“Debt forgiveness, now!”

“We’re not gonna give up until we break.”

Those are just some of the messages cab drivers chanted on the street near one of the entrances to the City Hall subway station. 

 “We just want to pay off our debt while being able to pay for rent and actually make money for ourselves,” said. Jean Francois, 68, who has been driving taxis since 1984. He came to the US. from Haiti and is currently living in Queens. 

Jean Francois, 68, immigrant from Haiti. He bought the medallion in 1984 and now protests for in front of the City Hall for higher debt relief. Francois owes about $600,000 and pays $2,300 monthly. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

The now approved plan promises $1,500 or less monthly installment on driver’s mortgages for medallions. But according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), it is not enough. They want to reduce it to a maximum of $800 per month.

 “It would be still hard, but manageable for me to pay,” Francois said. “It is much better than the $2,300 I must pay now. I would be less stressed.”

 To own an own cab, drivers must buy a medallion from the city or the secondary market. It works basically as a permit to drive the yellow cab, and the purchase of medallion was considered an asset for securing a comfortable retirement. It was even promoted by city officials. 

 “They were telling us the prices for medallions would go up and that it is a good investment,” Md Z Islam, 43, another protesting taxi driver said. He is originally from Bangladesh and bought the medallion 11 years ago.

Md Z Islam, 43, immigrant from Bangladesh. He bought the medallion 11 years ago and now protests for in front of the City Hall for higher debt relief as he owes about $800,000 and pays $4000 monthly. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

“City officials with former mayor Bloomberg even ran TV ads with the message that it is once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “I trusted them. 

 Taxi drivers borrowed money for the medallion even though they were not eligible for loans, showed a 2019 NY Times investigation. Reporter Brian Rosenthal likened the situation to causes of the housing bubble, which burst in the global financial crisis in 2009. 

 And the loans were not the only problem. Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing apps came to the city and took some of the customers from yellow cab drivers, which drastically decreased the market value for medallions. From more than $1 million in 2014, the value of medallion is worth less than $200,000 as of 2018.

 Now, owners of medallions owe $600,000 on average according to NYTWA data. 

 “They (ride-sharing apps) have more cars than us, their fare is always changing according to market demand, and they didn’t have to buy any medallion”,” said Wain Chin, a taxi driver from Myanmar, who moved to New York 30 years ago. “Now, we have fewer customers and therefore less money.”

Wain Chin, 54, immigrant from Myanmar, who has been driving yellow cab for 20 years now. He protests for in front of the City Hall for higher debt relief as he owes for his medallion about $500,000 and pays $2300 monthly. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

He suggested that the city should level the playing field and regulate ride-sharing apps in the same way it regulates yellow cabs. 

Another common slogan was “No more suicides” as several  cab drivers committed suicide  because of the debt. 

“You work hard, you try to make money to pay bills, but the money is simply not there for you to make,” said Francois. 

But despite the hardship, he had a smile remained on his face. 

“I’d say that people from Haiti like me are more resistant,” he said. “And the situation can always be worse.”

Some politicians and city officials stopped by to show their support, said Chin.

“But de Blasio is the one who has to do something,” he said. 

 On Wednesday, a dozen members of the New York City congressional delegation, including Majority Senate Leader Charles Schumer and Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, wrote Mayor Bill de Blasio a letter requesting adding a city backed guarantee to the Medallion Relief Program. 

BREAKING: A dozen members of the NYC congressional delegation have written to @NYCMayor, urging him to halt the city’s banker bailout & adopt NYTWA’s proposal for relief debt relief.

Their letter was first reported by @erinmdurkin of @politicony, and you can read it right here: pic.twitter.com/rQsgBAx2k9

— NY Taxi Workers (@NYTWA) October 6, 2021

This is in support of  one of the demands of NYTWA. The union says it  would make it easier for taxi drivers to, for example, rent an apartment. Now, they might get rejected because of their debt and low credit score. 

 “If the city doesn’t accept our proposal for debt relief, we all will be homeless, and a lot of us will be forced to go bankrupt,” Francois said. 

 But Islam worries he does not even have a choice to file a bankruptcy. 

 “I have two kids, and if I file it, I wouldn’t be able to be a guarantor for their loans if they want to go to college,” he said. 

Not all the Taxi and Limousine commissioners who voted for the mayor’s relief plan on Wednesday  agreed with it.

