BY LINDSAY BU | It was a good night for becoming informed, and for posing questions to those who have the power to effect change.
Following a Community Resource Fair, which touted complementary flu shots and smoke detectors, along with the chance for city departments and advocacy organizations to hand out information, City Councilmember Corey Johnson hosted and moderated a Town Hall meeting on the evening of Wed., Jan. 13, at the LGBT Community Center (208 W. 13th St. btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.).
Dozens of local residents attended the standing room only event, which began with introductory comments from each of the 14 panelists representing city and federal agencies — including the Office of Emergency Management, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and the Department of Education. Johnson then explained the format: he would ask a few general questions to specific agencies, then would read questions that were submitted by the public.
The submission process entailed having audience members write their concerns on index cards, which were distributed at the entrance of the room before the meeting’s 7 p.m. start time. However, the system — perhaps installed to maintain order and ensure that Johnson could run through the questions in a timely manner — seemed to falter at a few instances throughout the night: passionate audience members would shout out follow-up questions from their seats, or rip out pages from notepads and walk up to Johnson to submit more questions. To this, Johnson would politely, firmly, state that people should hand their questions to the staff members that were collecting them.
The first of Johnson’s own questions was posed to Julie Menin, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. He asked her to elaborate on the new “big picture items” that New Yorkers were introduced to in the 2015.
“We are thrilled to be the agency that implements and enforces the paid sick leave law, which extended paid sick leave to over a million New Yorkers. Since we’ve been implementing this law, we have reached 1.3 million dollars in restitution and fines for over 9,000 employees,” Menin said.
Regarding the NYC Transit Ordinance, Menin explained that, “the law went into effect in January…any company, business, or not-for-profit that has 20 or more employees must provide commuter benefits to their employees. So this is the use of pre-tax money, and it’s not costing the employer more.”
When asked to talk about some of the disparities in healthcare seen across different NYC neighborhoods, Mary T. Bassett, Commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, noted unfortunate statistics. “This city is a city of neighborhoods, but it is also a city that is deeply segregated by income,” she said. “[In] the neighborhood of Brownsville in Brooklyn, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in our city, the life expectancy is 11 years shorter than [those of] wealthy neighborhoods, like Murray Hill and the Financial District.
Pressing further, Johnson asked, “What are some of the things that you are doing in some of the neighborhoods, that have seen greater disparities when it comes to some of these endemic issues, to actually try and decrease these disparities?”
“What we are doing,” Bassett explained, “is ensuring that we focus our most intensive programs — the ones that rely on people because those are our most expensive programs — in the neighborhoods where the need is greatest. We have a program, for example, called ‘Healthbox,’ which gives people an added amount of money that they can spend at farmer’s markets, and we’re working particularly in low-income neighborhoods…ensuring that we have been promoting access to health services in these communities.”
On the thread of increasing general efficiency and access to services, some departments and agencies have taken on initiatives to embrace user-friendly smartphone applications, which they promoted throughout the night.
Reading from an audience member’s index card, Johnson asked the MTA’s Assistant Director of Government & Community Affairs, Zachary Campbell, to respond to a situation that many New Yorkers face, when “you could wait forever and not have a bus show up, or a bus finally does show up and you see a sign at the front that says ‘Next Bus Please.’ ”
“All bus service is scheduled according to ridership of the route, and once we see an uptick in ridership, we will increase service accordingly,” Campbell said. “There are also other tools that customers can use that are really, really helpful. If you haven’t downloaded it, we really strongly suggest the Bus Time app — it has every bus in the city, in real time. You can also text the code at the stop if you do not have the smartphone.”
Similarly, when a question brought up homelessness in the city and the inefficiency of calling 311, Program Analyst of the Department of Homeless Services Erin Eisenberg acknowledged the problem. “I completely understand. I go through it myself. I’ve timed it — it’s probably about five minutes just to get through the call. The 311 app is really good. It takes 60 seconds to use the app. It’s GPS-based. You scroll down, and reporting a homeless person is one of the options on the home screen,” Eisenberg said.
Other lines of inquiry from the audience were met with less clear-cut solutions. For instance, Johnson asked Byron Muñoz, the intergovernmental and community liaison for the Department of Buildings (DOB), about how one would get the DOB to further investigate a complaint, specifically if the complaint is closed because the inspector could not enter the building during his or her visit.
“Because resources are limited, we go out twice, and we attempt two times to gain access [to buildings], and if there is an illegal situation, we can bring that before a judge…Otherwise, the complaint will be closed, and what you will do is then request for a new inspection, and you can always follow up with my colleagues at the council,” said Muñoz.
“That is not very user-friendly,” Johnson said in a joking manner, to which Muñoz suggested that he could be contacted directly, then gave his office number and email address to the audience.
Another question to the DOB asked why After Hours Variances were being handed out “like candy.” Johnson read aloud, “What do we do to ensure that people have real livability without being unable to sleep?”
“In the case that you’re experiencing after-hours work that is not allowing you to get the rest that you need as a human person, you would contact me or anyone at our department, and we would look at modifying that After Hours Variance to a reasonable hour,” Muñoz said. “After Hours Variances, if you are wondering, are most often issued for one category, which is called ‘public safety.’ Public safety literally means traffic conditions. The developer or applicant is saying that due to traffic conditions in the area, the density of it is making it unsafe for me to engage in the delivery or removal of debris during certain times of the day,” After-hours work may take place at any time after 6 p.m. and before 7 a.m. as well as on weekends.
After a few more questions — with topics including the improvement of animal shelters and better management of overflowing street corner trash cans — Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer spoke.
“I love constituent issues,” she said. “I’m one of these people who loves to sit in a district office and solve constituent problems.
“Everyone in this audience,” Brewer noted, “has ideas that need to be addressed. You have public servants here on all sides of this podium who solve problems with us, and it’s really an honor to be here tonight.”
Johnson thanked Brewer for crediting him as one of those problem-solvers, then concluded the meeting by expressing gratitude for the spirit of collaboration between electeds and constituents. “I say thank you,” he told the at-capacity crowd, “because, each and every day, I get to walk up the steps of City Hall, and I sort of pinch myself. I can’t believe that I get to engage in and do this kind of work. It’s an honor, a privilege…and I’m grateful that I get to do this kind of work with you.”
