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David Yassky: A New Dem in the Big Apple

by David Yassky  

This commentary appears in the current issue of BLUEPRINT, Ideas for a New Century - published by The Democratic Leadership Council. 

Even New Yorkers have a pragmatic political sense. They want solutions that work.  

I am a New York City politician-and a New Democrat.  

I know that sounds like a contradiction. Big cities are supposed to be Old Democrat redoubts, dominated by patronage machines and social service bureaucracies. New York City does fit that stereotype in many ways, but many of the city’s younger politicians are eager to apply the lessons of Clintonism to local government. As a member of the New York City Council, my legislative agenda has been largely shaped by the New Democrat movement—and I have found a surprising number of like-minded allies. That’s why New Yorkers are seeing a burst of policy innovation that looks quite different from old-fashioned, tax-to-the-max liberalism. 

New Democrats across the country have a great deal at stake in nurturing innovations at the local level, like those in New York. As the Democratic congressional majority develops a national platform, local government offers an indispensable opportunity to see what the New Democrat values of innovation, growth, and efficiency can look like in practice. States and cities can be laboratories of “New Democracy,” as the saying (almost) goes, and New York is a terrific example of that.  

Progressive Innovations. First and foremost, a New Democratic local agenda must be progressive, reflecting the core Democratic commitments to equal opportunity, aiding the disadvantaged, and protecting future generations. That is what makes New Democrats Democrats. What makes us New is our determination to pursue these goals in creative ways and to look beyond tax and-spend solutions. 

A perfect example is an innovative initiative developed by Council Speaker Christine Quinn and me to alleviate the most salient problem in the city today: the lack of affordable housing. Eye-popping increases in rents and housing prices have forced many working families to leave the city, and have left many more fearing that they will be next. 

The traditional response to this problem has been to pump subsidy dollars into government-funded low income housing projects. Indeed, in the last major election cycle, a coalition of advocates demanded that City Council candidates sign a pledge to support a $1 billion increase in the city’s budget for subsidized housing. Almost all candidates signed the pledge, even though they must have known that the city’s fiscal situation made such an increase highly unlikely. And, when the first budget after that election actually cut housing funds, many of those pledge-signing Council members voted for it, despite their campaign promises.  

Speaker Quinn and I took a different approach. We saw that the real estate industry was hungry for changes in the zoning law to allow residential development in some of the city’s older, now vacant manufacturing areas. We proposed allowing apartment buildings in some manufacturing zones if one-quarter of the new apartments were made affordable to low-income (or low- to middle income) families. 

This proposal created a classic New Democratic dynamic. Some on the left opposed any new development unless it was completely government-subsidized. Some on the right, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, wanted to let the developers build without any affordability requirement. But to the broad swath of commonsense progressives, our idea was a home run. In the two years since its enactment, this initiative has worked magnificently. More than 1,000 new affordable apartments are on track for construction, at minimal cost to taxpayers. 

Beyond our housing and tax initiatives, the Council has broadened the urban agenda to include issues, such as environmental protection, that have not historically been the purview of local governments. Environmentalism is not typically thought of as a distinctly “New Democrat” issue. But I believe it can be of great value in reaching out to disaffected voters, particularly younger voters, who are progressive in their beliefs but who see the traditional Democratic Party as irrelevant. This kind of outreach is certainly part of the core New Democratic mission.  

Cities have terrific environmental opportunities. In 2003, for example, I introduced and the Council passed the first-ever bill requiring part of our taxicab fleet to be gas-electric hybrid vehicles, and last year, we created incentives for the rest of the fleet. When all 13,000 New York City taxis go hybrid, we will have cut greenhouse gas and asthma-related emissions by more than 4,000 tons a year. That’s not enough to offset the damage done by President Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative,” but it is a material step in the right direction.  

Creating Jobs. When I worked in Congress during the Bill Clinton years, I heard the president say more than once that “work is the best social program this country has ever devised.” The policy implications of that insight are obvious. While traditional urban Democrats focus mostly on government programs and on dividing the economic pie, New Democrats come at the problem from the opposite direction. How can we help the economy grow and help people generate their own security through work and earning? In New York, Wall Street has boomed but middle-income jobs have steadily disappeared. Our challenge is to create jobs that don’t require advanced degrees but do pay enough to support a family.  

One of our innovative approaches has been to identify sectors of our economy that have strong growth potential—and then use the government to help them along. In New York, one such sector is film and television production. This industry employs more than 100,000 people in well-paid, high-benefits jobs—the sort of jobs that are increasingly hard to find. Thanks to a highly skilled work force and an urban streetscape that many directors find attractive, New York has a competitive advantage in film and TV production. Throughout the 1990s, however, the city lost jobs to lower-cost locales such as Toronto and Dublin, Ireland. In response, I teamed in 2004 with Councilman Eric Gioia (a Clinton White House alumnus) to enact a tax credit for production companies. Some city officials were skeptical of the credit. They commissioned McKinsey & Co. to study its effectiveness. The study found that the credit had created more than 3,000 jobs and had generated more than enough filming to pay for itself in the city’s budget. In 2006, we doubled it. 

Another key sector of New York’s economy is specialty manufacturing—high-end clothing, metalworking, furniture. While New York’s industrial sector has declined, along with the rest of the country’s, we still have hundreds of manufacturing firms with more than 100,000 employees. These businesses have the skills and contacts to compete with overseas companies—but many of them have succumbed to the high cost of real estate in New York.  

In response, Councilwoman Diana Reyna and I joined forces to establish a program that would create dedicated spaces for manufacturers. The idea for this program came from some innovative nonprofit leaders who were interested in industrial retention, and who realized they could collect enough in rent from manufacturing tenants to cover the cost of renovating and maintaining older buildings. The hurdle was the cost of acquiring the buildings in the first place—the nonprofits simply couldn’t compete with developers looking to convert the buildings into condos. Our program helps with these acquisition costs.  