 “Is it enough? No, it is not enough,” one of the commisioners, Lauvienska Polanco  told amNY. “I voted yes because I feel there’s immediate relief. The uncertainty in waiting for something better will add more despair to the medallion owner who is in desperate need today.”

 The Mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

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“I’m just here for teachers’ rights,” she said.

Vasquez joined hundreds who marched as part of New York’s ongoing Freedom Rally, a constellation of organizations in opposition to the vaccine mandate, which requires the Department of Education’s roughly 3,000 remaining unvaccinated teachers to have received at least one dose of the vaccine to remain active employees of the city. 

“I love my job. This is so upsetting to me that I’ve dedicated so much of my life – you know, I’m a devoted teacher,” said Vasquez. “Now they’re saying I can’t work unless I get vaccinated.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio estimated that 8,000 of the DOE’s nearly 150,000 school-based employees are out of compliance as of this morning. Vasquez, who teaches at P.S. 372 and has over 20 years of classroom experience, believes she should be able to use her sick and personal days to remain on payroll, since she claims to only use either in extreme circumstances. As of Monday, she’s on unpaid leave. 

Early last month, an independent arbitrator ruled that New York City teachers with qualified medical or religious exemptions must either be offered non-classroom assignments, a severance package, or be placed on unpaid leave that continues to provide them healthcare coverage. 

“I feel like if we’re practicing all these safety protocols, then the teachers will be fine,” said Vasquez. “It’s the children that are getting Covid, so I feel like it should be up to me. I’d rather get it and develop my own antibodies than have what they call a vaccine.” 

Last Friday, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to hear an attempt to block New York City’s vaccine mandate, giving the city the green light to require employees to have received one Covid-19 vaccination dose by 5 p.m.

By the end of the day Monday, 95% of full time employees had received at least one shot, including 96% of teachers and 99% of principals. Since the mayor’s mandate was announced in August, 43,000 injections have been administered, including 18,000 in the past 10 days. The United Federation of Teachers (U.F.T.) announced on Monday that a 1,000 teachers had been vaccinated over the weekend to remain on the district’s payroll. 

While the city claims to have thousands of substitute teachers and paraprofessionals waiting in the wings to supplant employees, many, including the U.F.T., are highly skeptical that the plan in place will adequately address their absence. U.F.T. estimates that two-thirds of public schools could face disruptions resulting from staff shortages. 

Garrett Ramirez is a paraprofessional with Energy Tech High School in Queens and a member of the steering committee for Teachers for Choice, an organization in opposition to New York City’s vaccine mandate. With 15 years of experience, Ramirez can understand why some of his peers are capitulating to the city’s mandate, though he would only consider getting vaccinated after clinical trials conclude near the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023.  

“Unfortunately, some teachers are being coerced, some of them are caving in, in order to preserve their jobs and income for their families,” said Ramirez. 

With appearances from Founder Michael Kane on outlets such as Fox News and a petition with a running total of 52,000 signatories,Teachers for Choice is bolstering support and digging in their heels. A restraining order was filed yesterday morning in the ongoing Kane vs de Blasio in an effort to stop the vaccine mandate from being implemented. 

Kane vs de Blasio, originally filed in federal court on September 21, challenges the Department of Education’s mandate as ‘immoral and illegal.’ The lawsuit claims that the mandate violates fundamental constitutional rights by ‘discriminating on the basis of religion and medical status’ and ‘places unconstitutional conditions of employment.’ 

“They’ve (the D.O.E.) denied almost all the religious exemptions and all, almost all of the medical exemptions,” said Ramirez, who was denied a religious exemption himself. “Religious exemptions are supposed to be based upon personal religious convictions, not upon an established church. It actually violates the establishment clause in the first amendment to apply that criteria.”

Ramirez plans to apply for a medical exemption next, this time seekling to qualify as having natural immunity.  

“The science of natural immunity is kind of overwhelming,” said Ramirez, noting a peer-reviewed article from the British Medical Journal and research by Johns Hopkins surgical oncologist Dr. Marty Makary as evidence. “I have recovered from Covid-19, I’ve tested positive for antibodies twice. Antibodies are only the tip of the iceberg as far as natural immunity goes.”

While much is still unknown about the durability of either vaccine or natural immunity, a study released in August from CDC found that vaccination offers higher protection than previous Covid-19 infection, noting that the unvaccinated have 2.34 times the odds of reinfection as the vaccinated. Dr. Makary’s colleague, the infectious disease expert Dr. Anna Durbin, cited research from Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research that estimated those odds even higher, at 2.5 times as likely for reinfection. 

