NEW YORK – City Council Member Brad Lander released the following statement regarding his vote on the FY22 expense budget:
“After a pandemic year that threw our city into an economic crisis, we are fortunate today to be in a far better financial position, thanks in large part to federal relief, as well as progressive revenue increases at the state level.
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In negotiations over infrastructure investments connected to the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning, City Hall asks tenants to choose between essential repairs with three funding packages of up to $52 Million.
NEW YORK, NY – New York City Council Members Stephen Levin and Brad Lander stood with Gowanus Houses Tenant Association President Ed Tyree, Wyckoff Gardens Resident Association Leader Valerie Bell, NYCHA residents and community advocates to demand that the City increase its funding offer for long-deferred maintenance at the two NYCHA developments.
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“Uber and Doordash have made billions during the pandemic. They can afford to pay immigrant delivery workers a living wage.”
At today’s hearing of the Committee on Consumer Affairs and Business Licensing, the City Council will be hearing a package of bills to improve the working conditions of delivery workers, including Intro. 2294, sponsored by Council Member Lander, which would establish a minimum per-trip payment to food delivery workers, in order to guarantee them living wage pay.
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Good riddance to 2020.
This pandemic year has taught us many lessons. Some haven’t been so bad: we’ve learned how to bake, use Zoom, and found exquisite corners of Prospect Park we didn’t know existed.
Other lessons have been far harder: How to apply for unemployment. How to mourn together without hugs.
Many were lessons that it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for us to learn: To tip delivery workers generously and in cash.
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NEW YORK – Council Member Brad Lander welcomed the announcement today of the suspension of middle school admissions screens and high school district priority.
“This is a huge and important step towards fairness and integration in our schools, and fundamentally necessary this year to mitigate the inequalities of pandemic school,” said Council Member Brad Lander. “All too often admissions screens measure access to resources far more than ability, furthering segregation and inequality in our public schools.
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The New York City Council voted today on two pieces of legislation to give just cause protections to fast food workers in NYC. Introductions 1415 and 1396 will require fast food chains with more than 30 stores nationally to implement fair termination and progressive discipline policies.
Said Council Member Brad Lander:
“Fast food workers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic, serving their neighbors, working in tight quarters, taking on new responsibilities for sanitizing, and yet often unable to speak up about health and safety issues for fear of losing their jobs.
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Most of the conversation about rezonings tends to focus on new residential and commercial development. How tall will the buildings be? What uses will be allowed? How much of the housing will be affordable, and to whom? And those questions matter a lot, of course.
But that means we don’t usually spend enough time focusing on the infrastructure —
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But even with more opportunities to perform and renewed pandemic unemployment assistance (and hopefully stimulus checks too), it’s going to take a lot more to help artists get back on their feet and to revive art and culture in NYC.
I’m voting no today on the Flushing Rezoning. Organizing by community groups and labor unions, and leadership from my colleagues, has made the proposal better. And many of its shortcomings reflect broader failures of our land-use process. But it still does not meet the standards we should be setting for broadly-shared, equitable, and sustainable growth.
Council Member Brad Lander released the following statement following the City Council Zoning Subcommittee’s vote to amend and approve the application for 312 Coney Island Avenue on December 7, 2020:
“I share the frustration of many New Yorkers with a planning process that too often presents communities with reactive choices rather than including them in the process of shaping their neighborhoods.
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