In addition to generating and retaining jobs, we’ve made efforts to assure that people who work hard every day can keep enough of their income for basic living needs. To that end, we adopted a Clinton-era innovation called the Earned Income Tax Credit. Rather than focusing, as many Democrats still do, on traditional spending programs, we added the EITC to the city’s income tax structure. The EITC is a perfect way to boost incomes of the working poor. Our EITC is modeled on the federal program—a refundable tax credit available to wage-earners making less than $38,000 per year. In 2006, this program returned more than $100 million to 740,000 low income families.  

Reinventing Local Government. Another part of the New Democratic agenda in New York that flows from the Clinton years has been to make the government itself operate more responsively and efficiently. Clinton called it “reinventing government.”  

One of the elements first proposed by Clinton that we’ve implemented in New York is a designated toll-free phone number—311—to handle citizen complaints about everyday matters such as potholes, malfunctioning traffic lights, broken water mains. Though the president introduced the idea in 1996, so far only seven cities have adopted it. New York’s system, by far the largest, handles 40,000 calls per day, and it has had a huge impact on the delivery of city services. Not only does it trigger the right service at the right place, it also tracks the agency responses, creating a new level of accountability in city government. 

Bringing a New Democrat approach to governing is not just good policy, it’s also good politics. It addresses the problem that underlies the Democrats’ dilemma—the fact that they have lost the last four mayoral elections in New York, and this in a city with a 4-to-1 Democratic edge in voter registration. Old school Dems strive mightily to avoid the obvious conclusion that the traditional Democratic message is simply not reaching the voters. Or they blame the 1991-1992 recession for electing Rudy Giuliani and attribute Bloomberg’s two wins to his personal wealth.  

The truth is that voters, even hardcore progressive New York Democratic voters, want government that works. They are pragmatic, forward thinking, and results-oriented. Yet none of the recent Democratic mayoral candidates articulated the kind of New Dem vision embodied in the policy innovations some of us are trying to push. Intensity of passion, something every Democratic politician has, is a good thing—but it’s not enough. A winning Democratic candidate must also be driven to innovate, press for economic growth, and be pragmatically results-oriented. That’s how progressives can once again take over City Hall in the Big Apple.

About the DLC. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) leads the New Democrat movement, a national network of elected officials and community leaders whose innovative ideas are modernizing progressive politics for the 21st Century.  

David leads in fundraising

Katz, Yassky Appear To Lead In Comptroller Fund-Raising

New York Sun

By Staff Reporter of the Sun

The race for comptroller is heating up, with two City Council members pulling in about $600,000 each over the last six months. addthis_pub

Melinda Katz, who represents parts of Queens, may have eked out a lead in the fund-raising race, taking in "more than $600,000" in the most recent fund-raising stretch, a campaign aide said, for a total haul of $2 million.

David Yassky, who represents parts of Brooklyn, said he raised about $600,000 in the last six months, but has pulled in a total of $930,000 by rolling over funds from a previous council fund-raising account. He began raising money for the comptroller's seat in October, he said.

The president of the Bronx, Adolfo Carrion, raised $500,000 over the last six months, for a total fund-raising catch of about $1.85 million. He has about $1.3 million in his campaign account, an aide said. Mr. Carrion had been considered a likely mayoral candidate, but announced in December that he was going to seek the comptroller's seat instead.

A council member who represents parts of Queens, David Weprin, collected between $325,000 and $350,000 for the seat over the last six months, he said. He has raised about $1.6 million overall, and has between $1.3 million and $1.4 million on hand for his campaign.

A council member who represents parts of Queens, John Liu, did not return phone calls yesterday about his fund-raising figures. Mr. Liu is considered a likely candidate for comptroller.

A council member who represents parts of Brooklyn and is considered a likely candidate for comptroller, Simcha Felder, declined to share his fund-raising figures with The New York Sun, an aide said.

Another candidate for comptroller, Assemblyman James Brennan of Brooklyn, could not be reached yesterday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner is leading the mayoral hopefuls in the latest stretch of fund-raising, collecting more than $1.6 million. The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, raised $1.1 million during the same period, and the comptroller, William Thompson Jr., raised just more than $1 million.

David named as the Democratic Leadership Council's "New Dem of the Week"

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) names David Yassky New Dem of the Week for his hybrid taxicab fleet legislation. Following is the DLC announcement.

In order for the United States to create a cleaner and more energy-secure future, we must not only encourage new alternative energy production, but also create incentives for businesses and individuals to integrate these new resources into their daily lives. In particular, the use of hybrid vehicles or home-grown biofuels holds enormous potential to help reduce America's dependence on oil.  

New York City Council Member David Yassky recently wrote legislation that was passed by the City Council and approved by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that will create incentives to convert the entire New York City taxicab fleet to clean-burning hybrid vehicles in the next five years.

"This bill will give cab owners a powerful incentive to convert to clean-air vehicles," Yassky said. "With this new technology available and affordable, and this incentive in place, there is no good reason to keep hybrids out of the taxi fleet. For the nearly one million New Yorkers living with asthma, the bill we passed today is a breath of fresh air."  

For the better part of the past decade, all of the New York City boroughs have received failing grades for monitored air quality and have had the worst asthma rates in the country, according to the State of the Air Report produced by the American Lung Association. One of the key contributions to the City's poor air quality are the 13,000 NYC taxicabs which account for 10 percent of all cars in Manhattan and more than one-third of the motor vehicle emissions in Midtown and Downtown.  

Under Yassky's new law, cab owners that agree to convert to hybrid vehicles will be able to hold onto their cabs for a significantly longer amount of time, saving them thousands of dollars in replacement costs. Under current law, taxicab owners who own their own vehicles are required every five years to exchange their cars for newer models. And those cabs that are used by multiple drivers must replace their cars every three years.  

Yassky's legislation builds on the success of a pilot program, initiated in 2003, allowing the city to issue 81 taxi medallions (NYC taxicab licenses) that could only be used for fuel efficient vehicles. In 2005 the city issued 250 more. Yassky's new law speeds up this conversion and will produce approximately 1000 yellow hybrid taxicabs by October 2008, 4000 by 2009, and so forth until the whole feet has become hybrid by 2012.  

