very significant challenges. Uh and it's obviously deeply saddening to say that has now taken the lives of 19 people, 19 New Yorkers. We certainly hold their friends, their families, their loved ones in our hearts, and each loss is absolutely a tragedy. On Tuesday, as you know, we held a hearing, a joint hearing between our public safety and general welfare committees that where we were able to hear from city agencies on what uh they did the past couple weeks and what they're going to do moving forward to improve on operations and outreach to protect unsheltered New Yorkers. Uh because when temperature drops, our responsibility to all of our residents rises. And I'm certainly grateful to every single city worker who has not stopped in light of the cold, but actually continues to work harder because of it to keep New Yorkers safe and to keep the city functioning for all. I now want to move on to discuss our employee Raphael Rubio and just give an update on his status. Um, so our we as I have said from the beginning strongly believe that our employee Raphael Rubio is obviously being wrongly detained by ICE. Um, almost a month after he went into a routine appointment and again I want to stress this, he did everything right. He went to a routine appointment and yet nevertheless he was taken into ICE custody. He currently remains in ICE custody. I want to be clear. He currently is in New York and I emphasize that because that is incredibly important. Um, as you know, when we first announced that he was being uh taken by ICE, we brought in NIlag and the New York Immigrant Coalition. We uh asked NIlag to file habius for him, which we did. That is absolutely imperative. His bond was unjustly denied on February 2nd. We have been attending uh he has virtual court appearances. We have been attending every single one. That decision is now under appeal. Uh we asked the law department to file an amikas brief on that decision and so that amikas brief was filed this week. Um and we again reiterate that we demand his return and we are working around the clock to secure Raphael's return. We are in almost daily contact with his family and uh who are extremely upset obviously about what has happened and we will not rest until justice is served and he has returned where he belongs uh which is back in New York City and working for the city council. So I want to now turn to um Abney. I last Wednesday was at the ABNE breakfast. I know many of you were at that as well and I announced a few of the major proposals that we're going to be focusing on in the city council moving forward. One of those is to create a new office of insurance accountability that is modeled on our office of healthcare accountability office that we created about a year and a half ago to really shine a light on opaque insurance prices. We know small businesses are paying four times more on average for small business interruption insurance. We know that homeowners insurance has skyrocketed sometimes up to 300%. We know that high costs of insurance are impeding the uh ability to build more affordable housing in the city. Auto insurance has gone up 52%. Healthc care insurance and almost every category you look at New York State is significantly higher. So by shining a light on this as we did for health care, we believe that by shining a light on transparency that will bring costs down. I also talked about our proactive approach to land use where we are looking at the 215 public library branches. We will be releasing a plan in coming months in terms of which are the sites we believe we can build affordable housing on. We're looking at the 10,00 sites. We're looking at some other outside of the box ideas to build thousands of units of new affordable housing. I also at ABNE announced our plans to end the long-term use of no bid contracts which could save the city literally billions of dollars. These no bid contracts have been utilized by past administrations repeatedly. they were used during COVID uh where no bid contracting was extended over a hundred times to the tune of $7 billion or in the last administration where no bid contracts drove up the price of um housing and feeding asylum seekers. So with the most infamous case being the $430 million contract to do go. So the city is currently procuring over 42 billion dollar in goods and services. And that's actually interestingly the largest municipal procurement system in the country. And so for too long this has been a system that has been fraught with inefficiency, disorder, and a vulnerability to corruption. So we owe it to taxpayers to finally shine a light on this. And that is a big priority and something that we're going to be doing. And then um uh it was a couple lines in the speech but it got a lot of attention which is outdoor dining. Uh we are focused on making outdoor dining year round. And so we look forward to moving forward in the coming months a whole package of bills that is going to do just that. not only to make outdoor dining year round but also reduce some of the costs that have been significant hurdles to so many restaurants, cafes and bars as we saw a real drop in the number of applicants to outdoor dining uh tin cup day. So yesterday I was up in Albany with um many members of our leadership team. our majority leader joined me and some other members of our leadership team and that in order to provide testimony on some of the council's priorities. Uh we really focused on universal child care, building more affordable housing, how we can attack um the crisis of homelessness, how we believe the city should not have to uh make payments on SNAP, and that we believe the state should be fully covering that. We talked about