“I don’t think in the history of the MTA it’s seen anything close to the magnitude of what—from a financial perspective—the MTA is facing,” said Schwartz, in response to the Chief Financial Officer Robert Foran’s detailing of the agency’s fiscal crisis. 

Its operating budget, estimated at $17 billion for 2020, is projected to lose 45% of its funding, primarily due to the loss of ridership in the first half of the year. The $4 billion of emergency funding received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) only covers a fraction of this deficit.

“If the federal government doesn’t come through with additional federal aid, the magnitude of this problem is just that much worse,” said Schwartz.

The MTA had already braced for a loss of funding for other projects, namely its groundbreaking 2020-2024 Capital Program, a $51 billion undertaking that aims to revamp much of the outdated transit systems in the city and the state. But as the meeting wore on, it became clear that more needed to be done.

“Right now our focus is on the $3.9 billion to get us through 2020,” said Patrick Foye, Chairman and CEO of the MTA. “The immediate deficit and the immediate financial crisis.”

The MTA’s future is as clear as this subway tunnel. Photo by Daniel Girma

The MTA capital programs, multi-year initiatives that cover a wide array of projects, have a complicated funding process. It is a delicate balance between allocating its own revenue, borrowing, and securing funding from the federal, state, and municipal governments. The 2015-19 Capital Program, which cost $29 billion, was covered mostly by MTA revenue and an $8.3 billion commitment from Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

But the 2020-24 program, over $20 billion more than the previous one, was expecting to get a large boost from NYC’s congestion pricing tax, as new internet tax and estate tax for mansions. This, along with the other conventional funding sources, have been completely upended by the shutdown. 

The crisis doesn’t stop there. Even projects that were initiated under the previous capital program and slated to continue under the current program have been affected by the loss in revenue.

“The 20-24 program as well as a great deal of the remaining 15-19 work is essentially on hold,” said Janno Lieber, Chief Development Officer of the agency. “Flagship programs in the capital program are being delayed.” 

Among these are the vital accessibility upgrades that would provide access to 70 stations across the city for its disabled residents.

“That initiative, which was well along in procurement before the covid crisis hit, is on hold,” said Lieber.

There have been some bright spots. The drop in ridership and new late-night closing of the subway has allowed for the acceleration of station and tunnel repairments across the system.

“We were able to identify opportunities to get more access to work areas and extended outages,” said Lieber. “But those are frankly exceptions.”

With endemic funding all but dried up, board members admitted that the agency would have to start prioritizing projects in order to stay afloat.

“One of the suggestions I’m going to make is that the MTA start breaking things down in various categories on what is essential and what is deemed non-essential,” said Schwartz. “It’s going to end up being a combination of things, and all of those things are going to be tough and hard to implement and approve.” 

Schwartz stressed that fares could not be increased, and that the agency should not apply for loans to cover the deficit. 

“I don’t think we can borrow our way out  of this problem,” he said.

Board members continuously emphasized the necessity for more federal support. The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES), a follow up relief bill that passed the House in May, promises nearly $15.75 billion in aid for public transportation, with $11.75 billion dedicated for cities of over 3 million people. State legislators from both sides of the aisle have voiced their support for the bill.Representatives 

“Eighteen  of the most prominent New York State republican elected officials signed a letter to senate leader Mitch Mcconnell arguing that the HEROES Act or any COVID relief bill must include adequate money for the MTA,” said Lieber. “This is truly a bipartisan issue.”

With the HEROES Act stalled in the senate, some in the agency fear catastrophic consequences if funding is not secured.

“If we don’t get HEROES funding or something similar pretty soon, we are moving closer and closer to a fiscal cliff,” said Lieber. “Broadly speaking, we are in dire straits.”

The post MTA faces crisis following COVID shutdown appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Thousands of demonstrators across New York City marched in honor of Juneteenth yesterday and marked the 22nd day of protests following the death of George Floyd. 

Juneteenth, a day that has recently been thrust into the national spotlight, commemorates the end of slavery. On that date in 1865, history says general Gordon Granger recited a federal order to emancipate slaves in Galveston, Texas. 

But not everyone agrees.

“When you think of Juneteenth, don’t say nothin’ about no General Granger,” said New York Assemblyman Charles Barron, who represents East New York. “It’s the African soldiers, thousands of them, that said ‘let’s go free our people.’ They went from plantation to plantation, and the last place they got to was Galveston, Texas.”

Organizers lead chants near City hall. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

Barron joined demonstrators in a march around downtown Manhattan in the early afternoon. Stops were made at Federal Hall and the African Burial Ground National Monument, where organizers spoke about discrimination and demanded the defunding of the police.

