November 2010
13 posts
2 tags
New York City’s New Schools Chancellor
John Petro
The day after securing a waiver from the state that would allow her to become New York City’s next schools chancellor, Cathie Black posed for the cameras outside of P.S. 109 in the Bronx.
“The mayor has said right from the beginning, in our first conversation, ‘What I need is a very experienced manager who is used to complex organizations, who is a decision maker and...
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Under the Microscope: One County’s $3 Million...
Afton Branche
“The Hispanic businesses and malls are empty. You used to see 100 people at the shopping center, and after the resolution, you’d see five. You noticed the difference.”
This quote describes the fallout from Prince William County’s polarizing local immigration law which was passed in 2007 and modified in 2008. A three-year, $385,000 University of Virginia study of the...
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Economic Might Makes Right? NY City Council’s...
John Petro
When explaining her reasons for killing paid sick leave legislation earlier this year, New York City Council Speaker said that the economic costs associated with the bill would be too great. The bill’s opponents—including Mayor Bloomberg—agreed that guaranteeing every worker the right to earn paid sick leave was the right thing to do, but the bill ultimately lived or...
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Climate Deniers Take Congress, but Mayors May Save...
Amy Traub
The prospects for national climate change legislation look grim indeed. According to a tally maintained by ThinkProgress, 76 percent of Republicans who will be in the U.S. Senate next year and 52 percent of those in the House have publicly expressed doubts about the scientific consensus on global warming. This climate change denial has been enforced at the ballot box, reports the New...
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Bloomberg’s Job Killing Budget Cuts
Amy Traub
It’s the city’s ninth round of budget cuts in three fiscal years, and the most brutal. Mayor Bloomberg calls for 6,201 layoffs of public workers in the 2011 and 2012 fiscal years. Instead of responding at our firehouses, serving our frail elderly, and helping job-seekers perfect their resumes on the library computer, former New York City employees will instead crowd the...
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New York’s Lousy Jobs (And What Public Policy Can...
Amy Traub
Should we tear down the city’s middle class? Or work to turn lousy jobs into good ones? That’s the policy choice facing New York’s city and state leaders. So far, their decisions aren’t encouraging: for years New York has failed to use its economic development programs to promote the creation of good, family-supporting jobs. Now it is welcoming WalMart’s industry-decimating low-wages...
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Voters: We’ll Pay for Good Transportation
Amy Traub
Think last week’s election was nothing more than a massive voter referendum in favor of lower taxes, reduced spending and less government? A roundup of transportation ballot measures from the Center for Transportation Excellence should make you think again.
From Anchorage to St. Louis to Fairfax County, Virginia, when they were asked to weigh in directly on local transportation...
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NY Post Wants a Walmart in NYC Very Badly
John Petro
The New York Post is concerned. You see, they were able to get their hands on an “exclusive” analysis of how much New York City households spend at Walmart stores outside of city limits.
“Big Apple residents spent $165 million last year to buy low-cost products at Walmart’s suburban stores because there aren’t any outlets in the five boroughs, according to...
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Case Dismissed: ICE vs. the Immigration Courts
Afton Branche
What characterizes a broken immigration system? Though the phrase has become shorthand in describing our current immigration policies, just what this means can sometimes get lost in the weeds. This week, an analysis of our immigration courts by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) adds to our understanding of what’s wrong with the status quo.
...
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Tell Me What I Want to Hear: Bloomberg’s Living...
John Petro
Three top city officials, each rumored to have their eye on a mayoral run in 2013, challenged Mayor Bloomberg on Monday over a living wage bill in the City Council. The mayor has made it clear that he opposes the bill, which would guarantee workers at city-led development projects a living wage, calling these requirements a job-killer.
But with support for living wage growing in the...
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Will Albany Stop the Wage Thieves?
Amy Traub
It’s difficult to imagine anything more basic to a free economy than the right of an employee to be paid for his or her work. Yet this fundamental right is violated in New York’s low-wage industries as a matter of routine. Research from the National Employment Law Project concludes that a fifth of the city’s low-wage workers – an estimated 317,200 working New Yorkers – are paid less...
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After National Losses, Progressives Should Focus...
John Petro
I wasn’t surprised by the Republican takeover of the House. Unemployment, foreclosure, and economic stagnation—it was written on the wall. I was surprised, however, by how willingly Democrats allowed the GOP to shape media coverage of the victory as an American repudiation of the progressive agenda.
Republicans used their mid-term victories to claim that Americans had...
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San Francisco Goes to the Ballot Box for Electoral...
Afton Branche
San Francisco may soon become a national model for election reform. Voters tomorrow will decide on the Saturday Voting Act, a proposition that would require San Francisco to open all polling places on the Saturday before Election Day in November 2011.
Alex Tourk, organizer of San Francisco’s weekend voting campaign, says: “If we really want to increase access to the democratic...