New York City's taxicab force currently puts 14,941 tons of carbon dioxide into the air each day. With these new incentives, New York City has taken an important step toward helping achieve a cleaner, healthier, and energy-secure future for its citizens.

May 31, 2007

About the DLC. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) leads the New Democrat movement, a national network of elected officials and community leaders whose innovative ideas are modernizing progressive politics for the 21st Century.

David pushes the Mayor on hybrid taxis

The spacious but gas-guzzling Ford Crown Victoria, long the emblematic vehicle of the city’s yellow cab fleet, would be replaced by cleaner, more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles under a five-year plan proposed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday.

The move, which requires approval by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, is part of the mayor’s ambitious environmental agenda for the city, PlaNYC, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

“There’s an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference,” Mayor Bloomberg said on NBC’s “Today” show yesterday. “These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes. This does a lot less; it’s a lot better for all of us.”

Replacing the city’s 13,000 yellow cabs, more than 90 percent of which are Crown Victorias, with hybrid vehicles would have the same impact on air quality as removing 32,000 privately owned vehicles from the road, the mayor said. Hybrids, which run on a combination of gasoline and electricity, emit less exhaust and are far more fuel-efficient; a hybrid Ford Escape, for instance, is rated at 34 miles per gallon in city driving.

Environmentalists have long complained about the poor gas mileage of the Crown Victoria, which gets 10 to 15 miles to the gallon in city traffic. But taxi owners and drivers say they like the vehicle’s spaciousness, dependability and safety.

In the last two years the city has added about 375 hybrid vehicles to the yellow cab fleet, including models like the Toyota Prius sedan; Toyota Highlander Hybrid, a sport utility vehicle; and Ford Escape, another S.U.V.

Under the mayor’s plan, that number would triple by October 2008 and would grow by about 20 percent each year after that.

While the plan does not specifically require that the new taxis be hybrids, it calls for all new vehicles entering the fleet beginning in October 2008 to get at least 25 miles to the gallon, rising to 30 miles to the gallon for cars entering the fleet the following year. City officials said the only vehicles that currently meet those fuel standards, as well as tougher emission standards that the mayor is proposing, are hybrids.

Mr. Bloomberg said the new regulations would have little impact on the city’s cab owners, who by law are required to replace their vehicles every three to five years, depending on their use. The city’s yellow cabs are privately owned but regulated by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the head of which is appointed by the mayor.

He said the slightly higher cost of buying hybrid vehicles would be offset by the average $10,000 a year owners would save in fuel costs.

The mayor’s proposal for higher fuel standards was first reported in The Daily News yesterday.

PlaNYC initially called for converting the fleet within 10 years. But Mr. Bloomberg said City Councilman David Yassky, a longtime advocate of a greener taxi fleet, had persuaded him to cut that time in half.

The faster schedule, however, also reflects the mayor’s desire to get as much of his PlaNYC carried out before he leaves office at the end of 2009, especially those elements that do not require state approval or financing.

“I’ve never liked to plan something and then have somebody else have the responsibility of doing it or paying for it,” the mayor said yesterday.

The mayor and Mr. Yassky appeared together on the “Today” show and at a separate announcement at City Hall, flanked by 3 of 10 new hybrid Ford Escapes donated yesterday by Yahoo Inc. to a fleet operator, Team Systems.

“They gave us 10 cars, which they’re paying for, which is a heck of an impetus for us to go ahead and say, ‘Let’s do it now,’ ” the mayor said.

Cabdrivers and owners had mixed feelings about the mandate yesterday.

“The trick is to balance passenger comfort and safety, for the both the passenger and the driver, with environmental concerns,” Michael Woloz, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, an industry group, said yesterday. “The stretch Crown Victoria has met all those needs.”

Liaquat Janjma, 50, drives the night shift in a cab owned by a friend. Six months ago they switched from a Crown Victoria to a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and the impact was immediate, saving him $20 to $50 a shift.

“The only bad thing is that repairs can be very, very expensive,” he said.

Matthew W. Daus, chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, said that even with higher maintenance costs, “when you add it all up, with the gas savings, it’s going to mean more money in the drivers’ pockets.”

San Francisco, Boston and other cities have introduced hybrids into their taxi fleets, but New York City officials said the mayor’s plan was believed to be the most extensive of any major city.

The officials said the new fleets would cut carbon dioxide emissions by 215,000 metric tons a year, just a small fraction of the 58.3 million metric tons the city produces each year.

Still, Kate Sindig, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the mayor’s plan would “have real impacts, both in terms of air pollution and global warming gas emissions.”

“It also sends a really powerful signal around the world,” she added, “because New York is a city that is looked to around the world.”

David puts a stop to a major waste of taxpayer dollars

Wasting New Yorkers' Tax Dollars 

As a New York City Council member, I know that my constituents pay the highest taxes in the country. That's why it drives me nuts to see bureaucrats waste money. City agencies owe it to the taxpayers to be as careful with their money as they would be with their own.

Recently, I discovered a government program that has wasted millions of tax dollars. But the worst part is that it is about to waste some more.

The program has two parts called "HomeWorks" and "StoreWorks." The idea behind them is to take dilapidated apartment buildings and storefronts that are owned by the government — usually as a result of foreclosure — and put them into private hands.

Of course, there is a simple way to do this. It is called an auction — that is how sellers usually make sure they are getting top dollar for their property.

But that would be way too straightforward for the bureaucrats. Instead, the city gives these properties to builders either for nothing or at nominal cost. The builders fix up the properties and then sell them at an "appraised value."

Every step in this process is wrong. First, builders are guaranteed to make a sizable profit because the renovation costs are always well below the appraised value of the finished product.

I have nothing against business people making a profit, but the problem here is that the builders are selected by the City Housing Department, not through competitive bidding. Programs like this, where the right to make a profit is awarded by the government — not earned in the marketplace — are an invitation to corruption.