“When we say defund the police, we’re not just talking about the police in New York,” said Greg Butterfield, an activist for Struggle La Lucha. He called for a complete abolishment of police in the United States. “That would be a serious measure right now to stop the killing of Black people in this country.”

But while protestors called for change, there was also cause for celebration. Protests were led by marching bands, conducting chants and dances in what was a peaceful demonstration.

“We are so inspired by the uprising that’s taking place in this city and this country and around the world,” said Rev.  Frank Morales, an Episcopalian priest and local activist. He was impressed by the unifying message that he heard from younger demonstrators.

 “I think some of the elders will agree with me on this,” he said.

Demonstrators from Manhattan and Brooklyn convened in Washington Square Park at 6 p.m., before marching up Sixth Avenue. They made frequent stops, held vigils for victims of police violence, and listened to a recording of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” in front of the New York Public Library before descending on Columbus Circle.

An organizer gives an impassioned speech to demonstrators. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

There, the group stood off against police guarding the statue of Christopher Columbus. Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor  Andrew Cuomo announced that there are no plans to remove the statue, despite calls from protestors. 

“Who the hell does he think he is?” asked Barron of Cuomo. 

To the assemblyman, this is one more example of what he believes is the governor’s lackluster record on civil rights. The governor’s repeal of Law 50-A, which shielded police’s disciplinary records from the public, is one of a laundry list of demands that Barron feels need to be met.

“We didn’t do all of this so we can know your background,” Barron said towards the NYPD. “We want you in jail.”

Scattered demonstrations continued into the night, with more expected through the weekend.

An organizer rallies the crowd. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A young boy holds up a Pan-African flag. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

Demonstrators kneel in honor of George Floyd. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

Demonstrators march up Sixth Avenue. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A demonstrator follows chants with a tom drum. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A vanguard of bicycles lead the way. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A cyclist demonstrator. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

An organizer addresses the crowd. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A demonstrator mocks the police. June 19, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A demonstrator has a heated argument with the police. Photo by Daniel Girma

The post Sounds and sights from NYC Juneteenth march appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

“This is meat and potatoes capitalism,” said Orion Lillyreed, vice president of Pacific Gold Seafood, one of the many wholesalers that operate at the market. “Working in the middle of the night, five days a week, four days a week. The hours alone will kill you.”

Lillyreed, like all of the vendors at the nearly two centuries-old market, is currently facing a threat unlike anything he’s seen in his 10  years as a wholesaler. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic brought lockdowns in New York City and across the nation, wholesalers have faced an unprecedented loss of business. The collapse of the restaurant industry, a vital consumer of wholesale goods, has hit everyone hard.

Red snappers wait to be bought. June 8 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

“We are doing 15-20% of the business that we would be doing prior to lockdown,” Lillyreed said. 

Incoming freight per week for Pacific Gold has fallen from between 6,000 and 7,000 lbs before the pandemic to 1,000 and 1,500 lbs. 

“It’s not that people have stopped eating, but they’ve cut down on what they choose and where they go to buy it from significantly,” he said.

Wholesalers are an important link in the long supply chain that brings fish from the sea to the plate. Working directly with fishermen, these companies sell fresh seafood to a wide array of customers.

A vendor tries to make a sale. June 8 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

“You get it right off the boat,” said Jeremy Bernstein, manager at JMS Seasonal Seafood, another wholesaler. “We’ll get it and sell it to a retail store, a restaurant in the city, and then it goes to your stomach.”

The food industry’s demise has sent a shockwave all the way up this chain. Most restaurants buy their product from purveyors, middlemen that buy wholesale and proportion it. With no restaurants to sell to, purveyors and wholesalers are left reeling.

“As long as [the purveyors] stay in business, we’ll be ok,” said Lillyreed. “But they’re, of course, not paying us because their customers are not paying them.” 

While wholesalers cope with their losses, they also take aim at a new opportunity: the consumer market. Buyers who would otherwise buy at grocery stores are showing an increased interest in other options. More families come to the fish market, even at such late hours, to rub elbows with the traditional clientele.

“We’ve adjusted,” Bernstein said. To help buoy revenue following the 75% losses suffered during the lockdown, JMS has opted a direct-to-consumer strategy. Their unit now hosts its own retail section, selling lobster tails and claws. They have also begun an online delivery service, available across the entire continental US.

Wholesalers are trying to use the allure of fresher food at cheaper prices than what one would find at a grocery store. 

“In the supermarket it’s there for a week or two,” Bernstein said. “Going right to a fish market is obviously the best for the quality and the best for the price.” This adjustment has helped JMS Seafood retain its staff during the lockdown.

