On the night of the 2016 election, I quoted the words of Joe Hill, a labor organizer and songwriter, who was falsely charged with murder and executed in Utah in 1915, in a telegraph to a Bill Haywood: “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!”
Read MoreWe never should have had to fight this battle. It’s still hard to believe that the New York State Senate GOP cares so little about the lives of our kids that they allowed the school-zone speed camera program to expire -- despite overwhelming evidence that they reduce crashes and save lives.
Read MoreWith New York State primary elections just a few days away, I’ve been pretty focused this month on politics close to home (more or that below). And I’m hoping that, like me (we’re in Nova Scotia), some of you are getting much-needed time this week with your families before school & a very busy fall start back up in earnest.
But hearings on the horrifying nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court begin next week -- and the disastrous impact of his appointment to the Court will last much longer than a week, a month, a year, or even a decade. So it’s worth some of our time right now to join the fight to #CancelKavanaugh.
Read MoreThe City Council is voting today on a package of legislation regulating app-based ride hailing companies in NYC.
It’s a big topic, with a lot of competing interests. Uber and Lyft have been projecting doomsday scenarios (which the Daily News rightly calls “bunk”). I understand how important these services are, particularly in the outer boroughs. For many families, including people of color who have faced decades of discrimination, these app-based companies have been a real game-changer and have improved service where both public transit and traditional yellow-taxi service have failed to serve all New Yorkers.
Read MoreThe way it looks to me, we’re facing a crisis in our democracy. And I don’t just mean Donald Trump, the partisan divide, or gaping inequality (as serious as those are). Collectively, in NYC and far beyond, we aren’t taking good care of our democracy.
We’ve got embarrassingly low voter turnout (last September, just 15% of voters showed up for the NYC primary elections that selected citywide leaders). Steep declines in civic trust, especially in government. Here in NYC, according to the census, we’ve even got some of the lowest levels of volunteerism. A crisis of civic participation.
Read MoreThat’s why I got arrested this morning, outside State Senator Marty Golden’s office in Bay Ridge: to keep more kids from dying.
We were there to demand that Golden and his colleagues head back to Albany immediately to renew and expand NYC’s school-zone speed camera program.The evidence is clear: speed cameras save kids’ lives. At intersections with speed cameras, speeding dropped by a whopping 63%, leading to fewer and less dangerous crashes.
Read MoreLike so many of you, I’m feeling deeply conflicted this #FathersDay. So grateful for my remarkable blessings, as both a son and a father. And so angry and horrified and helpless by the torture our country is inflicting on immigrant fathers and their kids, not one iota less deserving or human than mine.
Read MoreFor hundreds of thousands of working-poor New Yorkers like Shani Rahman, the price of a monthly MetroCard can exceed 10% of their household budget -- keeping them from getting medical care, buying new clothes for their kids, even forcing them to beg for a swipe just to get to work. Poverty is so often a vicious cycle, and the high cost of our public transportation has been one painful example … until now.
The 2018-2019 budget that the City Council and the Mayor have agreed upon will provide groundbreaking relief to low-income straphangers. Thanks to the #FairFares program that we’ve worked on together, New Yorkers below the poverty line (about $25,000 for a family of four) will be able to get half-priced MetroCards. It’s a strong new strand of NYC’s social safety net.
Read MoreI know how much you care about the environment, so I wanted to share with you a recent Politico article that highlights an ongoing #PlanetOrPlastic battle: can we effectively recycle polystyrene foam (aka styrofoam)?
The answer is no. But don’t just take my word for it. The New York City Department of Sanitation, after a two-year exhaustive study, concluded that styrofoam could not be recycled in an economically efficient and environmentally feasible manner. Environmental groups agree: It will wind up in landfills, where it will remain, literally, forever.
Read MoreFifty years ago this month, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968. The law was passed just days after Dr. King was killed, inspired by his words:
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”
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