World Courant
With assist from Shawn Ness
Mayor Eric Adams gave his 2024 State of the Metropolis deal with highlighting homelessness and the migrant disaster. | Michael Appleton/Mayoral Images Workplace
State authorities’s largest gamers weren’t bodily current at New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams’ State of the Metropolis deal with within the South Bronx at the moment. It was a session day in Albany in spite of everything — however they have been clearly on the mayor’s thoughts.
It was a largely constructive speech that felt like a reelection marketing campaign kickoff — the monetary value of housing and serving migrants was talked about solely briefly.
In it, although, Adams instantly appealed to Albany to behave on housing, hashish and colleges, reiterating the legislative agenda he’s laid out for this session.
Listed here are the highest 4 issues Albany insiders might take away from Adams’ speech:
1. Lacking in motion
Gov. Kathy Hochul, Meeting Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Chief Andrea Stewart-Cousins handed on the massive occasion. And even Adams’ high ally within the Legislature, Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar needed to skip it — although she was given a outstanding position in a hype video that performed earlier than the speech.
State authorities wasn’t solely unrepresented at Hostos Neighborhood Faculty, a CUNY campus. Lawyer Basic Tish James (“main from the entrance,” Adams mentioned) sat along with Comptroller Tom DiNapoli (“Be sure we get that cash again right here within the metropolis,” Adams mentioned).
2. Construct, child construct
A brand new reasonably priced housing tax incentive to interchange 421-a and state legal guidelines easing the conversion of workplace buildings to housing have been on the highest of Adams’ state legislative agenda final yr… and so they’re on the high once more this yr, since they didn’t get achieved.
Adams has aspirations of constructing extra housing, however recommended Albany wasn’t serving to. “New York Metropolis should construct. However we want Albany to clear the way in which for the housing we want,” he mentioned. “Let. Us. Construct.”
3. Snuff it out
Adams has argued that state legal guidelines tie town’s fingers on closing down unlicensed hashish shops. So “to get them shut down as soon as and for all, we want Albany’s assist,” he mentioned. Rajkumar has launched a invoice, and Hochul’s backed the trouble, to present native governments extra enamel.
When state legislators permitted the leisure hashish market, they have been nervous about persevering with to criminalize medicine. However Adams has argued that having shops brazenly flout the foundations sows dysfunction. “Give us the right authority, and we’ll get the job achieved,” he mentioned.
4. Preserve management
Adams reiterated his name for a four-year extension of mayoral management of metropolis colleges (or as he calls it, “mayoral accountability”) and even made a plea as a New York native together with his Faculties Chancellor David Banks.
“We gave it to 2 guys that went to (the) Boston faculty system,” Adams mentioned, referring to Boston-raised predecessors Mike Bloomberg and Invoice de Blasio. “Give it to 2 guys that went to the (New York Metropolis) public faculty system. Allow us to have it. Allow us to proceed our success.”
Gov. Kathy Hohcul acknowledged that the precise to an abortion, if a referendum passes, can be enshrined within the state structure after November’s election. | Mike Groll/Workplace of Governor Kathy Hochul
ABORTION RIGHTS: The state’s leaders stopped by Deliberate Parenthood’s foyer day in Albany, reupping their dedication to state’s abortion-rights legal guidelines.
Senate Majority Chief Andrea Stewart-Cousins instructed attendees, most of whom have been adorned within the fluorescence that has develop into an emblem of the group’s annual efforts, that she’s trying ahead to the day when she doesn’t have “to put on pink anymore.” However that day’s not right here but.
“I’ve to indicate up daily and combat for a similar factor daily, each week, yearly, each time anyone will get the concept girls don’t have the precise to have bodily autonomy and make choices which can be crucial to be made personally with their physician,” Stewart-Cousins mentioned within the nicely of the Legislative Workplace Constructing.
The Democratic leaders touted their efforts on abortion-related points lately. They usually used the prospect to rally help for the looming referendum on an Equal Rights Modification to the state structure this November.
“The correct to an abortion can be enshrined eternally after this November’s election as a result of it’s on the poll,” Hochul mentioned. “We’ve got these rights and we’re going to take them again, beginning proper right here within the nice state of New York.” — Invoice Mahoney
UNION MEMBERSHIP DROPS: New York stays some of the unionized states within the nation, however, like the remainder of the nation, enrollment is dropping.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics this week reported New York’s labor union membership in 2023 stood at 20.6 % of the workforce, second solely to Hawaii’s 24.1 %. The nationwide common was 10 %.
However the variety of staff who’re additionally union members is falling during the last a number of many years, because the fiscally conservative Empire Heart factors out at the moment. And the variety of unionized staff is actually flat from 2022 to final yr.
