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THE CITY CLERK
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
NOTICE OF SPECIAL ELECTION
45TH COUNCILMANIC DISTRICT
Pursuant to provisions of Section 25(b)(1) of
the Charter of the City of New York, notice
is hereby given that a special election will
be held in the Borough of Brooklyn,
County of Kings on, Tuesday, May 14,
2019, between the hours of 6:00 AM and
9:00 PM for the purpose of electing a
candidate for the 45th Councilmanic District.
Only registered voters in this district are
eligible to vote.
For any information on whether you are eligible
to vote or where your poll site is located,
please call (212) V-0-T-E-N-Y-C. TDD for the
hearing-impaired is (212) 487-5496.
The City Clerk of the City of New York
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CLOSEUP ON THE NEW STATE BUDGET
2020 budget’s impact on Brooklyn
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
New York’s 2020 budget
is in the bag!
Lawmakers approved a
$175 billion budget on March
31 that reforms the state’s
cash-bail system, taxes drivers
to raise big bucks for the
city’s decaying subway system,
and earns New York second
place in the race to outlaw
single-use plastic bags.
The Empire state’s bag ban
— which follows California’s
plastic-bag prohibition as the
second in the country — was
among the big-ticket items included
in the budget package,
and allows cities to opt of
an additional five-cent tax on
paper bags.
City legislators approved a
law introduced by Park Slope
Councilman Brad Lander to
charge shoppers a nickle for
plastic bags in 2016 — a fee
that businesses were entitled
to keep, and would have
amounted to a $100 million
annual giveaway.
But the then Republicanruled
state Senate introduced
a bill to kill the municipal fee
in early 2017, and Gov. Cuomo
— who described the law as
By Julianne McShane
Brooklyn Paper
The state Legislature and
Gov. Cuomo passed congestion
pricing on March
31 as part of the state’s $175
billion budget.
Analysts say the move will
only affect between one and
two percent of the Kings
Countians who drive cars
into the distant isle of Manhattan
below 60th Street, but
local cyclists say the scheme
will also transform the commutes
of thousands of Brooklynites
who commute on two
wheels, by reducing the number
of overall cars on the roadways
and leaving more room
for alternative forms of transportation.
“Brooklyn drivers will
barely be impacted by congestion
pricing, according
to some recent studies, and
it will greatly improve the
overall streetscape south of
60th Street to the benefit of
thousands upon thousands
of Brooklyn cyclists and pedestrians
that commute into
Manhattan daily,” said Ridgite
Dan Hetteix, a member
of the newly-formed cycling
advocacy group Bike South
Brooklyn .
City data shows that the
amount of cyclists who ride
from the Borough of Churches
into the distant isle has grown
exponentially within the
past decade: an average of
10,429 cyclists per day rode
into Lower Manhattan over
the Brooklyn and Williamsburg
bridges during the sevenmonth
period of April – October
2017 — nearly 40 percent
more than the number of cyclists
who rode over those
bridges during the same period
nine years earlier.
The Big Apple is now the
first city in the nation to implement
congestion pricing ,
which will charge a yet-to-
“deeply flawed” and vowed to
create a state-wide taskforce to
address the scourge of plastic
bags — signed it into law a day
before the so-called “plasticbag
tax” was set to kick in.
The 2020 Budget also
makes New York the first
Weed it & weep
Lawmakers fail to legalize
marijuana ahead of deadline
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
Albany puff, puff,
passed on marijuana
legalization.
The state Legislature
approved a
$175 billion budget
on Sunday that omits Gov.
Cuomo’s proposal to create
a legal weed market in New
York.
Cuomo attributed the setback
to disagreements over
the nuts and bolts of legalization
— insisting that state
lawmakers haven’t fallen prey
to reefer madness.
“In concept, we have an
agreement,” Cuomo told reporters
on March 27, “but
the devil is in the details,
and that’s going to take more
time to work out.”
Cuomo announced a legalization
scheme in January
that gave municipal
governments the
ability to opt out of
the state’s marijuana
program, forbade the
sale of marijuana to
anyone under 21
years old, and promised
to raise $300 million in
annual state-tax revenue by
the 2024–25 fiscal year.
Originally planned for inclusion
in the 2020 budget,
the governor hinted earlier
this month that concerns
over how the drug would
be taxed, where that money
would go, and safety concerns
raised by law-enforcement
and constituents had made
the bill’s passage ahead of
the budget’s April 1 deadline
a long shot.
“There is a wide divide
on marijuana,” Cuomo said
on March 11. “I believe ulti-
state to institute a congestion
pricing program, which
will tax drivers heading into
Manhattan anywhere south of
60th Street beginning Dec.
31, 2020, and is expected to
generate $1 billion annually
to the MTA, which the agency
Gov. Cuomo’s Office / Mike Groll
could use to secure bonds for
up to $15 billion, according
to AM New York .
Congestion pricing is only
one of three new revenue
sources for the Transit Authority,
which will net $365
million annually from a mansion
tax on the sale of properties
over $25 million, and
$320 million per year through
a new tax on purchases
made online.
Legislators voted through
a justice reform package that
will eliminate cash bail for
misdemeanor and non-violent
crimes, ensuring 90-percent
of defendants await trial outside
of a jail cell.
