Public Advocate Bill de Blasio pushes living wage bill (UPDATE)

The center of the Living Wage battle: The Kingsbridge Armory

In a letter sent yesterday to Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has announced his support for a living wage bill.

The bill, which is currently in limbo in the City Council, would require certain companies receiving city subsidies to pay employees $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 without. De Blasio is expected to face Quinn in the Democratic primary for mayor, and the debate over a living wage will be a hot topic.

This is going to be a difficult issue for Quinn; she receives major contributions from the business community, which is firmly opposed to it. Bloomberg is also strongly against the bill.

In his letter (below), de Blasio says the prolonged economic crisis has battered the middle class. "Underlying these problems is a rising income inequality that threatens our social fabric and economic future," he writes. 

But de Blasio is calling for one change to the bill, which is to protect smaller businesses by increasing the amount of annual revenue that a business must earn to require offering a living wage to $5 million.

The bill, introduced by City Council members G. Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma on the behest of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., has been sitting in the City Council for months now, and has gone through much debate, both in public and in the Council. Quinn has yet to decide whether or not she will bring it to a vote.

De Blasio goes after the bill's detractors, defending the stoppage of the Kingsbridge Armory shopping center.

"Some have claimed that a Living Wage bill would inhibit future development, citing the City's experience with the Kingsbridge Armory as an example," he wrote. "I am the first to say that it was a tragedy negotiations were not able to yield a project at the Kingsbridge Armory. I do not subscribe to the notion that no projects are better than imperfect projects. But what killed the Kingsbridge Armory project was brinksmanship in the negotiating process—not the principle of a Living Wage."

UPDATE: Here is a statement from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. It should be noted that de Blasio was at the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club's holiday party last week, where Diaz spoke about the living wage. The BFRDC is also home to Koppell.

“As a leader in the fight to bring a ‘living wage’ law to New York City, I enthusiastically welcome Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s support for the ‘Fair Wages for New Yorkers’ Act," Diaz said. "Public Advocate de Blasio has displayed a strong record of fighting for the rights of those underserved and often ignored residents of this City, and his support for this historic legislation is another great example of his commitment to justice and fairness for New Yorkers.

“For months, the public advocate met with individuals and organizations on all sides of this legislation as he engaged in a thoughtful, deliberative examination of the merits of this bill. After meeting with me personally last week, I am thrilled that he has joined the majority of our City in support of the ‘Fair Wages for New Yorkers’ Act. This further demonstrates that we are gaining momentum in our efforts to pass this important legislation.

“The ‘Fair Wages for New Yorkers’ Act will ensure that our taxpayer dollars are spent not only to enrich major developers, but also to provide a way forward out of poverty for their employees. Bill de Blasio understands that, and I welcome his support for this bill and look forward to working with him on making it law."

Living Wage

A short photo essay of my night yesterday

For those of who have noticed a slight decline in posts the past week or so, it's been because our other reporter, Miawling, has been on vacation in her homeland of Australia (It's summertime there, by the way). Anyways, it's caused me to pick up the other half of the newspaper, leaving me less time to blog.

Here's some of what I was up to yesterday afternoon.

5 p.m.: Driving down Riverdale Ave, I ran into these two cars near W. 238th St.,
which ran into each other. No one was injured.

6:45 p.m.: On my way to the 50th Precinct for a Community Board 8
public safety committee meeting, I hit two of the most decorated houses
in the Riverdale Kingsbridge area, right behind the Riverdale Diner.
If you've decked your house out, email us a photo!

To cap off the night, I dropped by the Ben Franklin Reform Democratic Club's
holiday party. Among the guests were Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.,
Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz,
and state Sens. Gustavo Rivera and Jeff Klein.

Officials, agencies react to Cuomo's tax plan

City Comptroller John Liu, State Senator Gustavo Rivera, the MTA and the Alliance for Quality Education have all released statements complimenting Governor Andrew Cuomo on his leadership in tax reform. More statements will flow in, so I'll post them all below the jump.

Here's part of Cuomo's press release from today. Read the whole thing here.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver today announced that they have reached a proposed three-way agreement on legislative and executive proposals to create jobs and cut taxes for middle class New Yorkers. The agreement includes support for a comprehensive New York Works Agenda that will create thousands of jobs with new investments in New York's infrastructure, passing a fair tax reform plan that achieves the first major restructuring of the tax code in decades resulting in a tax cut for 4.4 million middle class New Yorkers taxpayers, approving $50 million in additional relief for areas devastated by recent floods, and reducing the MTA payroll tax to provide relief for small businesses. The leaders will now present the agreement to their members for approval.

"Our state government has come together in a bipartisan manner to create jobs, grow our economy and, at the same time enact a fair tax plan that cuts taxes for the middle class," Governor Cuomo said. "We are investing in projects that will restore our state's infrastructure and put thousands of people to work. We are cutting taxes on middle class New Yorkers and small businesses, which will inject nearly $1 billion into our economy. We are targeting new tax credits to hire inner city youth and reduce unemployment in some of the poorest areas of our state, as well as providing direct aid to communities struggling to recover in the wake of this year's severe storms. This would be lowest tax rate for middle class families in 58 years. This job-creating economic plan defies the political gridlock that has paralyzed Washington and shows that we can make government work for the people of this State once again."

Jump below for the statements.

Poll: NYPD's Ray Kelly the next mayor

Mayor Ray Kelly?

A Quinnipiac poll released yesterday shows NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is the frontrunner for the next mayor of our fine city. While he hasn't given any hints of running for office in 2013, he would be the candidate to beat, with 23 percent of New Yorkers (17 percent with Democrats) saying they'd like to see him in running the city. That puts him five points ahead of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who polled with 18 percent (20 percent with Democrats).

With Bronxites, Kelly and Quinn came in one-two, but the gap was much smaller. Kelly received 18 percent of the vote to Quinn's 17. However, more Bronxites (22 percent) said they did not know who they would vote for at all.

Other questions asked cover the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, as well as the other candidates running for office. Not much of a surprise--Bronxites mostly disapprove of how Bloomberg has handled his last term.

In related mayoral news, WNYC put together an interactive graphic of contributions given to candidates, broken down by zip code. The Bronx, by what looks like a landslide, has given the least amount of money to any candidate. That may be because the Bronx doesn't have a hometown candidate (Brooklyn has DeBlasio and Thompson, Manhattan has Stringer and Quinn, Queens has Liu), though it's probably related to a variety of other reasons as well. Although, if you want to make a stretch, Ray Kelly is a Manhattan College alum (MC is in Riverdale, remember! And yes, I'm a former Jasper myself), so if he gets involved in the race he could try to take advantage of the other candidates' lack of Bronx roots.