luxury condos. A focal point of discussion will be the closed Nativity Church, which is closely identified with Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and currently in the process of canonization by the Catholic Church. However, on our list we include a number of other buildings including St. Brigid’s School, St. Veronica’s on Christopher Street, and the People’s Church on East 111^th Street and St. Rose of Lima School on West 164^th Street.

2.      Political/ Legislative Initiatives to Support and Benefit Communities and Faith-Based Institutions and deincentivize sales for luxury condos.

3.      Towards a New Relationship between Communities and Religious Institutions: The Case of Community Land Trusts.

The purpose of the Town Hall meeting is to allow our community, in addition to parishioners and congregations of the NY Archdiocese and other institutions, to have a say in the disposition of decommissioned religious buildings.  We recognize the good that religious institutions do for our community, but they have a moral obligation to avoid doing harm.

Attached please find copy of the CB#3 Resolution endorsing the Town Hall meeting. Please let us know if you would like to have your Community Based Organization added to the list of Co-Sponsors. We also would welcome your joining with us to help plan and structure the first public discussion on the reuse of religiously-owned decommissioned properties, including churches, temples, community centers and schools.  For further information please contact the Cooper Square Community Land Trust at (212) 228-8210, X108 or Community Board #3, at 533-5300.

Sincerely,

Valerio Orselli, Project Director

Cooper Square Community Land Trust”

From Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

April 12, 2019 Larry Levine 

“From 2016 (a relatively dry year) to 2018, the number of days with a combined sewer overflow rose by 44%—from 85 days (as if that weren’t enough!) to 122.“

Excerpts: For full story Natural Resources Defense Council

“With climate change driving increased precipitation in the northeast, 2018 brought not only one of the wettest years on record in New York City, but also a sharp increase in sewage overflows. For local waterways, and an antiquated sewer system, it showed.  

“Recent data released by the state shows that New York City experienced sewage overflows, on average, once every 3 days in 2018. That’s a 44% increase from 2016.”

“The city’s sewer agency has long-term plans, roundly criticized by City Council and community organizations as insufficient, to reduce overflows over the next two decades. By the city’s own estimates—without accounting fully for climate change—these plans may still leave nearly 20 billion gallons overflowing per year.”

On April 16^th, attend public meeting for an update on the city’s development of sewage overflow control plans. The city will present options under consideration to reduce overflows to the Hudson River, East River, Harlem River, Long Island Sound, and other major waterbodies. And members of the public will have a chance to ask questions and speak their minds.

Receive alerts from New York State when a combined sewer overflow has occurred in your area.

Read up on solutions at Cut the Crap NYC, a new website sponsored by Riverkeeper, NRDC, and Save the Sound.

Reduce your own flow into the sewers, to help reduce overflows. ..

Read full article here.

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