14 minute read
FIRST READ
“When does the hard part start?”
– New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in response to hearing that being mayor is the second-hardest job in the U.S. at the National Press Club
Advertisement
Alarming reporting by The New York Times detailed the failures of many yeshivas to sufficiently educate their students in secular subjects.
NEW ERA OF OVERSIGHT ON YESHIVAS?
Allegations that many of New York’s Hasidic Jewish private schools have failed to deliver adequate instruction in secular studies like math, English, history and science in favor of intense religious instruction have dogged yeshivas for years. After digging into these accusations for over a year, The New York Times reported that every one of the 1,000 students at the Central United Talmudical Academy who took state standardized reading and math tests in 2019 failed, as did children at nearly a dozen other yeshivas. A few days after the story was published, the state Board of Regents unanimously approved
SAFELY SILENT
The most talked about story in New York last week didn’t leave some of the state’s top elected officials with much to say. A bombshell New York Times’ story garnered outrage from critics and defenders of the quality of secular education in yeshivas, but New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul had hands-off responses. Der Blatt, a Yiddish newspaper published by the Satmar Hasidim, noted Hochul’s relative silence on the issue with its loud headline “WAR!” regulations that give “We’re going to have to find places to house these individuals because of who we say we are: We’re going to have to live up to that.” – New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on how the arrival of thousands of migrants have pushed the homeless shelter system to its breaking point, via the New York Post teeth to a state law that requires private schools to offer an education “substantially equivalent” to public schools. Those not in compliance could lose access to public funding.
SHELTER SYSTEM OVERWHELMED
New York City’s homeless shelter system once again failed to fulfill its legal obligation to provide a bed to every person who requests one when at least 60 men – many of whom were migrant asylum-seekers – were left unhoused on the night of Monday, Sept. 12. The next day, the news swiftly sparked both outrage and alarm. This was only the latest incident in which the strained system has buckled due to the influx of thousands of migrants entering the city – many of whom were bussed in by the Texas governor. And for months, the city Department of Homeless Services has struggled to fulfill the right to shelter law. While The Legal Aid Society threatened to sue if the city is unable to resolve the issue soon, this was only one aspect of the backlash. New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued a statement on Sept. 14, saying the city’s system is “nearing its breaking point” so prior practices “must be reassessed.” Condemnation was swift, with many interpreting the words to reference the right to
shelter law, though later, the mayor’s team said that every New Yorker does have a right to shelter, but the entire system must be reassessed.
FORMER CUOMO AIDE SUES OVER ALLEGED SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Charlotte Bennett, a onetime aide to Andrew Cuomo, sued the former governor on Wednesday – about a year and a half after she first publicly spoke about the unwanted advances he’d allegedly made on her, including asking if she’d be open to having sex with an older man. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in New York City, reiterates many of Bennett’s sexual harassment allegations and also accuses Cuomo of engaging in retaliation and gender discrimination. The lawsuit is at least the second to have been filed by the many women who accused the former governor of sexual harassment, which eventually led to his resignation last summer. In the months since, Cuomo’s team has repeatedly attempted to question the credibility of the women as well as the accuracy of the lengthy investigative report conducted by the state attorney general’s office. A mere day before Bennett filed her lawsuit, the former governor filed a state ethics complaint against state Attorney General Letitia James, accusing her of intentionally mishandling the investigation. This is only the latest attempt Cuomo has taken to rehabilitate his image and is unlikely to be the last.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was sued by his onetime aide Charlotte Bennett over alleged sexual harassment.
New poll: Hochul leads Zeldin 52% to 39%
Gov. Kathy Hochul is up 13 percentage points on Rep. Lee Zeldin in a new Data for Progress poll of the New York gubernatorial race. Some 52% of likely voters said they’ll vote for the Democratic incumbent Hochul, while 39% said they’ll vote for the Republican challenger, Zeldin. Another 9% said they weren’t sure.
The progressive-leaning pollsters reached 931 likely voters through text message and web links to an online poll from Sept. 9-13. The poll was conducted in English only, and the margin of error was 3%.
Any single poll should be taken with a grain of salt, but reviewed together, recent public polling for the Nov. 8 election suggests that Hochul maintains a comfortable lead over Zeldin. The Republican’s campaign has highlighted some recent polls showing a closer race, within 10 percentage points, but at least one such poll, but the Trafalgar Group, was an outlier that included a candidate who had not even qualified for the ballot.