investments in NYC future funds which would be an expansion of the NYC kids rise program to really make sure that we are providing college savings programs for all kindergarteners. We talked about the additional funding for NICHA because we know there are literally thousands and thousands of backlog and repairs. We talked about increased funding uh for legal counsel for groups like NYAG to help uh vulnerable immigrant communities across our city so we can make it easier to easier for our immigrant communities to be able to access proper legal representation and particularly around habius uh petitions which are so vitally important and certainly as the effects of ICE linger beyond the fear that they stoke in our streets. We also push for greater investment in the census, which is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, specifically asking the state for a $40 million investment in the census. We know that House Republicans are trying to put a citizenship question back onto the census that will have disastrous results for decades to come for our city. If that happens, we will literally lose billions of dollars of funding, not to mention the loss of numerous seats um in the House. Uh, and I do want to say that that $40 million investment, which is what the city of New York invested in the census in 2020, is probably one of the best rates of return on investment of any government uh, funding. That $40 million we invested in 2020 on the census yield an additional $1.8 8 billion dollars a year that we are getting back each and every year for the next decade for our city for programs um such as Head Start and and literally over 300 programs that New Yorkers uh depend on. So the pride flag um and I really want to thank council member Chi O who has been such a leader in this issue and I know he's going to be talking a little bit about the resolution that he is putting forward. So earlier this morning, I was with council member Oay um along with council member Sanchez after the pride flag um was literally in the middle of the night taken and that's there's no other way to say it. Uh taken from Stonewall National Monument. Uh yesterday we sent a letter to the National Park Service demanding the return of the flag. Let me be clear, Stonewall is obviously a sacred site in this city. It is sacred ground of civil rights. It's sacred ground for the LGBTQ community. We have literally thousands of people who come from all around the world to visit Stonewall to go to that site for inspiration, for hope. And so to remove uh the flag is unconscionable. Um the first brick that was thrown at Stonewall in 1969 rippled hope throughout the five burrows and catalyzed a whole global movement for dignity, for equality, for freedom. And so to take the rainbow flag, which obviously signifies inclusion, tolerance love respect everything that our city is built on, is so deeply offensive. And we are not going to stand by for this. And so I want to thank Council Member Oay and all the members who joined us today. We are not uh going to rest until that flag comes back to be clear. Um and so now let's move on to our stated agenda. So we're going to vote on three land use items. a development of a new two family home in Council Member Linda Lee's district, an application for revocable consent to operate a sidewalk cafe in my district, um, Ethel's Cafe, and a resoning in Council Member Areola's district to facilitate the development of an 11story 100% affordable building with approximately 267 affordable and senior housing units. We will also vote on a transparency resolution approving new designations of certain organizations receiving funding in the expense budget. And today we are going to vote on the mayor's appointment of Steven Banks to the position of corporation council. Today we will also vote on the following pieces of legislation. In response, as I mentioned, to the Trump administration's removal of the pride flag from Stonewall, Council Member Oay has sponsored a preconsidered resolution which would call on the United States Congress to respect the true history and significance of national park sites. So, I want now want to invite up council member Oay to talk about this very important resolution. >> Good afternoon and thank you, Madam Speaker, for your swift leadership on this issue. um in organizing us to to really uh step up um and and hold our federal government accountable. Um as the recently elected co-chair of the LGBTQIA caucus of the New York City Council, this is certainly a priority of ours uh to see our history preserved and protected. On March 27th of last year, Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. In its wake, a fascist sanitization of our history has taken place. They are suffocating the real history, our truth. What this executive order has delivered instead is a quiet eraser of this country's rich and complicated story. It is the eraser of the commemorations and celebrations that honor the diversity that has always made our country what it was always meant to be. Stonewall is the site where trans activists, especially trans women and trans people of color, ignited the movement for queer and trans liberation across this country. And now, with the removal of the pride flag at Stonewall National Monuments, we see exactly what this executive order was designed to do. We cannot let the federal government continue its censorship campaign to erase our history. Trans people have always existed and will continue to exist. Queer people have always existed and will continue to exist. Black, indigenous, and people of color have always existed and will continue to exist. But history does not bend to executive orders. And