The state’s reform package
follows policies enacted by
District Attorney Eric Gonzalez
in 2017, which sees nearly
all Brooklyn defendants facing
misdemeanor charges be
released without bail — with
exceptions usually involving
sex crimes and allegations
of domestic violence — and
has resulted in the number of
monthly Kings County admissions
to Rikers Island being
reduced by 58 percent since
the borough-wide policy took
effect, according to spokesman
Oren Yaniv.
The budget additionally
makes a temporary 2 percent
property tax cap enacted in
2012 permanent, enhances
school funding by 3.8 percent,
and state health funding 3.6
percent over last year.
Gov. Cuomo announces an agreement on the Fiscal Year 2020 Budget during
a news conference in the Red Room at the State Capitol.
Congestion tolls and local commutes
File photo
Congestion pricing got the green light on Sunday
as the state Legislature and Gov. Cuomo passed the
initiative as part of the state’s $175 billion budget.
be-determined fee to drivers
entering Manhattan
within the affected boundary
at peak times beginning
in 2021, according to the governor’s
office, which added
that drivers of passenger vehicles
will not be charged more
than once per day.
The Triborough Bridge and
Tunnel Authority and a new
traffic mobility review board
will determine the cost of the
toll and which drivers will receive
exemptions, according
to a report in the New York
Times, which added that 80
percent of the toll revenue will
be directed to the subway and
bus systems, while the last 20
percent will be evenly split between
the Long Island Rail
Road and the Metro-North
Railroad.
Proponents of the decadesold
idea have said the pricing
will provide about $1 billion
annually to the MTA, which
the agency could use to secure
bonds for up to $15 billion
to fund improvements to
the city’s beleaguered subway
system, according to AM New
York . And analysts say that
the tolls will impact a marginal
number of Brooklynites:
a rep for the independent Regional
Plan Association said
on the Brooklyn Paper Radio
Show last month that the
pricing scheme will impact
only 1.3 percent of Kings
Countians.
And data compiled by
pro-congestion pricing organization
Tri-State Transportation
Campaign predicted
a slightly higher impact on the
Borough of Churches, estimating
that 2.4 percent of its
commuters will regularly pay
the charge, and adding that
more than 60 percent of its
residents take public transit
and would benefit from transit
improvements.
Mayor de Blasio agreed on
April 1 that congestion pricing
will help fix what he called the
“broken subway system,” and
called the tolls “our best hope
at getting the trains moving
and ending the suffering our
riders face every day.”
Those who oppose the measure,
including Kings County’s
own Assemblywoman
Rodneyse Bichotte (D–Flatbush),
charge that the pricing
amounts to an unfair burden
on the poor.
Other local pols — including
Assemblywoman Mathylde
Frontus (D–Coney Island)
and state Sen. Andrew
Gounardes (D–Bay Ridge) —
signaled their lukewarm support
for the plan’s potential to
improve the subways, but said
they also worried about the
impact the fares could have
on the less than four percent
of their constituents who commute
by car.
Gounardes — who represents
the transit-starved
district of Dyker Heights,
Bensonhurst, Bath Beach,
Gravesend, Gerritsen Beach,
Manhattan Beach — called
himself “cautiously supportive”
of the plan, but said he
would withhold his full support
until the Triborough
Bridge and Tunnel Authority
released more details on
the fares and which, if any,
drivers would be exempt from
paying.
“Congestion pricing, as a
means to fund critical infrastructure
improvement, is a
start, but the devil is in the
details,” Gounardes told this
newspaper. “Southern Brooklyn
elected me to fight for
desperately needed transit
upgrades and protect their bottom
line, not the MTA’s.”
Other cities that already
use the tolling scheme — including
London and Stockholm
— have seen environmentally
beneficial results,
according to pro-congestion
pricing campaign Fix
Our Transit. In London, the
measure has reduced traffic
by 15 percent and reduced
greenhouse gas emissions
by 20 percent, and in Stockholm,
congestion pricing has
cut in half the number of children
who sought treatment
for asthma at local hospitals,
according to Fix Our Transit .
A rep for the national Environmental
Defense Fund advocacy
organization said the
Big Apple’s new tolling plan
will set a precedent for other
cities across the nation by improving
air quality and encouraging
alternative forms
of transportation.
“As the first place in the
United States to implement
congestion pricing, New York
will help lead the way for other
cities and states that are serious
about tackling pollution
from transportation,” said
New York regional director
Andy Darrell.
mately we can get there, and
we must get there — I don’t
believe we can get there in
two weeks.”
State lawmakers still have an
opportunity to pass new weed
laws before the end of this year’s
legislative session in June, and
Cuomo described legalization
as the major issue left over from
budget negotiations.
“As far as what’s not going
to get done and what’s going
to get carried over, the main
thing is probably going to be
marijuana legalization,” the
governor said.
News of the legalization
setback outraged drug reform
advocates, including
200 members of the Start
Smart New York coalition,
who rallied outside the State
Legislature on Wednesday in
support of the bill.
Kassandra Frederique,
state director of the Drug
Policy Alliance, described
the legislature’s inability to
reach a consensus ahead of
the April 1 deadline as a failure
of leadership, which will
have very real consequences
for New Yorkers.
“Each day marijuana legalization
is not passed, someone
is arrested, deported,
evicted or loses custody of a
child because of criminalization,”
Frederique said. “Each
day that New York’s leaders
maintain prohibition, someone
can’t pass a background
check, has their parole revoked,
or loses a job.”
The state Legislature approved a $175 billion budget
on Sunday that omits Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to
create a legal weed market.
Gov. Cuomo’s Office / Mike Groll
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