No Staff to Investigate Housing Discrmination, No Emergency Preparedness
Local News:
A legal unit at the NYC Commission for Human Rights that investigates housing discrimination claims no longer has any active staff after the city agency repeatedly failed to fill its vacancies.
New York City’s Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca (District 17, East Tremont, Hunts Point) propose a "Homeless Bill of Rights" that would list all the services to which unhoused New Yorkers are entitled in a single document. Though it won't create new laws to protect the homeless, it would lay out their rights including access to bathrooms and laundry facilities.
City Council grilled the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice about its plans in the event of a major storm. However, nearly a decade after Hurricane Sandy, the office continues to delay sharing such plans, and instead continues to wait for the US Army of Corp Engineers report, which won't be available in its final form for years.
New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board is considering approving rent hikes as high as 9 percent on rent-stabilized apartments in the City.
New York State prison officials have been blocking most requests for medical release before they ever reach the parole board, with little or no explanation.
Mayor Eric Adams proposed adding 100 seats for kindergartners and 1,000 seats for third-graders to the City’s gifted-and-talented program in public schools, while eliminating the admissions test. Under his proposal, pre-K teachers would nominate students for a lottery to gain access to the program.
Starting Thursday, adults in New Jersey will be able to legally purchase recreational cannabis at approved medical-marijuana dispensaries.
Political scientist Susan King explained to The New York Times that Tuesday’s mass shooting in the subway system demonstrates that increased police presence neither correlates with nor causes decreased crime.
A gay married couple has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to say that the city discriminated against them based on sex and sexual orientation when the city’s employee insurance plan refused to cover for their in vitro fertilization since neither member of the couple fit the City’s definition of “infertile.”
An arbitrator ruled that two Buffalo police officers who pushed a protester to the ground, leading to hospitalization for head injuries, after George Floyd’s murder was “legitimate.” A grand jury had decided a year ago not to indict the officers for felony assault.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board found that, of 181 NYPD officers known to have lied during internal investigations, not a single one was fired for it, despite it supposedly being a fireable offense. Only five faced any discipline at all.
New bail laws passed in New York State’s budget increase the number of crimes “for which defendants can be required to pay bail”
Elections:
Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin resigned after being indicted for campaign finance fraud. A Harlem real-estate developer collaborated with investigators to help expose Benjamin’s false dealings.
Democratic leaders in Albany are trying to change the law to allow them to remove former Lieutenant Governor Benjamin from the ballot in this year's Democratic primary election.
New York City’s Campaign Finance Board is investigating several independent expenditure committees, including Amplify Her and 1199 for Maya, for failing to disclose donors during the City’s 2021 election cycle.
Rep Your Block has accused the Brooklyn Democratic Party of forging signatures on ballot petitions.