Improving Roosevelt Island’s Emergency Preparedness
August 30, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg and our emergency response teams have done a tremendous job responding to Hurricane Irene. The decisions they made saved lives and reminded the world just how effective New York City’s emergency response is. However, Hurricane Irene has also provided a
unique opportunity to see gaps in emergency planning, allowing us to correct them before future disasters occur. Specifically, I am concerned about protecting and evacuating the residents of Roosevelt Island.
Although Roosevelt Island is located in Hurricane Zone “B” which was not evacuated, if the City had decided to evacuate Zone “B”, there was no practical plan in place to safely evacuate the Island’s residents. With both MTA subway and bus services suspended and the Roosevelt Island Tram shut down, the only point of access to leave the Island was the Roosevelt Island Bridge. Should the storm have been any worse, the Roosevelt Island Bridge would have been closed, isolating two acute-care hospitals, Coler and Goldwater, and nearly 14,000 residents, many of whom are elderly or disabled on the Island. You can see pictures of the damage on Roosevelt Island here.
I have called on Mayor Bloomberg to have the Office of Emergency Management meet with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation and local elected officials to discuss ways to improve the emergency preparedness plan for Roosevelt Island. You can read my letter below:
8.29.11 Letter to Mayor RI Emergency Plans
Putting NYC Animal Care and Control Out Of Its Misery
August 22, 2011
Anyone who has dealt with New York City’s Animal Care and Control (ACC) can attest to the many problems this organization faces. Whether it be a lack of funding, or a lack of oversight, the structural inefficiencies of ACC have cost a countless number of innocent animals their lives. Right now, more than 25% of the animals taken in by ACC are killed; in fact, last year ACC brought in 39,111 cats and dogs, of which 10,705 were euthanized. The only way that we can get ACC back on the right track is to change the way the organization functions.
On average, communities across the Country spend approximately $8 per person to properly care for their shelter animals. New York City‘s animal shelters are being run on less than 84 cents. This discrepancy is a clear statement from the city that they are not concerned with the health and welfare of New York City‘s animals. Perhaps even worse, ACC has had 4 different Executive Directors in the past 8 years. It is impossible for an organization to function properly if it faces problems that are so dire, no one seems up to the task.
This is why last Friday, I joined Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal and animal advocates at a press conference to call for a complete overhaul of ACC. The Borough President has found a lasting solution to this issue by transforming the broken ACC into a not-for-profit that could raise millions of dollars to beef up New York‘s level of animal care.
Borough President Stringer’s plan calls for a reconfiguration of ACC so it can operate as an independent non-profit entity, like the Central Park Conservancy, which was founded in 1980 to address Central Park’s state of complete disrepair following the recession of the late 1970′s. Today, the Park is a wonderful oasis thanks to $390 million in funds the Conservancy has raised. This is the model we need to adopt for ACC. You can read the Borough President’s Op-Ed on the Huffington Post.
Once appropriate funding is secured, we can finally ensure that every borough has a full service shelter. The law requires that each borough have a shelter operating 24/7, with adoption and sterilization services, but the City has failed to comply. The ACC contract only provides for full service shelters in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, and if that is not bad enough, the Brooklyn and Staten Island facilities do not even qualify as full service shelters because they do not accept animals 24 hours a day. Animals are even worse off in the Bronx and Queens, where the ACC contract only provides for ‘receiving centers’ which are only open once or twice a week for 8 hours.
We realize that if we build more schools, the development of our children will improve- they will have new resources and more room to learn, so they are not crammed in a classroom with 50 other students and forced to share a desk. If we finally realize that new facilities could have the same type of effect on our city’s dogs and cats, we can pull them from their crowded cages, and give them a fighting chance to get back on track. When 25% of them are being killed, we are definitely doing something wrong.
Please make sure to sign Borough President Stringer’s petition calling for an overhaul of the NYC ACC here.
Putting Taxi Accessibility in the Fast Lane
August 2, 2011
Much has been made by the Mayor about providing New Yorkers who live in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Northern Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island with access to street hail taxi service, but what about the thousands of New Yorkers who use wheelchairs and live in these areas? This issue has continued to elude the Mayor for years, but luckily I have found a solution.
I am proud to announce that after working in concert with the largest taxi and livery associations in New York, I have developed the Access-for-All Taxi and Livery Plan (A4ATL), a plan which will vastly increase wheelchair accessible taxi and livery service for New Yorkers in all five boroughs. This landmark agreement requires all newly auctioned yellow taxi medallions to be accessible and includes the establishment of a task force to improve taxi and livery accessibility for all New Yorker’s with disabilities. The A4ATL plan will increase the number of accessible taxis and liveries from roughly 300 to 3,000 over the next three years.
Specifically, my plan modifies the existing “livery street hail” plan by:
- Requiring all 1,500 of the new yellow taxi medallions be accessible, rather than just the 569 in the original plan
- Replacing the 30,000 non-accessible livery street hail permits with a far more feasible 6,000 livery street hail medallions, 1,200 of which will be wheelchair accessible.
Not only will this plan deliver better transportation opportunities to wheelchair-users, but it raises much-needed revenue for the City and saves the cash-strapped MTA scarce funds. This will create an incredible opportunity for the MTA’s Access-A-Ride to take advantage of these new cabs to save money while at the same time providing a superior service.
While I will continue to push for 100% accessibility, I’m encouraged that the taxi and livery industries recognize that they can do well by doing good and I commend them for it. With groups like the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, the Livery Round Table, the Federation of New York State Taxi Drivers, the Greater New York Taxi Association, the Committee for Taxi Safety, the League of Mutual Taxi Owners and the Taxicab Service Association all in favor of the plan, the entire industry has shown that they are ready to pull up to the curb and turn on the meter for wheelchair-users.
Whether a person is on two feet or four wheels, in Manhattan or the Bronx, everyone should be able to hail a taxi.
You can read my full press release below:
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