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March/April 2012
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Blog Contributors
Jarrett Murphy
City Limits
Helen Zelon
Johann Hamilton
Neil deMause
What’s Not to Like About the Cuomo Budget?
For a budget address, Governor Cuomo's speech on Tuesday spent relatively little time on the nuts and bolts of the state's fiscal 2013 spending plan. Seeking to turn a symbolic page from last year's nasty budget fight, the governor argued that closing New York's $2 billion fiscal hole is a simple matter of eliminating waste and cancelling automatic budget increases. The bulk of the gov's talk was about his "reform agenda" of economic development, government streamlining, avoiding future pension obligations and teacher evaluations.
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Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, NYCHA, Albany, Urban Planning and Policy, Workforce and Labor, Housing and Development, Government, The Economy, Andrew Cuomo, Budget
Report: NYCHA Residents' Unemployment Has Nearly Tripled
A new report by the Community Service Society details new opportunities to connect residents of the New York City Housing Authority, the nation's oldest and largest public housing agency, to work. For one thing, the mayor's new Young Men's Initiative targets the very demographic group most at need on NYCHA complexes. For another, federal regulators recently ruled that the NYPD, which receives $73 million a year from the housing authority to provide protection, must comply with a rule compelling NYCHA contractors to hire public housing residents.
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Related topic categories: NYCHA, Urban Planning and Policy, Housing and Development
NYCHA Big Says (Again) That Mass Layoffs May Be Coming
On Friday, Aug. 12, Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea reinforced worries about mass layoffs when he posted an entry on NYCHA's agency-wide blog warning of "significant challenges" the agency faces in closing a looming multi-million-dollar deficit, measures that very well may include "3,000 direct service jobs being cut."
While NYCHA's finances have gotten a boost in recent years from increased federal spending, including the largest single grant to a public housing authority under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act in 2009, talk about layoffs at the agency has been swirling for months—with Rhea warning about the possibility of layoffs in testimony to the City Council in June; Friday's posting by the chairman was a reminder that the threat is still out there.
Related topic categories: NYCHA, Urban Planning and Policy, Housing and Development
Who's Afraid Of The Prospect Park West Bike Lane?
For the most part, there's nothing extraordinary about the opposition to the Prospect Park West bike lane. New Yorkers are always arguing over how best to use the finite amount of space that constitutes their physical city.
Whether its unions upset over a big-box store, 9/11 survivors (well, some of them) opposed to an Islamic center, homeowners annoyed at a planned high-rise development or someone who doesn't want a transfer station, filtration plant, homeless shelter, sports arena or university lab on site X, opposition to real estate and planning decisions is ubiquitous.
Related topic categories: Urban Planning and Policy, Transportation, Health and Environment, Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA)
