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Winter 2024 Report What’s Inside
Dear Neighbors & Friends, I’m excited to be back to Albany for the 2024 legislative session fighting for a New York that is greener, more affordable and more just. I’m working on several initiatives to fight climate change, expand access to affordable housing, equitably fund our schools, ensure economic security for our workers, and more. Since the Governor introduced her budget proposal in January, I have participated in budget hearings and meetings to review the needs of New Yorkers and the agencies and nonprofits that serve them. One thing is clear: New Yorkers have been strong in the face of adversity, from recovering from a pandemic to dealing with supply shortages to stagnating wages that made day-to-day life harder. The state budget is a critical opportunity to pass a smart budget and policies to bring costs down and provide relief to keep New Yorkers healthy and our economy running. Revenue is needed to breathe real life into our priorities. I am pushing for two of my revenue-raising initiatives to be included in the budget. One would stop taxpayer handouts to the fossil fuel industry, and the other would stop wage theft from workers and generate funds for our Labor Department workforce. Additional revenue will ensure that we can achieve certain goals, such as fairly paying our home care workers who care for older people and people with disabilities. It will also ensure we have enough funds to support outreach efforts to enroll people in SNAP so they can put food on the table for their families - and generate matching federal funds which are used right in our communities. We have much work ahead of us, but we are moving in a good direction for 2024. Sincerely,
Jo Anne Simon P.S. To receive biweekly emails from me on policy updates and community events, please respond to this email, or complete this brief form. DOB Workshop, 3/5/2024: My office is hosting staff from the NYC Department of Buildings on Tuesday, March 5, with open slots available from 4:30 - 5:30pm, at 341 Smith St, Brooklyn. This will be an opportunity for you to speak one on one with a DOB representative regarding questions or concerns on work permits, building code violations, and more. Appointments are required. Once you sign up, my staff will reach out to confirm your appointment time. Please sign up for an appointment on this form or call my office at 718-246-4889. OATH Resource Day, 3/7/2024: I am partnering with the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) for a Resource Day on Thursday, March 7 from 11am-3pm at the Brooklyn Heights Public Library (286 Cadman Plaza W). OATH staff will be on hand to answer your questions pertaining to how to respond to summonses, how to schedule hearings, what is the hearing process, and more. This event is for walk-ins, and no advance appointment is needed. Stopping Wage Theft. It should be a given that workers are paid for the wages they have earned, but there is an unconscionable amount of wage theft in New York. Wage theft impacts so many hard-working New Yorkers, particularly lower wage workers, people of color, and women. I’m proud to have introduced the Empire Worker Protection Act (A9012), which will empower affected workers to initiate public enforcement actions on behalf of the NYS Department of Labor (DOL). Workers can help recover civil penalties as private attorneys general, a common mechanism in civil rights laws. The bill will encourage labor organizations to support members in filing violations, and bring over $100 million to the DOL annually, enabling it to hire more enforcement and other staff. Wage theft dwarfs other types of theft, with one estimate putting the amount owed New York workers at $3 billion per year. Our DOL is understaffed and underfunded, which leads unscrupulous employers – who bet on the low likelihood of getting caught and penalized – to violate workers' rights to pad their profits. This bill is estimated to generate over $100 million every year for the DOL.