Council Member David Yassky

David urges the city to invest in "microlending"

The Loans May Be Small, But Results Could Be Huge 

There’s an old saying: If you give a hungry man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach him to fish, you feed him for life.

And today we might add: If you lend him a fishing rod, you might help him start a business that will not only feed himself and his family, but employ one or two of his neighbors besides.

That’s the basic insight behind “microlending,” which is the hottest trend among international nonprofits seeking to lift Third-World populations out of poverty. Last year, Mohammed Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his success in helping thousands of impoverished Bangladeshis, mainly women, borrow to buy chickens to start a farming business, or the yarn to start a weaving business.

We can apply this same model here at home. New York City is full of potential entrepreneurs with energy, talent and good ideas — but without access to the capital necessary to get going. Many of our best business-starters are immigrants and face language barriers in dealing with loan officers. Many lack the credit history banks require.

Most important, many would-be entrepreneurs are seeking small loans — $25,000 or less — and for commercial banks, these loans simply don’t generate enough profit to be worth the paperwork.

A handful of pioneering nonprofits have begun to fill this void. The biggest New York City microlender is Acción USA, an offshoot of a Latin American microlender. Over the past five years, Acción has loaned more than $13 million to nearly 5,000 borrowers — for an average loan size of $9,054. These are loans, not charity; the repayment rate is 94%, and the results have been impressive — 77% of Acción clients reported higher business revenues following the loan, and in total, the borrowers have added well over 1,000 employees.

So much of business and of life in New York is about producing the product and making enough money to stay afloat. But the loans Acción and other microlenders provide offer so much more, not just to their clients, but to the communities in which their clients work.

Individual success stories illustrate this larger tale of the success of microlending in this city:

• A Bodega owner in the South Bronx, fueled by his loan, provides his family’s income, employs 12 members of his community, and signals both individual and communal economic progress.
• With a loan of less than $3,000, a hairdresser in Washington Heights, originally from the Dominican Republic, purchased new mirrors, chairs and hair dryers, transforming a salon into an inviting community establishment.

Simply put, microloans end up being good for communities, neighborhoods and the city. As a result of growing immigrant and other small business entrepreneurship, property values and commercial rents have risen; employment is up; crime is down; the quality of life has improved.

Acción also does a good job to make sure that once entrepreneurs receive a loan, they are not left standing alone. They provide personalized training — financial education resources that complement borrowers’ existing skills. In 2005, over 1,200 individuals received one-on-one training on topics including business planning, recordkeeping, budgeting and credit management.

Even with their limited capital, Acción and other microlenders have their clients’ backs. We at the City Council should get theirs.

Acción and other nonprofits have clearly established the potential for successful microlending in New York. The next step is to expand these efforts.

That is why we have proposed a $5 million infusion of City funds into a revolving fund for microloans. Even better, the City’s larger commercial banks have committed to partnering with the microlenders — if the City chips in $5 million, the banks will add another $20 million, which would provide funding to thousands of entrepreneurs.

That is too good a deal to pass up. When the City Council passes next year’s budget in a few months, we hope the microlending fund will be included.

Council Members David Yassky and Miguel Martinez

David uses the tax code to increase affordable housing

Challenging a Tax Break for Housing Developers
By Janny Scott
New York Times

More than a third of the City Council came out yesterday against the Bloomberg administration’s plan to tighten up the city’s most popular tax break for housing developers, saying the tax break should go only to projects in which at least 30 percent of the apartments are affordable to low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

Members of the group said that they were submitting a counterproposal under which no developer anywhere in the city would get the tax break without including lower-cost apartments. Under the administration’s plan, that requirement would apply only in parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens where the real estate market is hottest.

“The administration is proposing to narrow the tax break very slightly,” said David Yassky, one of the 20 co-sponsors of the new bill. “We’re proposing to get rid of the loophole altogether. A project that includes affordable housing deserves taxpayer subsidy. We are completely eliminating the tax break for pure market-rate development.”

Under the current program, known as 421-a, developers of new buildings in most neighborhoods are eligible for a 10- to 15-year exemption from the increase in real estate taxes resulting from the work. Only in central Manhattan and in Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn are they required to include lower-priced units on site or nearby to get the tax break.

In October, the administration proposed expanding those areas to include Lower Manhattan, parts of Harlem, the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights and other parts of the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. In the rest of the city, market-rate developments would remain eligible for the tax break, but under stricter rules.

The aim of each proposal is to encourage developers to build more housing that middle- and working-class New Yorkers can afford. Developers have argued that tightening the tax-break program too much could slow housing construction; housing advocates say giving tax breaks for market-rate developments is, in effect, subsidizing gentrification.

The City Council is expected to vote on the proposals later this month.

Under the new proposal, no project anywhere in the city would be eligible for a 421-a tax break unless the developer made 30 percent of all the apartments affordable to families earning no more than 50 percent of the median income for the area, or about $35,000 for a family of four, according to the plan’s supporters.

The lower-cost apartments would have to be built on the same site as the market-rate units — a requirement that does not currently exist but that is also included in the administration’s proposal. The new plan would require that the lower-cost units remain permanently affordable to lower- and middle-income tenants, even after the tax break expires.

City officials say the administration’s plan would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in increased tax revenue, some of which they hope would go to building more low-cost housing. Supporters of the alternate plan say their plan could produce more than $1 billion in additional revenue over 10 years, most of which should go to creating and preserving low-cost apartments.

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, has said she intends to introduce her own 421-a bill next week.

“I think the gap between these positions is bridgeable,” said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development and a critic of the administration’s plan. “I’m still hopeful for a deal that works.”

David's call for divesting City pension funds from Iran)

 

By Adam Dickter Published: April 9, 2008 

William Thompson, who as City Comptroller is custodian of five pension funds with nearly $95 billion in assets, appears prepared to divest from stocks in some companies that do business with Iran, The Jewish Week has learned.

The divestment would be one of the first by a U.S. city, although 10 states have already enacted Iran divestment legislation or policies, and would send a powerful message to other municipalities because New York's pension system is the largest in the nation.

