Manhattan Councilman Ben Kallos, who is also a computer programmer, said the new initiative is “incredibly welcome” in his books. He maintained the necessity of protecting residents, businesses and government’s privacy as well as ensuring their safety.
The miscommunication today played out in “real-time,” as City Councilman Ben Kallos, the chairman of the committee on governmental operations put it, when, during the hearing, he asked Shorris why he had to leave—”for the record.”
Public Advocate Letitia James announced today she would introduce two bills that would expand the city’s power to penalize property owners with outstanding code violations—and expand the power of her own office and its annual “Worst Landlords List.”
Upper East and Upper West siders have been griping about Citi Bike’s below-Central Park coverage area since the program launched in May 2013, a state of affairs that ended today with the opening of new Citi Bike stations in both neighborhoods.
DOT, Citi Bike and other city officials marked the program’s expansion with an inaugural bike ride this morning, beginning at the new Upper East Side station at 67th Street and Lexington Avenue, then biking across Central Park to the new Upper West Side station at 63rd and Broadway.
“Uptown felt left out when the initial roll out came out. We were supposed to be a part of it, and now we are,” city councilmember Ben Kallos told the Observer.
Prior to the expansion, 59th Street was the Northernmost location for Citi Bike stations, with the exception of a single Westside station at 61stand Broadway.
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“The Upper East Side is a place where you can be the furthest from any form of public transportation,” Mr. Kallos said. “You can be living a half mile from the nearest subway station, and that subway station is overcrowded, and so are uptown buses. This will provide another form of public transportation.”
While many of us are somewhat dreading the forthcoming winter snowstorms—and ridership in the program has, not surprisingly, dropped off every winter—Mr. Kallos isn’t worried about the impending winter weather putting a damper on Citi Bike use.
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“The winter isn’t as cold as people make it out to be, and for the couple of days that it’s snowy and icy out, most people don’t even want to get in their car. Citi Bikes aren’t really something people use for longer than half an hour or 45 minutes, so you have the choice between walking half an hour or taking a bike ride.”
Following the Upper East and Upper West Side locations, Citi Bike will expand into Long Island City, Astoria, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope, among other neighborhoods.
Hearing the news, neighborhood residents stirred themselves promptly into a tizzy of protest. Hundreds turned out to raise a fuss (and learn more about the facts) at meetings of Community Board 6—whose jurisdiction encompasses the neighborhood—SAC and the East River 50s Alliance, a group organized for the express purpose of blocking the tower. Nearly 1,000 people have signed a petition opposing construction circulated by Councilman Ben Kallos, who represents the Upper East Side.
Councilmen Corey Johnson and Benjamin Kallos, fellow Manhattan Democrats, demonstrated with tenant groups ahead of the first 2015 meeting of the Rent Guidelines Board—and the announcement of three new de Blasio appointees to the nine-member panel charged with setting the annual increase for the city’s roughly one million rent stabilized apartments.
The Democrats chanted “fight, fight, fight, housing is a right” and “What do we want? Rollback!” with members of the Metropolitan Council on Housing and the Flatbush Tenants Council. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Kallos insisted that increasing property values, atrophying tenant wages and declining fuel costs justified a first-ever decrease in rents at regulated units.
A slew of city council and assembly members rallied at City Hall today to call for a rent freeze on rent-regulated apartments next year and, more ambitiously, the end of a law that has granted Albany great sway over how New York City regulates affordable housing.
Mr. Williams–along with Council members Ben Kallos, Vanessa Gibson, Mark Levine and Corey Johnson and Assembly members Richard Gottfried, Walter Mosley and Linda Rosenthal–took turns railing against both the restrictions placed on the city’s ability to rent regulate and the failure of the Rent Guidelines Board to not enact a freeze on rent-controlled apartments this year.
22 council members will now take part in participatory budgeting, up from 10 currently. Each council member will have at least $1 million to dole out to projects that their district votes for in next year’s budget. In total, more than $25 million will be spent on future projects, Ms. Mark-Viverito said.
Began in 2011 with just four council members (Ms. Mark-Viverito, not yet the speaker, was one of them), the program is now enticing many council members from the body’s liberal wing and even a handful of moderates. Many freshmen lawmakers are also getting involved, including Council members Andrew Cohen, Paul Vallone, Mark Levine, Carlos Menchaca, Daneek Miller, Ritchie Torres, Mark Treyger, Corey Johnson, Mark Treyger, Ben Kallos and Helen Rosenthal.
Also not doing so well: Second Avenue businesses. Those that have not already closed are just barely limping along with subway construction on its umpteenth year and Councilman Ben Kallos thinks that the city should provide grants to keep the survivors alive, according to DNAinfo. “Small businesses located within 150 feet of municipal construction sites would be eligible to apply for grants if they could show a 10 percent reduction in taxable income compared to the year before construction began.”