And while New York City remains an area at ‘high risk of transmission’ with an average of 1,662 cases per day over the last week, city data available for the year through the end of August shows remarkably strong protection for the vaccinated. Just 0.33% vaccinated individuals have contracted the virus and 96.9% of those hospitalized were unvaccinated at the time of their hospitalization.  

Ramirez is optimistic that Kane vs De Blasio will prove the vaccine mandates are unconstitutional. He is considering all his options, like transitioning to virtual teaching or moving out of the city. 

“At the end of the day, these mandates are really intimidation tactics,” said Ramirez. “It’s an act of psychological terrorism, frankly. I’m not going to succumb to it, and I don’t think that anyone should.”

The post Some city teachers protest vaccine mandate appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

The meeting was held virtually in an online video conference. Thirty-two city officials favored the package and 17 disapproved.  But the package falls short a few billion from the anticipated $95.3 billion before COVID-19.

“With all these challenges we still found a way to get to a budget that again focuses on your health, your safety, putting food on your table, making sure you have a roof over your head,” de Blasio said. 

The budget was announced as demonstrators camped in City Hall Park for the past week. They demanded the defunding of police after weeks of protests over the death of George Floyds and others killed in the hands of law enforcement. And demonstrators were not happy with the approved package.

.@NYCMayor + @CoreyinNYC‘s budget proposal is a loss and LIE to the people of NYC.

These proposed “cuts” to NYPD’s budget are an illusion. @NYCCouncil, your sham is NOT good enough. We are watching. #DefundTheNYPD

— Maya (@politicalmaya) June 30, 2020

According to De Blasio, the budget focused on values and placed $37.5 million in the expansion of healthcare, $113 million in Covid-19 clinics and $450 million towards feeding New Yorkers. 

“It’s also about change,it’s also about progress. It is about ensuring  that we act in the spirit of social justice. I hear the voices all over the city calling for justice,” de Blasio said.

The police cut included canceling July’s officer recruitment of 1163 officers, $296 million dollar overtime reductions and a reduction in contracts and non-personnel expenses. Crossing guards and homeless outreach will no longer be part of NYPD responsibilities. The next recruitment of officers is scheduled for October.

“We have to keep the city safe, we have to protect the levels of patrol strength throughout our communities and we have to make sure that we are really doing something to refocus resources on young people and communities hardest hit,” de Blasio said.

Approximately $430 million in cuts to policing was set to be moved towards summer youth programing, education and family and social services. $537 million from the NYPD Capital program will be shifted to NYCHA broadband expansion and youth recreation centers. 

“This is real distribution, this is taking resources and putting them where they’re needed most with particular focus on young people,” de Blasio said.

New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson was one of the votes in favor of the package. 

The Mayor and I started this process FAR apart on shrinking the NYPD’s budget and footprint and bringing transformational change to the department.

The Council fought hard to get where we are, but I know this is just a starting point, not an ending point. We need to go farther. https://t.co/aW8TmiBe42

— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) July 1, 2020

But some  New Yorkers were disappointed by his vote and the decisions made. 

Corey the people of your city asked, called, occupied, & pleaded with you to firmly cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget. You simply did not. You cowered. This was a budget meeting. We asked you to cut NYPD’s budget. We did not ask for “transformational change”. You failed us. https://t.co/rOyRWslxtD

— MJ (@themaicy) July 1, 2020

The speaker just lost my vote. This is not a real measure to defund the NYPD. No headcount reduction, bullshit promises on overtime, and a funding transfer. Did you even try? https://t.co/GRHF8fRYZD

— Eric Buth (@ericbuth) July 1, 2020

The post NYC’s new budget cuts police funding appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

 “I can see them from my bed,” said Emily Moelis, an 18-year-old architectural student at Penn State University, who lives in DUMBO, Brooklyn. “You can hear the dogs in our building barking and babies crying throughout the night.”  

 Between June 1 and this past Sunday, nearly 11,500 fireworks complaints were issued through the city’s 311 non-emergency hotline. Last night alone, between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., 538 complaints were called in–compared to three complaints of fireworks that were registered during the same night in 2019.  

 In addition to filing complaints via the city’s non-emergency hotline, just after  midnight Sunday, hundreds of residents drove their cars to Gracie Mansion, Mayor Bill De Blasio’s official residence, honking their horns in a sign of protest against the mayor’s inaction regarding the nonstop fireworks.