Democrats are hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning abortion protections will be a motivating factor in this year’s midterm elections. The poll found 70% of likely voters said abortion should be “legal under most circumstances” – including 93% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans. Just 23% said abortion should be “illegal under most circumstances.”
Republicans had a slight edge over Democrats in enthusiasm, however. Some 39% said they were “more enthusiastic about voting in 2022 than usual,” while 35% of Democrats said the same. Overall, just 18% of likely voters said they were less enthusiastic than usual this year.
Both Hochul and Zeldin were about even in their favorability among voters: 47% had a favorable view of Hochul to 45% unfavorable. Just 8% said they hadn’t heard enough to say. Zeldin was even, at 33% favorable and 33% unfavorable, with 34% unsure.
Hochul can thank New York state’s greater than 2-to-1 Democratic voter enrollment advantage for her lead in the poll. Some 88% of Democrats said they’d vote for her, while 88% of Republicans said they’d vote for Zeldin. The Long Island member of Congress had a 48% to 39% advantage among independents. But even though Zeldin held a rally announcing endorsements from conservative Democrats, such as New York City Council Member Bob Holden and former City Council Member Rubén Díaz Sr., not too many voters were following. Just 4% of Democrats said they’d vote for Zeldin. – Jeff Coltin
THE WEEK AHEAD
THURSDAY 9/22
The next draft of New York City Council district maps from the New York City Districting Commission are due to the council, which could approve them or send them back to the commission. INSIDE DOPE
If the council doesn’t accept the maps, the commission will hold another round of public meetings and release a draft before the end of the year. THURSDAY 9/22
City & State and the 32BJ Health Fund hold a forum titled, “Hospital Prices: the Policy and the Practical,” from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the 32BJ Health Fund in Manhattan. FRIDAY 9/23
The New York City Council Criminal Justice Committee holds a hearing on a bill that would place strict limits on the use of solitary confinement in city jails.
A SOUTHERLY MIGRATION
RUBIO VS. DEMINGS The donors behind the race
These politicians and other leaders took their talents to the Sunshine State.
THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE 100 IN FLORIDA
(POSSIBLY RANKED BY THEIR PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS)
AFTER ROE Is the 15-week ban the end of the story?
CITYANDSTATEFL.COM @CITYANDSTATEFL SEPTEMBER 2022
Donald Trump In 2019, then-President Donald Trump changed his residency from New York City to his resort in Palm Beach. While Trump’s business headquarters remained in Manhattan, many of his political activities have been carried out at Mar-a-Lago. Paul Singer Another billionaire Wall Street titan, Paul Singer, moved his hedge fund offices from midtown Manhattan to West Palm Beach in 2020. However, Singer reportedly opted to stay in the Northeast at the time and kept some Elliott Management employees in New York.
Derek Jeter Derek Jeter, who grew up in New Jersey and Michigan, ended his Hall of Fame career with the Yankees in 2014. In 2017, he became a minority owner and CEO of the Miami Marlins, a position he stepped down from earlier this year.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Any number of Florida politicians were born or raised in New York. Among the most prominent is Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was born in Forest Hills, Queens, and raised on Long Island. She has served in Congress since 2005 and represents portions of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
By Jon Lentz
With City & State expanding to Florida earlier this year and publishing its first magazine there on Sept. 19, it has followed a well-traveled path from the Empire State to the Sunshine State.
Many notable New Yorkers have moved to Florida, including hedge fund billionaires, superstar athletes and a certain former U.S. president. It’s not just celebrities, either. More than 1.6 billion residents of Florida were born in New York, according to 2020 census data, and these transplants now make up nearly 8% of the state’s population. The coronavirus pandemic saw even more New Yorkers fleeing there.
Here’s a rundown of New Yorkers now spending some – or all – of their time in Florida.
Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, reportedly purchased a $24 million mansion in Surfside last year. The couple had rented a home in Washington, D.C., while serving in the Trump administration.
Carl Icahn In 2020, investor Carl Icahn reportedly moved his business from Fifth Avenue to Florida, leasing an office in Sunny Isles Beach. The billionaire, who founded Icahn Capital Management, already owned a home in Miami’s Indian Creek.