Women’s History Month Nominations: Each March, we honor the incredible women who fought to give future generations a brighter future and who strive every day to make an indelible mark on our community and our world. For Women’s History Month, I invite you to nominate a dynamic and inspiring woman from our community. Please email [email protected] the name and a short bio of a woman in our community who you believe has had a positive uniting impact in our district. Check out our previous Women of Distinction here. Gowanus Cleanup. The Gowanus Canal cleanup is well underway. The Canal was designated a superfund site in 2010 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The cleanup plan includes dredging and capping the canal floor and installing controls to prevent combined sewer overflows and other contamination from compromising the cleanup. The EPA is putting the final armor layer on the newly cleaned bottom of the northern stretch of the Canal. The contractors will then place clean sand on top of the armor layer to fill in the gaps and restore the canal bottom as a habitat for plant and animal life. Another aspect of the cleanup of the area near the Canal is run by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which is the agency in charge of the Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP). The BCP was created to encourage private-sector cleanups of sites with industrial legacies so as to promote their redevelopment as a means to revitalize economically blighted communities. Brownfield sites are land where contaminant(s) are present at levels exceeding the soil cleanup objectives or other health-based or environmental standards. I recently held a large community forum during which DEC and State Department of Health (DOH) presented on the BCP and the Soil Vapor Intrusion testing (SVI). DEC is surveying indoor air quality to ensure no public health concerns are found inside people's homes. If you recently received a letter from DEC requesting access to your property to conduct the SVI testing, I recommend that you sign up. If they find that cleanup is necessary, they will work with the property owner to clean up the area at no cost to the property owner. You can view a recording of the event on my YouTube page. The link to DEC's and DOH's PowerPoint presentation is here and is also included in the video description. You can also view the DEC’s main webpage on the Gowanus cleanup here. Gowanus Housing: I’m relieved that the Governor stepped in to ensure that 5,300 housing units (1400 affordable) created through the City’s Gowanus rezoning will be built. The developers had relied on the controversial 421-a tax credit and began a project under that program. However, due to supply chain delays and pressure by the lenders to finish a year earlier than was required to receive the tax credit, they would have been left without the ability to build or the time necessary to do the extensive environmental cleanup work. The Governor’s initiative provides them with ample time for the comprehensive cleanup of these toxic brownfields. The public’s health is paramount, so it's imperative that we prioritize environmental stewardship and adhere to all applicable legal and scientific standards for any new building in Gowanus. Bill to Reform School Shooter Lockdown Drills. I introduced a new bill (A6665) with Senator Andrew Gounardes to ensure that New York schools are conducting at least one effective, trauma-informed lockdown drill, rather than the current mandate of 4 drills which are highly problematic and not guided by evidence-based procedures. Lockdown drills to prepare schools for school shooters have proven to be ineffective and stressful for students and are associated with increased anxiety and depression among schoolchildren. Some children even fear for their lives not understanding their drill was a simulation. My bill will ensure parents are notified in advance of these drills and give them the option to opt-out should they choose. We must not do more harm than good to our students, and this legislation looks to evidence-based solutions to address gun violence in our state. We must take the onus off our kids to keep themselves safe from gun violence. This bill idea was brought to me by local parents and is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics-NY Chapter, March for our Lives (national student group), and gun violence prevention experts. The Daily News’s editorial board also wrote in support of my bill.
Provide Public Comments on Congestion Pricing Fees: You can now submit comments on the Traffic Mobility Review Board’s (TMRB) recommended fee and tolling structures for NY’s congestion pricing program. The public comment period will allow for possible tweaks to this program before the final MTA vote in the spring of 2024. Submit feedback online here or by email: [email protected]. You can also make comments at public hearings in March (details here). Read the TMRB report here, including credits for those paying a tunnel toll, and a summary from the Gothamist here. Fighting Climate Change. I am pleased to have introduced a bill to fight climate change and eliminate state tax handouts to fossil fuel industries (A7949) - the Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act. The climate crisis – caused primarily by fossil fuel pollution – is the greatest threat before us. Greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuel industry warm the planet and pollute communities while oil companies reap such enormous profits that they are now the most