 “Ladies and gentlemen we are citizens of this great city of New York,” said a spokesperson for the group over a speaker. “We came out here not to get involved in any political discussions, we came out here simply because we don’t feel safe.”

Hundreds are protesting outside Gracie Mansion in #Manhattan right now after @NYCMayor refuses to do anything about the insane fireworks the last few weeks plaguing NYC. Residents can’t sleep, so they decided to not allow Deblasio to sleep tonight either. pic.twitter.com/Kom1X7PTPM

— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) June 23, 2020

 Hours later, De Blasio announced the formation of a consortium task force through the NYPD, FDNY, and Sheriff’s office that “will target suppliers, distributors and possessors of large quantities” of fireworks.

 The persisting fireworks have prompted several theories on social media about their origin and purpose.

Not trying to buy into or promote the conspiracy theory but all night long I hear fireworks and every morning I run my neighborhood block by block and there’s no fireworks debris. I don’t get it?

— Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) June 22, 2020

Some have even insinuated that police officers themselves are behind the nightly commotion to manufacture unrest and paranoia among communities. 

Walked around the block to figure out who’s responsible for these nightly fireworks.

Come to find out they’re coming from the building directly behind the NYPD precinct. Officers outside seemed completely unbothered by it all. pic.twitter.com/Tx84alTwHZ

— Anne-Marcelle N. (@AnneMarcelleN) June 21, 2020

If you spend time learning about COINTELPRO and the lengths law enforcement goes to suppress social movements then it’s hard to shrug off theories about things like unlimited fireworks going off every night.

— 🐝Tourmaline🐝 (@tourmaliiine) June 21, 2020

Alex Brinkman, a 31-year-old commercial advertisements producer based in Williamsburg, said that he’s seen several used canisters scattered while walking around his street over the past couple of days. 

“It seems suspicious that within a 24-hour span it went from zero visibility of fireworks to them saturating every community in Brooklyn,” he said.

 Brinkman also said that the quality of fireworks being set off makes him wary of the narrative that bored kids are solely responsible.

 “These aren’t sparklers or ground-bound explosives—they are the loudest of the loud,” he said. “It seems like a massive operation.”  

 So far, city officials have not confirmed who is setting the fireworks off, nor have they commented on whether an organized group or random residents are behind the nightly shows of explosive phosphorus.

 Layla Mustafa, a 26-year-old Bushwick resident, said that she’s definitely noticed fireworks during past summers, but they only happened closer to Independence Day, and would always end before or around midnight.

 “You assumed it was kids messing around because it used to happen near the holiday and they never went too late into the night,” Mustafa said. “The fireworks we are dealing with now are aggressive and professional-grade.”

 Mustafa, who lives across the street from a halal chicken coup, hasn’t gotten much sleep over the last several weeks. 

“Between the sounds of fireworks bursting and the clucking of scared chickens, I can barely make it through a night’s sleep uninterrupted without taking Nyquil,” she said.

 Mustafa wishes she had more information from officials as most of what she’s been seeing about the fireworks has been through social media. 

 “We don’t know much, but we do know that it’s an act of protest, whether it’s coming from the police or residents,” she said.

The post The daily boom of fireworks startles New Yorkers appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

 Patients who have taken remdesivr, have shown improvement in their condition over a quicker period of time.

 “Remdesivr has a clear cut significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” Fauci said at a corporate executive meeting at the White House.

 According to the New York Times, Remdesivr could be the first drug to be approved for the treatment of the coronavirus by the Food and Drug Administration, as there are no alternative drugs that have proven to be effective in treating the virus.

 The news of the treatment drug has sent positive signals to investors, with the S&P 500 gaining almost 3% in shares.

 Despite this, the World Health Organization has not yet made comments on the drug, saying that it is too early to see whether or not it will be effective in treating the virus.

Florida will reopen on Monday

 Governor Ron DeSantis plans to reopen Florida on Monday with hard-hit regions including Miami Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties remaining in lockdown.

 “The only thing we have to fear is letting fear overwhelm our sense of purpose and determination,” DeSantis said.

 The governor believes that the best way forward is to reopen the state in phases. The first phase, which will be executed on Monday, allowing small businesses such as restaurants and retail stores to operate at 25 percent indoor capacity. Schools will remain remote, visits to age care centers will still be prohibited. Bars, gyms, and other social venues will remain closed.

 Florida currently has almost 35,000 confirmed cases, and their testing still lags behind nationally.