Crunching numbers the old-fashioned way. June 8 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

While the prospect of new business is a welcome sight, it does not come without its challenges. Pacific Gold has also been able to keep its staff, but foraying into the consumer world has not been easy.

“There’s a lack of education,” Lillyreed explained. “People don’t understand our product in comparison to what they see in a grocery store.” 

Adjusting one’s business to the smaller scale of consumer goods is also a major complication. 

“Trying to recoup the value there, to sell the product for what it’s worth, is a lot harder when you’re trying to do it a pound a time instead of 100 pounds a time for a wholesale business, he said.”

The New Fulton Fish Market has also made adjustments to help its vendors weather the lockdown. It’s website allows more direct-to-consumer sales, and its business hours have been reduced to 2-7am. But work on the ground is still old-school. At the market, orders are written in pen, fish are still weighed in metal baskets, and customers are expected to know a little more about what they are buying.

“You gotta be able to handle your fish yourself if you buy your fish here,” Lillyreed said. Pacific Gold only sells whole fish, no single cuts. “ That’s a turn-off to a lot of consumers. I don’t see that part changing.”

This reluctance to change goes both ways. “All these guys, all these companies here, are just bearing down waiting for better times,” he said. “They’re not adapting to a consumer market.” 

Business still revolves around the quality and availability of their product, as opposed to the consistency desired by grocery stores and everyday consumers. 

JMS Seasonal Seafood Inc. at New Fulton Fish Market. June 8 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

“Here you still have guys getting in boats, going out, catching fish in the natural world and bringing them to market,” Lilyreed said. The ability to even have something to sell depends on a myriad of factors, from cancelled deliveries to waters too dangerous to fish on. “Supermarket chains can’t deal with that.”

Hanging over everything is the reopening of the country, and a hope that life returns to normal. On June 3rd, most of New York State entered “Phase 2” of the New York Forward plan, the protocol for reopening the state following the March 22 lockdown. This phase allows for outdoor dining. New York City could reach Phase 2 as early as July, according to mayor Bill de Blasio.

“People are going to want to eat,” said Bernstein, noting that he already sees many more people without masks than before. “People aren’t going to be scared anymore. I think people right now are sick of it.”

Wholesalers are banking on a surge in demand as people are able to dine a little more freely.

“I think it’s going to explode,” Bernstein said.

The post Bronx fish market struggles to stay afloat during pandemic appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Not once did Sacks see her client, the opposition, or the judge during this time.

“I am yet to have a video conference,” Sacks said . “I have only had conferences by call.” 

Since the Southern District of New York closed its courts and jails in late March because of the pandemic, everything has gone remote. The Judiciary Conference of the United States, an administrative body that oversees the federal courts, quickly established guidelines for video and telephone use for everything from court proceedings to attorney-client meetings based on the rules set by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. But defense attorneys are finding that these guidelines do not adequately protect the rights of their clients.

“In order to have a meeting with a client, you have to proffer a specific reason why you needed them on video,” Sacks explained. “There is no sense of what meets that threshold.” 

Sacks fears that a lack of defined rules risks the privileged nature of attorney-client communications. Damien Brown, a private attorney with nearly 23 years experience in both state and federal courts, agrees.

“Is it a Sixth Amendment violation? It is.” Brown believes that the coronavirus pandemic has created an unfortunate, but unavoidable dilemma for the courts.  “This is all new and crazy. Our clients are suffering.”

Brown has also been unable to see his clients in federal jails, while those in state are more reachable. “In the state court we’ve at least had video conferences with our clients, and that’s a lot better than just speaking to them on the phone.”

Attorneys and clients build their relationships through face to face meetings. It is there where they can go over documents, discovery materials, and strategize what direction to take in court. The coronavirus pandemic has put an end to that, with federal courts not having the necessary infrastructure to provide reliable videoconferences for defendants and their attorneys.

 According to Brown, this has severed what many defendants consider a vital component of their service.

“Imagine having to tell your attorney—who you don’t know—something very confidential,”  Brown said.

He experienced this dilemma when a client lied to him over the phone. The defendant felt he could not trust an attorney that he hadn’t met. 

“Later, when we were able to set up a little bit more secure phone call that had nothing to do with court he finally admitted to me,” he said.” It just goes to show: how do you build trust?”

While the lockdown erodes attorney-client relationships, it also is hampering the defense’s ability to keep their clients prepared for trial, Sacks said.

“They’re not allowing the people who are detained to look at their discovery,” she said. Jail libraries are closed, rendering inmates unable to access computers and look at discovery documents that detail information like what evidence there is against them. Coupled with the lack of video conferencing, attorneys have no way to adequately inform their clients. 

“This is a huge right to counsel issue,” she said.

