Dear John
Last weekend in Harlem, two police officers were shot. Tragically, one died immediately and the other passed away a few days later in the hospital. Not even a day after the shooting, an 11-month old child in the Bronx was hit in the cheek by a stray bullet.
This past week has been an incredibly difficult one for our city, with multiple tragedies occurring almost simultaneously. Over the past two years, our city has seen a horrific increase in gun violence with most of it concentrated in Black and brown communities. Too many young people, including 27-year-old police officer Wilbert Mora and 22-year-old police officer Jason Rivera, have been taken from us far too soon as this problem plagues our city. Let’s be clear, New York City is still one of the safest major cities in the country, but spouts of crime and random acts of violence during the pandemic have created an understandable perception that things are not okay. We need to take action to end gun violence in our city, but they should be grounded in evidence-based practices that actually make our communities safer like funding hospital and community-based violence interruption programs as proposed by State Senator Zellnor Myrie.
This past week, Mayor Adams released his “Blueprint to End Gun Violence”. The plan has some good ideas that I campaigned on like increasing funding for mental health services, supporting community-driven gun violence reduction strategies, and increasing youth job programs. But, his plan also calls to roll back the progressive bail reform which ended the classist practice of cash bail, and to repeal the Raise The Age law which reformed our criminal justice system to ensure 16 and 17-year-olds couldn’t be tried as adults. The Mayor also is pushing forward with reviving the NYPD plainclothes unit and implementing facial recognition surveillance measures despite the serious civil rights issues involved. These regressive policies are reminiscent of the Guliani era when young Black and brown men were harassed in this city by the NYPD with impunity. Make no mistake, this plan is a massive step backward when we need to be looking forward towards a more caring future for NYC.
I am concerned that the mayor’s plan will simply put more people behind bars. As a member of our City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee and as someone who visited Rikers at the start of my term, I am committed to ensuring our City is safe but doing so without increasing the population at Rikers. Cages do not make our City safer, community care does. I will do everything I can to support the positive and community-centered parts of the Mayor’s plan, but I was not sent to City Hall to send teenagers to jail or provide camouflage to cops. We need to invest in the social services that make our communities whole and the anti-violence programs that keep our communities safe. This is what I will fight for to make our community, and our City, safe for everyone.
COVID-19
It seems that the worst is behind us. Hospitalizations are down significantly and case numbers are down below 8,000 for the first time in weeks. It’s unclear whether or not we will see a return to pre-Omicron case numbers but we are certainly on a downward trend that hopefully continues. Remember, get your booster and when you are masked make sure it is a high-quality mask! Omicron is still spreading at a rapid rate in our communities and the best protection against this new variant is a high-quality and tight-fitting mask. Also, in our last newsletter, I talked about how the City’s childhood vaccination rates were well below 50% but I am so proud to let you all know that District 39 is above 80% for childhood vaccination rates! You can see how vaccine data is broken down across the City on the Department of Health website here.
Participatory Budgeting Recap
And just like that…Participatory Budgeting Cycle 11 ideas collection is over! This was a unique year for ideas collection because unlike in the past, we only had two short weeks to do community outreach. Turnover with the new Council meant that we were working to get our office up and running at the same time making sure our community knew they could submit ideas for neighborhood projects. Despite these challenges, I’m so proud to announce we collected over 100 ideas on how YOU want to see your public dollars get spent! It was great to see all the community members who came to our events and thank you to our fearless Participatory Budgeting leader Hannah for shepherding this process through a wild new start and the freezing winter. We’ll be submitting your ideas to city agencies for vetting and review in the coming days and then bring those ideas back to our District Committee volunteer to finalize the Participatory Budgeting ballot.
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Our youth committee’s idea collection event at the 6/15 Green community garden! Thanks to our friends Peggy and Paul for hosting us.
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Last but not least, I hope you all made the most of our snowy weekend! Our hard-working Department of Sanitation has this amazing interactive map where you can check out which roads are plowed and which are still covered in ❄️snow❄️. If your sidewalk is still a bit icy, you can always text, or call, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (or NICE) at 347-286- 1479 to hire someone to help with snow removal!
In Solidarity,
Shahana
P.S. Tax season is almost here! Remember, if you’re a family that makes less than $72,000 a year, or a single filer making less than $50,000, you can file through New York State’s free tax filing service. If you’d like to make an appointment with any of the many state tax specialists, you can find a few located in our district using this map.
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