Union membership, nevertheless, stays key in New York politics as an efficient voter mobilization device and a key curiosity group in public coverage debates. — Nick Reisman
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) is pushing for Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer to cross her invoice closing the migrant shelter at Floyd Bennett Area. | Getty Pictures
MIGRANT SHELTERS: Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) is looking on Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer to cross her invoice to shut the Floyd Bennett Area migrant shelter.
The Home handed the Defending our Communities from Failure to Safe the Border Act of 2023 in late November. The invoice would prohibit federal funding from getting used to supply housing to migrants on federal park land and would retroactively cancel the present lease settlement with the federal facility.
Malliotakis, together with Assemblymember Jaime Williams and Metropolis Council Member Joann Ariola are taking a visit to the Staten Island shelter to encourage the Democratic senator to cross the invoice, which has proven no real interest in doing. — Shawn Ness
PARKS COMMISSIONER RIDES OFF: New York’s parks commissioner is headed again to his previous stomping grounds. Erik Kulleseid, who has led the New York State Workplace of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for 5 years, will take over the Open Area Institute as president and CEO in April.
Kulleseid will keep on as commissioner till the top of February.
The commissioner “celebrated vital milestones, from the opening of recent state parks together with Sojourner Fact to record-setting attendance yr after yr,” mentioned Jason Gough, a spokesperson for the governor. “Governor Hochul is grateful for Commissioner Kulleseid’s dedication to public service and his wonderful management of the State Parks system.”
Kulleseid beforehand labored on the Open Area Institute for eight years, overseeing the creation of its parks initiative. He’s managed main capital investments into the state’s parks system throughout his tenure — and the parks system has set attendance data most years.
Hochul has proposed one other yr of main capital spending for the parks system — a rise of $250 million from the earlier yr to $450 million — linked to the 2024 centennial of the system in addition to swimming investments. — Marie J. French
NYSUT SLAMS SCHOOL AID PROPOSALS: In 2007, New York State United Lecturers president Melinda Individual labored within the Meeting Chamber to create the state’s basis assist method. Now she is preventing again in opposition to Hochul’s proposals to vary elements of the method that might end in cuts to greater than half of the state’s faculty districts.
Individual mentioned the proposal by Hochul to eradicate “maintain innocent” — a coverage that stops colleges from gettng cuts to high school assist — and a change in how the buyer worth index is calculated resulted in a college assist proposal $419 million in need of what was anticipated or written into schooling legislation.
“We must always as a state — all of the stakeholders on this — sit down and truly do the laborious work of updating the method,” Individual mentioned.
The state Training Division requested $1 million to conduct a examine on the method and really helpful 5 modifications that may be achieved within the meantime. Individual famous that she want to see each achieved unexpectedly to make sure all revisions have the proper meant impression.
“(She’s) not updating the wants half — the fee to teach a baby (element) was achieved many years in the past — except you’re going to do this work, then all the opposite stuff is simply arbitrary cuts,” Individual mentioned. “I do know the method is sophisticated, however I do know that we will do that. I actually do consider that we will determine this out and preserve our promise to those districts.” —Katelyn Cordero
CANNABIS DELAY: New York’s Hashish Management Board canceled a gathering scheduled for at the moment on the request of Hochul, based on an e-mail from a board member obtained by Playbook.
The last-minute cancellation, when many license candidates have been planning to journey from throughout the state to submit public feedback, is the most recent headache for New York hashish entrepreneurs who’ve been working to start out promoting regulated weed.
“It’s brought about much more confusion,” mentioned Paul Fits, a dispensary license hopeful who submitted an utility within the newest spherical.
In a press release concerning the cancellation, the Hashish Management Board mentioned it determined to postpone the assembly to “make sure the issuance of as many licenses as potential, as quickly as potential.”
The board was slated to think about three adult-use retail licenses, based on screenshots of the agenda that have been then pulled off of the board’s web site late Tuesday.
The board’s causes for canceling the assembly lacked “a strong justification or clarification,” mentioned Joe Rossi, hashish follow group chief at Park Methods.
One constructive that would come out of the cancellation, although, is that there may very well be some form of a reset of the licensing course of, Rossi mentioned, including that there’s potential that Hochul might “get this factor again on observe.”
The board is planning to come back again in February to problem extra leisure marijuana licenses, along with different agenda gadgets like approving rules for residence cultivation.
However any plans to problem further licenses may very well be derailed by the courts this Friday, when a federal decide will think about a preliminary injunction on the licensing course of. — Mona Zhang
— Zoning legal guidelines and elevated demand for labor and supplies could cease Hochul from constructing 800,000 houses in New York. (State of Politics)
— New York midwives are pushing to loosen restrictions that permit them to follow within the state. (Instances Union)
— Former Rep. George Santos instructed Piers Morgan that he’s nonetheless related: “Folks need to hear what I’ve to say.” (New York Instances)
A four-point Albany information to the State of the Metropolis
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