 In contrast, New York, one of the worst-hit states by the coronavirus, does not plan to reopen until 30 percent of hospital beds and ICU beds are available after elective surgeries resume and that there is no significant increase in hospitalization and diagnostic testing around the state.

 Bill de Blasio causes outrage amongst the Jewish community in New York City

 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sparked outrage amongst the Jewish community in the city after condemning Hasidic funeral-goers on twitter for failing to follow social distancing guidelines.  About 2,500 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men were mourning the death of  Rabbi Chaim Mertz. They stood shoulder to shoulder and did not practice social distancing guidelines.

 “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period,” the Mayor said on twitter.

 In response to the tweet, The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council called the mayor bigoted for generalizing and pointing fingers at an entire community over the mistakes of the mourners.

 “Even if no leader took a stance, it is bigoted to generalize a community; especially the same day that thousands of New Yorkers failed to social distance to watch a flyover.” The OJPAC said in a tweet.

Hey @NYCMayor, there are 1mil+ Jewish people in #NYC. The few who don’t social distance should be called out — but generalizing against the whole population is outrageous especially when so many are scapegoating Jews. This erodes the very unity our city needs now more than ever. https://t.co/jcYO9QQred

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) April 29, 2020

 The Mayor  later apologized for his tweet during a press conference.

“People’s lives were in danger before my eyes and I was not going to tolerate it,” he said. “I regret if the way I said it in any way gave people a feeling of being treated the wrong way, that was not my intention. It was said with love, but it was tough love, it was anger and frustration.”

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Getting paid to go on vacation might seem like a win-win situation. But in New York City, a new policy proposal by Mayor Bill de Blasio has sparked a conversation about who loses out when paid time off becomes a requirement.

New York City could soon be the first place in the 50 states to require private businesses to grant their employees paid vacation. Mayor De Blasio is preparing to officially introduce a bill that would require businesses with more than five employees to give their employees 10 days of paid time off per year. While government employees already enjoy this benefit, only about 75 percent of private-sector workers are given paid time off, according to statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Currently, around 500,000 full and part-time employees in New York City receive zero paid time off from their employers.

“Workers across the nation have been working too hard without enough time to rest and recharge or enough time for family and important life events,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio in the city’s official announcement. “Every other major nation recognizes the necessity of Paid Personal Time. We as a country must get there, and New York City will lead the way.”

De Blasio is hoping that this measure will help New York become the “fairest big city in America,” piggybacking off of recent increase of New York’s minimum wage to $15, which went into effect at the beginning of 2019. With New York City’s unemployment at the lowest it’s been in decades, and the city’s economy booming, this is the perfect time for such legislation, said city officials. But for small businesses, the new policy could create a major economic burden.

For businesses that pay their employees minimum wage the vacation plan would cost $1,200 annually per employee, assuming that shifts are eight hours. For small businesses, those costs can add up fast, particularly if they are currently paying above the minimum wage. This could restrict a business owner’s ability to offer other employee benefits, and creates a risk of decreased wages and other cut-backs.

“Paid time off would be viewed [by classical economics] as an increase in the price of the labor,” said Thad Calabrese, associate professor and economic expert at New York University. “So if employers have to pay more for an input, they’ll demand less of it.”

But for employees already earning minimum wage without benefits, the mayor’s plan has significant potential benefits.

“My assumption is the folks that don’t have this right now are people in retail, hospitality, restaurants, and fast food, those types of jobs,” said Calabrese. “On the one hand if they’re paid at the low end of the spectrum, this could be a way of increasing their compensation.”

Having the option to take paid vacation would be a major win for workers who do not receive the benefit, including the 180,000 in professional services, 90,000 in retail, and 200,000 in hospitality and food services. Happy workers equal a more productive workforce, proponents of the vacation plan argue.

“Here in United States, we have fewer days off than anywhere else in the world—time that increases productivity and improves mental and physical health,” said Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Lorelei Salas in the city’s written announcement.

According to research conducted by Project: Time Off, a research group funded by the U.S. Travel Association, there is clear data that supports the hypothesis that vacation boosts productivity. It not only contributes to a worker’s overall health and wellbeing, but it can also decrease turnover rates among the workforce. The United States is far behind much of the rest of the western world in terms of mandatory paid vacation, and data from Europe demonstrates the potential benefits of updating U.S. policy.

Jason Lee, founder and CEO of Daily Pay, a New York City-based startup, offers his employees unlimited paid vacation days. Ensuring the physical and mental wellness of employees is a key to a company’s success, he said. He also believes that government regulation is not the only method through which this can be achieved, and that a free-market approach might allow companies to offer other important benefits.