Eighteen foreign corporations that have invested more than $20 million in Iran's oil and natural gas industries since 1996 are at risk of U.S. sanctions, and most of those are believed to be part of the city pension funds' portfolio. Thompson is expected to announce action against two or three of them and possibly freezing up to a dozen others, sources say.

Thompson, whose role as investment adviser requires him to maximize returns for the city's employees and retirees, has previously resisted appeals from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and other proponents of divestment as a means of convincing Iran to fully abandon its aspirations to be a nuclear power.

"He has said he is hesitant, afraid of a precedent that if he does it with Iran you have to do it with other places," said Councilman David Weprin, a Queens Democrat, chair of the Finance Committee and a candidate to succeed Thompson in 2010. Weprin heard Thompson speak at a recent AIPC forum on divestment where he said the comptroller spelled out his position.

But Thompson, a likely Democratic candidate for mayor next year, has recently said he was open to the idea of limited divestment, according to a source who has been keeping tabs on the issue and has spoken to the players involved.

"The only question now is which stocks" and how many, said the source, who said the comptroller would also divest from companies that trade with Sudan, which is the object of international boycott efforts because of the government-backed genocide of rebel tribes in Darfur.

In an e-mail statement, Thompson spokesman Michael Loughran did not deny a pending divestment but said: "Discussions surrounding investments in Sudan and Iran have been ongoing for some time.  However, nothing is finalized at this point."

Thompson's action would come at a time when federal legislation is pending that would indemnify fund managers from litigation by pensioners due to resulting financial losses if they divest from Iran-linked companies. The measure passed overwhelmingly in the House, sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays. A Senate version was sponsored by Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois and Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas and awaits a vote.

In November, New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who is sole trustee of the $154 billion Common Retirement Fund, announced that he would identify investments tied to Iran's energy or defense sectors; request from those companies an accounting of those activities and how they are consistent with a long-term investment strategy; and evaluate those responses with an eye toward divesting funds from companies that are not mitigating risk to the investor.

Representatives of AIPAC have been meeting with legislative leaders and investment officials around the country to press divestment as a key tool in confronting the possibility of a nuclear Iran whose leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to destroy Israel.

"As part of a broader strategy of increasing the economic, diplomatic and political pressure on Iran, we believe divestment efforts are a good idea," said Josh Block, an AIPAC spokesman.

Although the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in December was construed by many commentators as downplaying the nuclear threat posed by Iran, the country's weapons program remains a national security and international concern. The United Nations Security Council recently passed a third resolution calling on Iran to stop its enrichment of uranium.

Thompson will be forced by term limits to leave office at the end of 2009. Two of the Democratic candidates for the job, Weprin and David Yassky, a councilman from Brooklyn, said they would immediately divest from Iran-linked companies if elected.

"Public dollars should not be going to support the Iranian regime," said Yassky. "These are not sound investments. Keeping pension funds terror-free is totally consistent with getting maximum return for retirees."

Weprin said "there has already been a precedent with South Africa during apartheid. The city pension funds divested stocks and major holdings already. The question is [when] to do it when it rises to what level. We'll have to deal with it on an individual basis."

Three other expected Democratic contenders for comptroller, Councilwoman Melinda Katz, Assemblyman James Brennan and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, did not return calls for comment at press time.

Among the companies targeted for divestment are France-based Total, Royal Dutch Shell, based in the Netherlands, Spain's Repsol, Italy's ENI, Japan's INPEX, Canada's Bow Valley Energy and Russia's Lukoil.

David's op-ed on budget reform in the New York Post

 

Ending NYC Budget Abuse 

By David Yassky  Published: April 29, 2008

RECENT headlines have ex posed gaping flaws in the city's budget process: The tradition of letting local elected officials "earmark" modest amounts of funding for neighborhood groups - little leagues, senior centers, etc. - has mushroomed into more than $100 million a year in spending with virtually no oversight or accountability.

This practice allows far too much potential for abuse - and it seems that potential has been realized. Two City Council aides have been indicted on charges that they got the council to earmark funds to a group they controlled, which ultimately funneled them the money.

That scandal came on the heels of revelations that, for the last several years, the council budget staff used fictitious organizations to stash away money for later use - plus further disclosures of potential conflicts of interest between council members and the groups they fund.

Speaker Christine Quinn deserves credit for responding to abuse with an aggressive plan for reform. Now the council needs to take firm, decisive action to clean up this mess and protect the taxpayers' interests.

Put the budget process on the Web: When New Yorkers can Google reviews of any restaurant in the city, it defies logic that they still can't easily see how $59 billion of their tax dollars are being spent.

As my colleague Daniel Garodnick and I proposed, each group seeking a direct grant should specify in detail what it plans to do with the money - and these applications should be published to a searchable, online database. Taxpayers should know exactly where their money is going and have the ability to hold recipients accountable.

Do pre-audit of grantees: Once a council member has granted funds to a group, the appropriate city agency (e.g., the Department for the Aging in the case of a senior center), should conduct a pre-audit to assess whether the grantee has the competency and capacity to fulfill the grant requirements.

One troubling aspect of the recent scandals is that the city agencies processed these earmark grants with no scrutiny of the recipients.

Don't allow even the appearance of nepotism or conflicts of interest: Taxpayer dollars are being awarded. If a council member wants to direct funds to a group that employs a relative or a relative of a staff member, the city's Conflict of Interest Board should approve the grant in advance.

Audit how the money's spent: Each year, the city comptroller should audit a sample of groups getting earmarks, to ensure that the money was properly spent. If the now-indicted aides knew an audit was possible, they might have been deterred from their alleged theft.

*

 

Regrettably, many council members have opposed these reform proposals on the ground that they would eviscerate the council's ability to ensure that our constituents get the services they deserve. I certainly agree that the City Council should play a vital role in allocating taxpayer funds - but the proper way to do it isn't by protecting our prerogative to earmark but by giving far more rigorous oversight to the rest of the city budget.