While defense attorneys navigate these obstacles, federal prosecutors received the benefit of cooperation from the Department of Corrections and Federal Bureau of Prisons when arguing against prisoner releases. In the early days of the pandemic, this was a big advantage.

“The courts would accept affidavits or testimony from DOC employees which would state that the inmates are socially distancing, they have protective equipment, they have soap,” Brown said. “I’m hearing from all my inmates, ‘no they didn’t.’ So how do we confront that?” 

Employee accounts were not supplemented by visual evidence either. 

“They are the only ones who have access to really see what’s going on, and it’s not like they are videotaping it and showing the judge,” Brown said. “They are just either providing a statement or a testimony. It’s very unfair.”

Sacks experienced what she believes was a deliberate attempt to obscure the current conditions at the MCC while she argued for her client’s release. The jail provided the opposition medical records that predated her motion concerning the prisoner’s health.

“They never even gave him an opportunity nor did they report that he had asked to see a doctor,” Sacks said. 

She considers it part of a larger effort to suppress the true conditions of the facility.

“There’s been a great big cover up by the BOP, and I think a lot of lawyers in my position would agree.” 

As of today, the jail registered no positive COVID-19 cases among inmates and 12 among corrections officers. Only five inmates have tested positive since the shutdown of federal jails.

“We’re hearing from all our clients—and I’ll tell you most of my clients that are there had symptoms or currently have symptoms of COVID—that the MCC has done absolutely nothing about it,” she said.

Sacks explained that the low contraction numbers are used to argue that it is safer for the prisoners than outside it.  “They claim that they’re screening them, that they’re keeping them locked down, ‘quarantining’ them, but how can you quarantine somebody when it’s an overcrowded jail system?” 

The MCC currently houses 677 inmates. It was designed to hold 449. In the early days of the lockdown, quarantine meant isolation in the jail’s Special Housing Unit, or SHU, typically used for solitary confinement.

“It’s a catch-22. If they push for these tests, they’re fearing being put in the SHU,” Sacks said. “The SHU is reserved for punishment.”

In late April, a contraband video of the jail conditions surfaced. In it, the narrator highlighted the congested and unhygienic living conditions that inmates have to endure. That same day, five inmates at the MCC filed a class action lawsuit against its warden, Marti Licon-Vitale. The suit requests writs for habeas corpus for all inmates that have suffered due to the conditions in the jail. A motion for preliminary injunction relief was submitted this past Tuesday.

“They are lucky they haven’t had many deaths,” Sacks said. “It’s going to explode at some point.”

The post New York City’s federal courts go remote and the incarcerated suffer appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

In Harlem, demonstrators met in front of the Adam Clayton Powel Jr. State Office Building on W. 125th St. From there, the group took a short march around Central Harlem. And then the first standoffs began in front of the 28th Precinct.

From there, the demonstrators walked to the Henry Hudson Parkway. Taking the southbound on-ramp at W. 125th St., they quickly filled the road. Many drivers honked and waved in support as the demonstrators criss crossed between lanes to mitigate the disruption of traffic. The demonstrators marched off the highway at 96th street, walking to Washington Square Park to meet with other demonstrators. After a brief interlude where organizers spoke to the crowd, the demonstrators moved again, moving south to the Lower East Side before hooking back around to Union Square Park.

It was during this section of the march where tensions rose. Police in riot gear greeted passing demonstrators as they walked from Delancey Street to Union Square Park, and verbal confrontations became more frequent. Buildings and police vehicles were vandalized around Astor Place, with one police van damaged by a smoke bomb. As groups from across the city coalesced in Union Square Park, things quickly escalated. Clashes with police occurred across downtown Manhattan through the night.

More demonstrations are expected across the city  today.

Protester watching from atop the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Memorial in Harlem. Photo by Daniel Girma

Police form a line in front of the 28th Precinct in Harlem. Photo by Daniel Girma

Demonstrators sit and chant on W. 125th St. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

Demonstrators march to the Henry Hudson Parkway. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

Demonstrators close the Henry Hudson Parkway near W. 125th Street. May 30, 2020. Photo By Daniel Girma

Two demonstrators are arrested on the Henry Hudson Parkway in the Upper West Side. Photo by Daniel Girma

Demonstrators gather in Washington Square Park after the long walk from Harlem. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A police officer and demonstrator argue in the Lower East Side. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A demonstrator vandalizes a window near Union Square Park. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A police officer ushers demonstrators away from a vandalized police van. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

A police van vandalized by demonstrators. May 30, 2020. Photo by Daniel Girma

The post From Harlem to the Lower East Side, protestors march, scream and battle for racial justice appeared first on Pavement Pieces.