profitable industry in history. Shockingly, New York State currently supports the fossil fuel industry with over $1.6 billion in handouts every year. That’s taxpayer money wasted on supporting Big Oil (companies like Exxon, BP, and Chevron) to destroy the planet. The Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act eliminates the tax handouts that prop up the most egregious parts of the fossil fuel industry. It pinpoints and eliminates the worst handouts to polluters: incentives that support research and development within the fossil fuel industry, the use of highly polluting airline fuel and commercial shipping "bunker" fuel, and the operation of fracked gas infrastructure, among many others. The bill does not touch the tax breaks that benefit low- and mid-income earners. New Yorkers already experience the effects of climate change: heat waves, floods, and intense storms wreak havoc on our communities. We cannot risk normalizing the increase in such extreme weather events from climate change. By offering tax handouts, we effectively use taxpayer money to pay companies to put New Yorkers’ lives at risk. In total, the bill raises $330 million for the state by making polluters pay their fair share of taxes. This bill aligns our state spending with the climate goals to which NY has already committed. New York’s 2019 “green new deal” set ambitious targets for reducing emissions, which can only be reached by ending our reliance on fossil fuels. I also sponsor a climate education bill (A1559) which would establish instruction on climate change for pre-K through high school. This bill was just revised with input from young people around the state (how cool is that?). There are several other key initiatives which would make a real difference in fighting climate change like the Climate Superfund Act and the NY HEAT Act. Literacy & Education. We are finally making progress in our goal to use evidence-based approaches to teach reading and improve literacy rates for all - and that is because of organizing and coalition-building. Thanks to the growth and advocacy of our coalition, we are seeing action from our City and State leaders. I was proud to join Governor Hochul as she announced a plan to improve reading proficiency and focus on evidence-based best practices (rather than debunked literacy methods that are much too prevalent in NY). The Governor will direct $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the science of reading and structured literacy, with additional funding to expand college based micro-credential programs in the science of reading. This did not happen overnight. I’ve been hosting dyslexia and literacy events at the Capitol for 8 years and building a coalition of parents, teachers, students, legislators, advocates who have shared their personal stories and advocated for NY to use best practices. This coalition has been working hard locally to change the conversation and advocate for themselves and their loved ones. The Mayor of NYC is also pushing his NYC Reads program. I’m a part of Path Forward, a new initiative to transform teacher preparation and teacher licensure programs to include the science of reading. But we must be vigilant and ensure that these initiatives are robust, effective, well-implemented and well-funded. We also must pass my bill A08924 to audit the higher education literacy programs so we have a better understanding of which ones are using evidence-based literacy teaching methods and which ones are using debunked methods, so we can right this wrong. Hold the Date for the 9th Annual Dyslexia Awareness Day: Advocating for Literacy for All. Please join me and our coalition at the Capitol in Albany on Thursday, March 14, 2024. RSVP here.
Atlantic Yards: Developer Defaults on Bonds as Housing Remains Unbuilt. As the chronically delayed Atlantic Yards project marked its 20th anniversary, I joined community members and BrooklynSpeaks to call for change in New York State’s oversight process, including increased accountability for unfulfilled housing and other promises made by developers. Twenty years ago, the public was promised a ‘Garden of Eden’ above ‘blighted’ rail yards. Empire State Development (ESD) green-lit the risky project, took private property through eminent domain and now – during an historic housing crisis – the public is left without 40% of the promised affordable housing and nothing above the rail yards. In addition to the now two decades of delays, the project recently hit a potentially fatal roadblock when the current developer Greenland USA (a subsidiary of China’s Greenland Holdings) defaulted on EB-5 debt borrowed to finance the project. Greenland USA may lose control of six development sites over the MTA rail yards between Sixth Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn (unless the State and the lenders reach an agreement with them). Originally scheduled for auction on January 11, 2024, that foreclosure sale has been postponed. Stay tuned! In the wake of the developer’s default, I have little confidence that damages owed for missed deadlines will ever be paid, although I have been assured otherwise. By not holding the developers accountable from the onset, ESD encouraged them to take large risks. This default is a direct result of ESD’s bungled stewardship over the past 20 years. I will continue to fight for a new oversight process and a more equitable and transparent Atlantic Yards that delivers the public benefits that were promised. Community Resources & Events
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