In my six years on the council, I've often felt that there's an unspoken bargain between Mayor Bloomberg and the council: We get complete discretion to allocate some $100 million worth of "earmarks in return, the rest of the mayor's $59 billion budget sails through without significant changes.

Both parts of that bargain disserve the taxpayers.

We should reform the entire budget process - not just the earmarks portion. We need to scrutinize all city spending to eliminate waste and to ensure that New Yorkers are getting maximum value for their tax dollars.

The entire budget now is negotiated behind closed doors and then presented to the council for a simple yes-or-no vote. Instead, each agency's budget should be presented for approval - or amendment - to the council committee that oversees the agency.

The committees should be able to add new spending only by cutting elsewhere. That would prompt council members to find ways to save money as well as ways to spend it.

The City Council must do a better job in looking after the money our constituents entrust to us - and the time to start is now. Mayor Bloomberg will release his proposed 2009 budget later this week, and the council must adopt a final budget by June. This year, let's scrutinize every line.

It's the taxpayers' money - let's spend it as carefully as they would.

David Yassky is council member for Brooklyn's 33rd district.

David's plan for greater budget accountability

 

By BENJAMIN SARLIN Published: February 7, 2008

The mayor and City Council speaker's power over the budget process would be weakened and dispersed among committees under a proposal being floated by Council Member David Yassky of Brooklyn.

The plan calls for the budget to be broken into individual line items by the Independent Budget Office, a nonpartisan city agency that analyzes the city's finances, instead of by the mayor, and for Council committees to vote separately on city agencies' budgets before approving the overall budget.

Mayor Bloomberg released a $58.5 billion preliminary budget last month, which is the starting point for negotiations between the mayor and City Council. The final budget will be approved in June.

Under current procedures, Council members speak out on the budget in hearings but vote only on a final agreement negotiated between the mayor and the Council Speaker. They are barred from approving individual budget items or agencies' spending. Mr. Yassky's plan would shift power to council committees. For example, the Council's Public Safety committee would vote on the police department's preliminary budget and the Environmental committee would approve the budget of the city's environmental protection agency. Because the Council is required to submit a balanced budget, Council members would not be able to increase overall spending, but the committees could rearrange which programs receive funds within the agencies, giving them more freedom to tinker with the mayor's proposed priorities.

"It's hard to believe that of the $59 billion city budget, the City Council would make the same exact trade-offs that the mayor makes," Mr. Yassky, a candidate for city comptroller, said. "The fact that you don't see the Council substituting some of its trade-offs for ones that the mayor has made says that the process is not working as best as it should."

Mr. Yassky said that his plan would encourage greater fiscal discipline among Council members by asking them to determine which programs are winners and which could be eliminated or reduced. "Forcing people to confront those trade-offs would force Council members to look much harder for ways to cut spending," he said.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has already pressed the mayor to provide more specific agency budgets in the past, as Mr. Yassky calls for, and with some success. In October she announced that this year's budget would contain numbers broken down by program from some sixteen agencies, up from two agencies the previous year. Mr. Yassky praised Ms. Quinn's changes as "huge progress," but said that it should be a jumping off point for granting more influence to the Council committees, who would use the information to debate the city spending in detail.

It is unclear how much of Mr. Yassky's plan could be achieved through internal Council rule changes and whether they would garner widespread support. Part of his plan includes giving the IBO's revenue estimates the force of law rather than the mayor's estimates, which some say may require a voter referendum.

Council member Tony Avella of Queens said yesterday that while he believes the speaker exercises too much control over the budget, he is skeptical of the plan's viability. "The speaker has all the power," Mr. Avella said. "Giving more power to the committees is something I've called for a long time, but I don't know if you can translate the budget into that." He suggested letting the Council veto individual items in the budget instead of voting only on the whole package might distribute power more equitably.

Errol Louis of the Daily News calls David a "budget hawk"

 

By Errol Louis Published: April 6, 2008 

It seems there is no limit to how much of the public's money politicians will steal, waste and abuse if we don't keep a close and skeptical eye on them. The piggies have been busy lately, and it's going to cost us plenty.

What we know so far about the budget scandal engulfing the City Council is that the Council has, since 2001, allocated $17 million by giving grants to nonexistent organizations. Quinn's been in charge there since 2006, and her pork pool — the term she uses is "reserve funds" — was then diverted to pet projects favored by the speaker and/or her staff.

Quinn says she banned the shady bookkeeping and alerted federal prosecutors last fall after realizing the staff had ignored her order to stop the practice. That's a step in the right direction — but the possibility of fraud isn't the only scandal.

The deeper problem is the mentality at City Hall that allowed the pork trough to operate unnoticed for years. It stems from the feeling by many pols — at all levels of government — that the public's money is theirs to spend on whatever strikes their fancy: gifts to friends and family members, pork to pay off political allies, even pay raises to stick in their own pockets.

That air of entitlement is enshrined in the city budget, which hides the political gifts bestowed by Council members in an obscure, hard-to-interpret document known as Schedule C, which lists millions in government payments to all sorts of civic, religious, recreational and educational organizations.

Making it even harder  for anyone to ferret out shenanigans, the Council created at least 15 fake groups including "American Association of Concerned Veterans," "Immigration Improvement Project of New York," and my personal favorite, "Coalition for Informed Individuals."

Obviously, the membership roster of that fake group was a big, fat zero.

The outrageous swindle worked because the Council so routinely makes even legitimate spending all but impossible to decipher. Schedule C provides no information about exactly what the receiving organizations are going to do with all their taxpayer cash.

Countless senior citizen groups get money "for space and equipment" — good luck trying to find out how much space or equipment your tax dollars are buying, or why. The obvious answer — that pols steer money to their favorite groups to build good will and ensure their re-election — is universally known but rarely discussed openly at City Hall.

And that is how government spending gets out of control. Even senior Council members say they have no idea exactly how much money they or their colleagues have jammed into the budget; Quinn and her staff control who gets what, and opposing the speaker on any matter can result in less for a member.

Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn, a budget hawk, assigns staff and interns to translate Schedule C into a spreadsheet showing how much money different members have targeted, and where. He's one of a few members — Tony Avella of Queens is another — who understand how serious government waste has become.

To be fair, the Council is neither the worst nor sole culprit when it comes to budget blunders.

In Albany, the bloated central staffs of the Assembly and Senate include hundreds of employees whose titles, pay grade, purpose and performance are a mystery to the taxpayers who support their salaries and pensions. And Albany's disclosure of the discretionary member items controlled by legislators is even more obscure and mysterious than the City Council's.

At the federal level, the Congressional Budget Office recently studied 95 military contractors and found that every one had gone substantially over budget, costing the public a mind-boggling $295 billion.

It goes without saying that in these troubled economic times — foreclosures, job losses and government deficits are all soaring — we cannot afford to see tax money frittered away.

It's too soon to know whether the Council scandal will doom Quinn's chances of becoming mayor next year, but it's not too soon for the public to wake up and demand that all pols, regardless of party or ideology, act less like pigs and more like hawks when it comes to our money.

The New York Sun praises David on tax cuts

Time for City Tax Cuts
The New York Sun

Editorial of The New York Sun
April 3, 2006

The enactment of a state budget traditionally is the starter's pistol for serious consideration of the New York City budget. And while the budget approved by the state legislature last week still needs to get past Governor Pataki, the news that several key players are discussing tax cuts in connection with the city budget gets the budget debate here off on the right foot. We heard late last week from an aide to David Yassky, a City Council member from Brooklyn, who says that Mr. Yassky, a Democrat, is working with the Council's Republican leader, James Oddo, and with a business group, the New York City Partnership, in an effort to reduce or eliminate two taxes.

The first is the unincorporated business tax, a 4% tax that for many of the city's small businessmen amounts to a double tax. In come is first subject to this "unincorporated business tax," and then to the city's personal income tax. It's bad enough that New York is one of the few cities that taxes income - most tax sales or property. But taxing income twice - first as an "unincorporated business," then as personal income - imposes a double burden that makes New York City less competitive in comparison with other, lower tax jurisdictions. This is particularly onerous to starting entrepreneurs, but taxing anyone doubly is a serious disincentive.

The other tax being targeted is the utility tax, a levy of 2.35% of gross income of utilities, which is passed along to consumers and businesses in the form of higher energy and telephone costs. New Yorkers already face high energy costs as a result of the regulatory obstacles that discourage the construction of new power plants, of which the saga of Adam Victor's 5-year, $15 million effort in Brooklyn, as told by our David Lombino on page one of Thursday's Sun, is one example. The tax just makes matters worse.

Mr. Yassky's office estimates the cost of eliminating the unincorporated business tax for New York City residents at $400 million a year and of reducing the utility tax at $150 million a year. These numbers are small in the overall context of a $60 billion city budget that has been growing, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, at 8% a year between fiscal 2002 and 2005. But hearing talk of tax cuts rather than tax increases from a City Council Democrat is a step in the right direction. Our own preference tends toward across-the board rate cuts on the personal income tax or toward a city tax credit for private or parochial school tuition along the lines of the one that was watered down in Albany. But if tax-cutting is the context of the city budget debate in the coming month, it will be a healthy development indeed.

The Observer recognizes David as an environmental leader

David Yassky Gets His Al Gore Moment

By Azi Paybarah

New York Observer

The Queens Tribune praises David's integrity and reform goals

David Yassky: A Reformer For Comptroller
By Michael Schenkler
Queens Tribune

We’re in the heat of the ’08 election season and the ’09 citywide elections are already taking shape. The City Council “Slushwater Scandal” – the concealing of discretionary funds in the name of fictitious organizations and the questionable and corrupt use of discretionary funds for personal and political purposes – has seemingly removed Speaker Quinn from the mayoral race and may just help alter the dynamics of the race for comptroller.

Comptroller candidate, Brooklyn Councilman David Yassky came to the Trib last Friday; it was the first time I met him. I’ve known him however, by reputation, as a highly intelligent legislator who was named one of the top 100 New Democrats to watch nationwide by the Democratic Leadership Council in D.C.

With at least two Queens councilmembers, and possibly a third, actively in the comptroller mix, I had friends who I liked for the office. But I am open-minded and always am available to candidates who may impact the future of our borough.

The hour-and-a-half chat revealed David to be a reform-minded, good government leader who is likely to be a player on the public service scene for years to come. I was impressed by his sincerity, intellect and commitment to the things that are right for the people. This guy should be from Queens. (Longtime readers may recognize that as just about the highest level of compliment that can be found in this column).

The Yale Law School grad who worked for Chuck Schumer – you don’t get better training anywhere in the game — drove himself to our office. He would rather have staffers working than driving him around, he explained. He made 10 stops over the past weekend and this hard-working, driven, progressive would bring to the comptroller’s office a unique blend of the pragmatic know-how he has demonstrated in the council combined with a reputation for integrity and an understanding of the fiscal intricacies of our city.
On top of that, David acknowledged: “Queens has better diners than Brooklyn.”

He is personable, quick, thoughtful and certainly right on his gastronomical judgement.

He also is clearly different than most of the present councilcmembers when it comes to reform in face of the present council financial scandal:

“Anybody who knew there was a fictitious name in City budget should be prosecuted.”

“Earmarks (discretionary funds) should be done away with almost entirely, except smaller projects such as little leagues, free movies in park etc., little things like that.”
“I have worried that if I go too far on an issue, does that mean little league, meals on wheels are gonna suffer, and is that a fair thing for me to do? It is an incomplete view if you don’t think that’s something someone in my position should ask himself.”

“The corrupting nature of earmarks goes beyond the complicit coercion of important civic leaders in district. I get that. But other part of corruptive nature is there has been an unspoken bargain between the mayor and council, or controller. The Council gets to dole out $50-60 million — which turns out is $170 mil — and the mayor doesn’t question and comptroller doesn’t question it. That bargain doesn’t work for public.”