“In general, I’m more of a fan of free markets in the sense that if this really is something that employers need to offer because employees want it that badly, then employers to respond to that competitive hiring demand and will  wind up offering it themselves,” said Lee. “This one proposal needs to be sort of evaluated in the context of an overall portfolio of different ideas.”

Veronica George has worked in restaurants in New York City for almost a decade, and would love to see other benefits, such as health care, offered before something like paid vacation. Though she supports the new plan’s intentions, she is unsure if it will be enough to meaningfully improve the lives of all employees in the industry.

While the debate continues over the potential benefits and drawbacks of government-mandated paid time off, Mayor de Blasio has forged ahead with his proposal, gaining the support of several local politicians and council members. The future of paid vacation for the half a million workers who are currently without the benefit will soon be officially determined by a city council vote on the plan, though a date has yet to be set.

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“Even though climate change will affect everyone, its impacts will not be evenly distributed,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director for NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, a network that links grassroots organizations from low-income neighborhoods and communities of color to create environmental justice.

“Our communities live at the nexus of so many inequities, all climate change does is add even more intense disproportionality in terms of our burdens,” said Bautista.

The report outlines the shortcomings of Mayor de Blasio’s OneNYC Plan just before a scheduled update, which will be released by the Mayor’s office on Earth Day.

The NYC-EJA created recommendations on how the OneNYC Plan can assure the safety of residents that live in Significant Maritime and Industrial Areas, or SMIAS for short. These are communities that have become the concentrated hosts of the city’s infrastructure, such as waste transfer stations, power plants and industrial facilities, and climate-based damage to that infrastructure could mean disastrous consequences to those who live in these areas.

“We have the heaviest clusters of the city’s toxic chemical uses and heavy infrastructure all cited in waterfront neighborhoods in the path of storm surges,” said Bautista. “Not only do you have storm surges to worry about and flooding but dislodging of chemicals and the potential for communities to be exposed to toxic stews in the event of severe weather.”

The report also highlights the range of climate change impacts that are to be expected. Beyond incremental storms and rising sea levels, the increasing temperatures are also a concern for the NYC-EJA.

“Heat kills more people than storm surges or hurricanes every year,” said Bautista. “We’re expecting the average summer day to increase anywhere from 4 to 6 degrees, the number of heat waves are expected to either triple or quadruple. There’s no strategy to deal with that in the OneNYC Plan.”

Bautista says the rising temperatures are markedly problematic in low-income neighborhoods like Brownsville, where communities lack enough trees to keep the asphalt cool or have residents that cannot afford air-conditioners.

The report also sites that there are vast vulnerabilities in industrial neighborhoods that have regional implications. One example, Bautista says, is that most of New York City’s food goes through the Hunt’s Point Distribution Center, which is an SMIA. Over 60% of New York City’s produce, fish, and meat comes through the center.

“The mayor’s office has confirmed, that had Sandy landed when it was high tide for Long Island Sound – either 12 hours before or after when it actually landed – that means a storm surge would have wiped out the food supply for the entire city and no one knows how long.”

Community outreach programs, like El Puente in South Williamsburg, are taking the NYC-EJAs recommendations of creating community-based planning and preparedness.

“These major weather events made us realize how unprepared we were and still are,” said Ana Traverso-Krejcarek, Green Jobs-Green New York Program Associate at El Puente. “We have to start from scratch. There has not been enough awareness or information on the community level.”

A big part of that is educating mothers in the predominately Latino community on environmental justice and how they can protect their families by providing classes and services in Spanish. Through these programs, El Puente addresses not only concerns for climate-based infrastructure, but for the potentially hazardous risks that come with living in one of Brooklyn’s most toxic neighborhoods, the home to companies like RADIAC, which stores radioactive materials just one block away from the East River.

“For years we’ve been fighting to get RADIAC to close, but it’s privately owned,” said Traverso-Krejcarek. “If the water level rose, say from a hurricane, we don’t know the impact of radioactive material being spread through the community. It’s right here. The latino population that lives in the neighborhood still knows about it, but the huge new influx of residents don’t.”

Angela Terrero, 36, is one such resident that remembers the early days of fighting for RADIAC to close. Now a mother of two who brings her children to El Puente for after-school activities, she fears that the decade long battle will not come to a close quickly enough.

“If the wind had been blowing the other way,” said Terrero. “It would have been us and not the Lower East Side who received most of the impact.”

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