Ben Kallos

A Local Law to amend the New York city charter, in relation to the voters guide requirements of the campaign finance board.

A Local Law to amend the New York city charter, in relation to an office of food policy.

This bill would require the City Council to set forth rules prohibiting Council Members from earning certain outside income and would make the position of Council Member full-time. The provisions of this bill and any rules promulgated pursuant to this bill would not apply to any Council Member who has engaged in another occupation, profession or employment during the current Council session, who intends to continue to engage in such occupation, profession or employment for the remainder of such session, and who submits a letter to the Speaker of the Council by March 1, 2016 describing such engagement and intention.

This bill would require city agencies that issue notices of violation that are returnable to the Environmental Control Board for adjudication to, where the alleged violation occurred in or on a building or lot, include the borough, block and lot number and building identification number, as applicable, of the building or lot. Finally, the bill provides that a notice of violation is still enforceable even if it does not include the required identifying information.

This bill would require the New York City Board of Elections to provide a secure website and mobile application that would allow users to (1) track the status of their absentee application and ballot; (2) view their registration status; (3) view the party for which they are a registered member; (4) view the federal, state, and local election districts in which they reside; (5) know whether they are required to bring any form of identification to vote; (6) view which elections held over the previous four calendar years for which they were registered to vote and whether they voted; (7) view the address at which they were previously registered to vote; (8) provide the option to receive alerts, including when there is a change in their registration status; (9) providing access to existing resources including (a) registering to vote, (b) updating registration information, (c) viewing sample ballots, (d) polling place locations, (e) voting hours, (f) signing up as a poll workers, and (g) viewing the voter guide.

Former Speakers used to reward Council Member allies with payments in lieu of compensation, or “lulus,” a practice that the Daily News called “legal bribery.” This resolution bans it from the City Council.

The legislation seeks to solve the following longstanding problems with affordable housing:

• Non-Registration – owners fail to register thousands of buildings with tens of thousands of units for which they receive hundreds of millions in tax breaks each year.
• Paper Applications – applicants must mail an application request, receive the application by mail, return the application by mail, and wait hoping nothing got lost in the mail.
• Lotteries and Rejections – three quarters of applications have been rejected in lotteries because individuals apply for the wrong affordable housing for their income.
• Waiting List Corruption – investigations revealed dozens of instances of corruption and bribery surrounding waiting lists for affordable housing.
• Numerous Individual Places to Apply – Multiple websites offered by DHCR,HPD, HDC  and non-profits like Met Council as well as at individual affordable housing buildings.

This local law would create an affordable housing internet portal. It provides requirements for both the portal itself and for units that would be listed on the portal.

This bill allows the city to impose tax liens on buildings which contain 20 or more dwelling units where the total value of all such judgments against the building is $60,000 or more, or a building which contains between 6 and 19 dwelling units, where the value of the judgments is $30,000 or more. The bill contains exceptions for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s preservation projects.

This bill would expand the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Third Party Transfer program, which allows the City to foreclose and sell distressed residential buildings to pre-qualified third parties, to include buildings whose owners have incurred large amounts of unsatisfied building violations.