“But she [Quinn] came out and said all money the speaker has been allocating should have been done with competitive grants. I thought that was absolutely the right thing to do. Was gutsy. I think she tried to do the right thing. If we’ve done $170 million in pork, we could take $168 million of it and dispense it via competitive grants. Three people [in the Council], including me, were for it — 48 were outraged. That thought initially was appalling.

“When I’m comptroller, I will audit earmark grants to make sure money is being spent for public purpose.

David and I were in quick agreement as he declared: “We need systemic changes.” We also concurred, “Albany is worse than ever.”

I asked, “Is there something that can make people believe you are different?”

Yassky responded: “In a word, results. Affordable housing, environment, jobs – get the results. There are lot of elements of change. Good intentions are fine, but you’ve got to have results at the end of day.”

He cited his work achieving on the north Brooklyn rezoning, 20 percent affordable apartments in the buildings to be built; getting a bill passed that will convert the City’s taxicab fleet to fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles by 2012; and his Film Industry Job Creation Act which generated 3,000 new City jobs in the industry.

As we looked to the future, Yassky worries that lots of neighborhoods aren’t affordable anymore. He doesn’t think it is healthy for the city to be off limits to all but the super rich.

“I worry whether political leadership can deal long term in ways the mayor has tried to do. The Bloomberg approach is something I like a lot. He’s now the gold standard.
“I am optimistic and hopeful.” he continued. “Look at what’s going on in Flatbush, where dangerous blocks 15 years ago are now gorgeous blocks built by immigrants. It’s not something 20 years ago, someone would have predicted.
“We do continue to attract people with energy, entrepreneurs, grit and determination, that makes people able to succeed. The basic fundamentals to stay finance capital of world are strong but need to be protected. Our creative community and economy . . . those remain real strengths.”

What else should the Trib readers know about you?
“Your readers want a comptroller who’s going to give taxpayers the most for their dollar in city government. I’m gonna do that.”

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times praises David's hybrid taxi initiative

Save the Planet: Vote Smart
By Thomas L. Friedman
Published: October 21, 2007

People often ask: I want to get greener, what should I do? New light bulbs? A hybrid? A solar roof? Well, all of those things are helpful. But actually, the greenest thing you can do is this: Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.

Why? Because leaders write the rules, set the standards and offer the tax incentives that drive market behavior across a whole city, state or country. Whatever any of us does individually matters a tiny bit. But when leaders change the rules, you get scale change across the whole marketplace. And the energy-climate challenge we face today is a huge scale problem. Without scale, all you have is a green hobby.

Have no illusions, everything George Bush wouldn’t do on energy after 9/11 — his resisting improved mileage for cars and actually trying to weaken air-conditioner standards — swamped any good works you did. Fortunately, the vacuum in the White House is being filled by leaders from below.

Take the New York City taxi story. Two years ago, David Yassky, a City Council member, sat down with one of his backers, Jack Hidary, a technology entrepreneur, to brainstorm about how to make New York City greener — at scale. For starters, they checked with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to see what it would take to replace the old gas-guzzling Crown Victoria yellow cabs, which get around 10 miles a gallon, with better-mileage, low-emission hybrids. Great idea, only it turned out to be illegal, thanks to some old size regulations designed to favor Crown Vics.

Recalled Mr. Hidary: “When they first told me, I said, ‘Are you serious? Illegal?’” So he formed a nonprofit called SmartTransportation.org to help Mr. Yassky lobby the City Council to change the laws to permit hybrid taxis. They also reframed it as a health issue, with the help of Louise Vetter, president of the American Lung Association of the City of New York.

“New York City has among the dirtiest air in the U.S.,” Ms. Vetter said. “When it comes to ozone and particulate matter, New Yorkers are breathing very unhealthy air. Most of it is tailpipe emissions. And in New York City, where asthma rates are among the highest in the nation, the high ozone levels create very serious threats, especially for kids who spend a lot of time outdoors. Converting cabs from yellow to green would be a great gift to the city’s children.”

Matt Daus, who heads the taxi commission, which is independent of the mayor, was initially reluctant, but once he learned of the health and other benefits, he joined forces with Messrs. Yassky and Hidary, and the measure passed the City Council by 50 to 0 on June 30, 2005. Since then, more than 500 taxi drivers have converted to hybrids — mostly Ford Escapes, but also Toyota Highlanders and Priuses, and others.

On May 22, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the greenest mayors in America, decided to push even further, insisting on a new rule, which the taxi commission has to approve, that will not just permit but require all cabs — 13,000 in all — to be hybrids or other low-emission vehicles that get at least 30 miles a gallon, within five years.

“When it comes to health and safety and environmental issues, government should be setting standards,” the mayor said. “What you need are leaders who are willing to push for standards that are in society’s long-term interest.” When the citizens see the progress, Mr. Bloomberg added, “then they start to lead.” And this encourages leaders to seek even higher standards.

I asked Evgeny Freidman, a top New York City fleet operator, how he liked the hybrids: “Absolutely fabulous! We started out with 18, and now we have over 200, mostly Ford Escapes. Now we only put hybrids out there. The drivers are demanding them and the public is demanding them. It has been great economically. With gas prices as they are, the drivers are saving $30 dollars a shift.” He said drivers who were getting 7 to 10 miles a gallon from their Crown Vics were getting 25 to 30 from their hybrids. The cost of shifting to these hybrids, he added, has not been onerous.

Now Mr. Hidary is trying to get law firms and investment banks, which use gas-guzzling Town Cars — 12,000 in the city — to demand hybrid sedans only.

This is how scale change happens. When the Big Apple becomes the Green Apple, and 40 million tourists come through every year and take at least one hybrid cab ride, they’ll go back home and ask their leaders, “Why don’t we have hybrid cabs?”

So if you want to be a green college kid or a green adult, don’t fool yourself: You can change lights. You can change cars. But if you don’t change leaders, your actions are nothing more than an expression of, as Dick Cheney would say, “personal virtue.”

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