A Q&A with political strategist
RICHARD FIFE
Tell me about your strategy for Alvin Bragg’s campaign. The first strategic decision we made was to announce early. He was the first candidate to announce at a time when (then-Manhattan District Attorney) Cy Vance still hadn’t made his decision. We did that for a number of reasons. One was that he started with no fundraising list, no social media accounts and none of the things that other people who’ve been in the political process longer had, and so having that time to build up, to meet people, to raise money was was an important part I think of eventually winning the campaign. The second thing was to make sure we ran it true to who he is, and as someone who has experienced the criminal justice system from many different sides – someone who grew up in Harlem, has lived his whole life in Harlem and understood how the criminal justice system affects impacted communities, but also someone who also has been involved with the system as a federal prosecutor, working in the attorney general’s office. And so while the race kind of panned out with candidates – some who came at it from a public defender, activist point of view and some who have been prosecutors, Alvin really kind of straddled that line, and we kind of embraced that positioning. So we ran on that and we built on his base uptown, but it was a campaign that really looked to and worked to attract support around the borough. We won more of the Democratic clubs’ support than anybody. We had more petition signatures than anyone.
What was your strategy for Dan Goldman’s campaign? The key to a campaign is running true to who the candidate is and what he’s trying to do, and I think, frankly, better than other candidates in this race, he defined that this race for him was about protecting our democracy, protecting our rights and protecting our planet itself. And I think he’s someone who came to this race uniquely qualified for the moment we’re in. At a different time, with different events happening, he may not have won, but he’s someone whose skills met the moment, and I think our job in a very short campaign, it was only a 10-week campaign from beginning to end, was to build up the apparatus to let people know who Dan is and what he wants to do.
Why was this the right moment for Dan Goldman? You’re at a moment where Trump and his followers have assaulted our democracy. And you saw it on Jan. 6, but as the Jan. 6 hearings played out, you saw that that wasn’t the end. That was the beginning of Trump’s efforts to overturn elections, to change election laws and to take away basic rights. And for the first time, you have a Supreme Court who, in the abortion decision, took away the basic rights of people. And so all this was flying out as the campaign was developing. – Sara Dorn
Our Perspective
NY Cannabis: Get your LPA, or Get Left Behind!
By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW Twitter: @sappelbaum
If you want to take part in the new adult use cannabis industry in New York, you will need a labor peace agreement (LPA), and you need to start getting your LPA in order today. If you don’t take care of this now, you’ll regret it; prospective operators who fail to have their paperwork in order will miss out on the first set of licenses.
The RWDSU has been a key stakeholder in helping shape New York’s cannabis industry — beginning prior to the passage of Compassionate Care Act which brought medical cannabis to the state — into a responsible industry that creates good jobs and stronger communities. Part of this effort was to make it necessary for any company entering the industry to obtain an LPA. With the passage last year of the MRTA (Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act) which created the adult-use industry in New York, an LPA is again legally required for anybody seeking to enter the business. It’s part of what made MRTA a responsible piece of legislation centered around making social and economic justice — including for workers — a priority in this new industry and recognizing the importance of creating good jobs for New Yorkers.
An LPA is a written and mutually agreed-upon document between a bona fide, established labor union, and an employer — in this case one that is licensed to operate in the cannabis industry. A cannabis employer agrees to never interfere with a union organizing campaign or to intimidate or threaten workers who are trying to unionize. In return, the union agrees that it will not picket, strike, boycott, or otherwise interfere with a cannabis employer’s business. Essentially, LPAs create a neutral environment that prevents the conditions where workers may feel their only recourse for gaining a voice on the job is through a workplace action. Instead, workers’ rights are respected, and workers are entirely free to determine for themselves whether joining a union is the best path for them.
An LPA does not require employers to have a unionized workforce, and it does not interfere with whom employers choose to hire. It simply means workers can unionize if they want to, and union campaigns can proceed without unfair interference from employers. Cannabis companies will not have to negotiate union contracts unless their workers choose to organize. LPAs level the playing field and ensure fairness when it comes to workers and unions.
And that’s good news for both workers and their employers in any industry; union workforces have lower turnover, better pay and benefits, better relationships with their employers, and workers who see their jobs as a career. They are more invested in both their employer’s success, as well as that of that of the full industry.
Together, New York’s cannabis industry and New York’s unions are building a sustainable new industry that helps build our communities. The RWDSU is making it easy; visit cannabislpa.com for more information on LPAs and to start the process of securing one. It’s quick, it’s easy, and will help you meet one of the requirements to enter New York’s emerging cannabis industry. And if you take care of the paperwork now, you won’t be left behind as this new industry takes off in the Empire State. www.rwdsu.org
