V.I.D. backs local favorite Yee for advocate
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
The Village Independent Democrats
endorsed Ben Yee for public
advocate on Sunday.
The special election for public advocate,
set for Tues., Feb. 26, is jampacked
with nearly two-dozen candidates who
have tossed their names in the hat after
former Public Advocate Letitia James
was elected New York State attorney
general. Not all will likely make it onto
the ballot, though.
Yee — the secretary of the Manhattan
Democrats and Democratic state
committeeman for the 66th Assembly
District — comes to the race as an activist,
educator and entrepreneur. Though
Yee nabbed support from V.I.D., he
faces a tough race against several current
and former politicians. Prominent
among them are Councilmember Jumaane
Williams, who ran for lieutenant
governor on a ticket with Cynthia
Nixon last year, and former Council
Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
At a forum this past Sunday sponsored
by several Downtown Manhattan
Democratic clubs, 17 candidates made
their case for the clubs’ endorsements.
Twenty-two V.I.D. members supported
Yee, another 16 went for Williams
and four voted for no endorsement.
“Ben is the reason I’m president of
the club and the reason I’m even a member
of this club,” said David Siffert, the
club’s recently elected president. Siffert,
among others at V.I.D., was inspired by
Yee’s civics workshops that have rallied
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Ben Yee making his pitch for endorsements
at Sunday’s forum
for public advocate candidates.
newly involved politicos to join Democratic
clubs and activist groups.
The 34-year-old East Villager has
developed a platform inspired, in part,
by those workshops. If elected, Yee has
proposed creating a citywide civicseducation
program, as well as a “311
Hotline” for the public to ask questions
about government processes. He also
advocates for helping forge community
“grassroots coalitions,” starting
with coordinating community boards,
school committees and precinct councils
to develop a citywide perspective.
“It came down to Ben and Jumaane,
who are very, very different candidates,”
Siffert said. “There’s defi nitely something
to be said for someone who has
been in legislation and been involved in
actively shaping policy,” he said of Williams.
“But there’s defi nitely something
to be said for someone who’s been involved
in education and been involved
in getting people involved.”
More than a dozen other candidates
showed up Sunday. Among them was
Williams, who railed against the mandatory
inclusionary-housing program
— the city’s program to increase affordable
units in new developments. He
said the program must be re-evaluated.
He leaned on his past experience as a
councilmember and tenant organizer.
“There are landlords who need to
be in jail and their buildings should be
taken from them,” Williams said.
Other prominent candidates included
former Council Speaker Mark-Viverito,
Councilmembers Rafael Espinal and
Ydanis Rodriguez and Assemblymembers
Latrice Walker, Michael Blake,
Ron Kim and Danny O’Donnell.
Some Villagers slammed Rodriguez
for his support of the hotly disputed Inwood
rezoning, plus his campaigning
for former state Senator Marisol Alcantara.
Alcantara formerly aligned herself
with the Independent Democratic
Conference, which was partly why former
Councilmember Robert Jackson
was able to defeat her in last September’s
primary and win her seat.
Others pushed former and current
councilmembers on why the Small Business
Jobs Survival Act has been denied
a vote for years in the Council. Mark-
Viverito cited constitutional issues the
bill may face. Rodriguez emphasized he
was a co-sponsor of the bill, while Espinal
voiced support for the bill, too.
High-profi le activist Nomiki Konst
also made her pitch. Saying her background
as an investigative journalist
gives her skill in tracking money, Konst
proposed creating a “confl icts-of-interest
grid” to show which corporations
are contributing funds to lawmakers.
Other contenders included attorneys
Jared Rich and Dawn Smalls; David
Eisenbach, a Columbia professor and
advocate for the Small Business Jobs
Survival Act; John Jay College adjunct
Sami Disu; Theo Chino, an activist
and bitcoin entrepreneur who was
detained after protesting the mayor’s
Fair Fares press conference last week;
and Daniel Christmann, a charismatic
plumber who blasted the governor on
his handling of the L-train shutdown
and Amazon deal. Ifeoma Ike, another
activist candidate and attorney, touted
her work with the Innocence Project,
which, through DNA testing, exonerates
people wrongfully convicted.
After three hours of candidates’
pitches, V.I.D.’ers debated among themselves
nearly an hour before voting.
Tiffany Hodges, a V.I.D. member
who has taken Yee’s civics workshops,
said, “He knows how to use the offi ce
for what it was created to do — to really
create transparency between what
the public knows and what government
doesn’t want the public to know.”
New Airbnb law blocked from going into effect
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
A judge blocked a city law aimed
at regulating home-sharing
sites like Airbnb and Home
Away in a preliminary injunction last
Thurs., Jan. 3.
Last year, the City Council passed a
law that would have required companies
like Airbnb to submit data to the
Mayor’s Offi ce of Special Enforcement
regarding the names and addresses
of hosts, whether short-term
rentals include an entire apartment or
a portion of it, plus information about
fees and the number of days that a
listing is rented. Under the law, which
would have gone into effect this year,
failure to provide the data would have
resulted in fi nes of $1,500 per listing
for each required reporting period.
Airbnb called the law an “extraordinary
act of government overreach”
that would violate the Fourth Amendment,
according to its complaint fi led
last August.
Last week, federal District Judge
Paul Engelmayer granted a preliminary
injunction, which prevented the
law from going into effect until he
makes a fi nal decision on the lawsuit.
“The decision today is a huge win
for Airbnb and its users, including the
thousands of New Yorkers at risk of
illegal surveillance who use Airbnb
to help make ends meet,” an Airbnb
spokesperson said in a statement.
“The court today recognized the fundamental
importance of New Yorkers’
constitutional rights to privacy
and the sanctity of their own homes.”
Councilmember Carlina Rivera,
who sponsored the legislation, tweeted:
“This isn’t over. We will see this
process through as we keep fi ghting
to get back our affordable housing
stock from illegal short-term operators.”
Rivera’s law, co-sponsored by more
than three-dozen other councilmembers
and passed unanimously, was
originally aimed at cracking down on
home-sharing services, which watchdogs
have alleged are further fueling
rising rents.
City Comptroller Scott Stringer
PHOTO BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
Carlina Rivera was the prime
sponsor of the City Council law
that would force Airbnb to turn
over its data.
found that nearly 10 percent of the
city’s rent increases since 2009 are
attributable to pressures created by
Airbnb, according to report from last
May.
Airbnb’s lawyers applauded the
judge’s order, though it is not the fi -
nal ruling and the case is ongoing.
Attorney Robbie Kaplan, of Kaplan
Hecker & Fink, said the decision
shows that “all Americans (including
businesses) have a right to privacy in
their records.”
“No government can force a company
to simply turn over its entire
hard drive every month without any
form of precompliance review,” Kaplan
said in a statement. He added
that the judge’s “cogent and comprehensive
opinion takes old-world concepts
which inspired the founders to
enact the Fourth Amendment in the
fi rst place and applies them to today’s
modern, high-tech world.”
“The decision makes clear that
the city cannot simply force Internet
platforms to provide what the city is
not otherwise allowed under the law
without process,” Sharon Nellez, another
Airbnb attorney, of Sullivan &
Cromwell, said in a statement.
6 January 10 - January 23, 2019 MEX Schneps Media