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NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- As the city still faces challenges making sure every student is connected for remote learning, there's a proposal for a more permanent fix.

At this point, all 1.1 million school kids in New York City are learning remotely either part-time or full-time.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza recently acknowledged that 77,000 students don't have internet-capable devices for remote learning.

The Department of Education said it’s working on it, but Council Member Ben Kallos said more needs to be done. He and other elected leaders are proposing making the right to have a laptop a guarantee for all public-school students.

“Now is the time to make it a law that every single public-school student should have a right to a laptop and an internet connection during their education,” Kallos said.

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Fingers are being pointed in all directions after early voting lines snaked around buildings and stretched across city blocks this weekend.

Some saw the long lines outside voting sites in New York City on Saturday as a sign of voter enthusiasm, but Council Member Ben Kallos also sees it as bureaucratic incompetence.

“The Upper East Side and East Harlem had one site to share, and that’s just not enough,” Kallos said.

Asked about the issue on Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it falls to the city Council to change how the city Board of Elections works.

“If they want to make a change, they should just pass it. And whatever they pass, I will support in the Legislature,” the governor said.

But Kallos said state law mandates a certain number of early voting sites in any county and that the number is not at all tied to population density in that county, which led to the multi-hour waits this weekend.

Voters want certainty around their ballot and the absentee ballot tracker will provide that," said City Council Member Ben Kallos, who passed a bill in 2016 that mandated the city Board of Elections create this tracker, but the board told him they don't answer to the City Council. "I am grateful that the Board of Elections finally saw it fit to do their jobs."

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A bill to ban the use of toxic pesticides in New York City parks is up for a vote in the City Council on Wednesday.

The bill, which was proposed in 2019, has generated a slew of support from across the five boroughs.

As WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported, supporters stood on the steps of City Hall chanting, “No Roundup. No glyphosates. Stop spraying in our parks.”

Councilman Ben Kallos, who proposed the legislation, says the pesticides are harmful to the environment and humans.

“We’ve been working for five years since 2015. When we were ready to introduce the legislation in 2016, the World Health Organization had just announced that glyphosate, a neuro-disruptor and the active ingredient in Monsanto Roundup was a likely carcinogen,” he said.

The weed killer has been linked to leukemia and lymphoma and the manufacturer has settled multiple lawsuits from those who had used the herbicide.  

“Our goal is to ban this from our parks straight and simple,” he said

The measure has 34 co-sponsors, a veto-proof supermajority and the de Blasio administration now says it supports it.

Nearly 2 million New Yorkers would be automatically enrolled in a retirement savings plan under a new proposal before the City Council.

As WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reports, about 1.5 million private sector employees do not have access to a retirement savings program through their workplace.

The Universal Retirement Security bill, which has the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio would change that.

“Over a million New Yorkers work their whole lives and have nothing to show for it,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement. “Rather than work until the day they die, Universal Retirement Security will allow more New Yorkers to breathe a sigh of relief later in life and truly enjoy the years they’ve earned.”

Co-sponsor of the legislation, Councilman Ben Kallos, explained that companies would not contribute to the Universal Retirement Savings Program and stressed that it would cost employers nothing.

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — There’s a new initiative at City Hall to make kids’ meals in New York City healthier.

As WCBS 880’s Mike Sugerman reports, many children push their parents for kids’ meals because of the sugary sodas that automatically come with the deal.

“We left pre-kindergarten students in special education on a bus for ten hours, without a bathroom, without food, without their parents," Kallos said.

He explained he was horrified and immediately called Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office.

“They reached out to the police. We got the kid rescued. We got the kid in the hands of his mother by midnight," Kallos said.

The weather was one thing, but Kallos said the bus route was also so convoluted that it would have taken three hours to get this student home on a good day.