the promise of equality does not disappear because a flag is taken down. We say it here today loud and proud. We are still here. The pride flag will rise again at Stonewall and the LGBTQ community will never be erased. And I'll leave it at, you know, the fact that I do believe that the president is using this as a distraction, right? He's focused on uh various different eleph which stands for pedophile. Thank you very much. >> Okay, we um are now going to hear from council member Schulman who has introduced a bill that would require the New York City Department of Health to provide guidance on the health code to prospective child care programs applying for a permit. So, I now want to invite Council Member Schulman to come up. We need the um >> Oh, the Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Can you get Yeah. Can you do that for me? >> The box. >> The box. >> The box. >> Okay. >> Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Today we Today we will be voting on proposed introduction 437- sponsored by myself. This legislation would require DOH to provide guidance to prospective child care programs when they apply for a permit pursuant to article 47 of the health code. Speaker Menon has been a stalwart advocate for child care and I want to start by thanking her for her unwavering leadership and dedication to this issue. Opening a child care program in New York City shouldn't feel like navigating a maze. But right now, for too many providers, that's exactly what it is. Small community-based providers are forced to piece together requirements from multiple agencies, chase approvals in the right order, and figure out a process that should be clear from the start. That confusion slows down openings and makes it harder to bring new child care seats online at a time when families across our city are in need of affordable, reliable care. My bill brings clarity and transparency to this process. It requires the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to create a clear step-by-step road map outlining every required permit, license, and approval and the order in which they must happen. That information will be publicly available, regularly updated, and accessible in multiple languages. This is about making government work better. It's about removing unnecessary barriers so providers can focus on caring for children, not chasing paperwork. If we are serious about expanding child care across New York City, we have to start by making the path to opening one clear and accessible. This is a practical common sense step in that direction. I want to thank Speaker Men and again the committee staff, my staff, and my colleagues for making this happen. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks. >> Thank you, Council Member Schulman. I just want to say one thing about this bill. This is very important because to get to universal child care, we need to build more child care facilities. We've had a situation where about 1,400 child care facilities have closed recently. And so, we have a real issue where the demand is very high, but we don't have enough supply. And so, this council is dedicated to reducing the regulatory hurdles and burdens that are making it so difficult to build more childcare facilities. That's why I'm very excited about this bill and we'll be doing more bills of this nature. Um, I'm now going to call on our majority leader Sean to speak about his bill which would require the Department of Sanitation to implement a pilot program by April next year to use power washing machines to clean sidewalk surfaces in commercial corridors. Majority Leader. >> Thank you, Madam Speaker. We all love New York, but we don't all love what's stuck to the sidewalk. I think I spit out a gum piece of gum in Washington Heights in 1997 and I'm pretty sure it's still there. When you walk down a busy street in any borrow, you see the grime that has seemingly built up for years. And I strongly believe we have to do something about it. And we are doing something about it. Clean sidewalks should be the norm, not the exception. And to make that happen, we're passing a bill that would create a pilot program that will cover busy corridors in each of the five burrows to proactively power wash the sidewalks, blasting away that built-up filth. The Department of Sanitation already uses power washing machines to eliminate graffiti, and we're bringing that same approach now to our sidewalks along with on street trash containerization. This is an important step as part of our comprehensive approach to cleaner streets. I'm committed to ensuring that it succeeds. Again, thank you, Madam Speaker, and I want to thank sanitation chair Justin Sanchez as well for her support. >> Great. Thank you. So, Council Member Julie Juan, who unfortunately couldn't be here today, but she's sponsored a bill that would require the chief procurement officer to ensure that at least one searchable and publicly accessible online interface provides information about city procurements that exceed the small purchase limits. Um, and then lastly, I have sponsored a bill. we're going to be voting on today that increases the penalties for providing false information on the qualifications of any bidder for city contracts. This is a good government bill that cuts down on corruption uh and fraud and abuse that we have unfortunately seen and so I'm very excited about this bill as well. That concludes our stated agenda and with that I'm happy to take on topic questions first. on top. >> On topic. Sure. >> Oh, yeah. Please. >> Not on topic, but but is anyone first? Anyone have on topic question? >> All right. >> Okay. So, outdoor. Oh, sorry. >> City council. Is that a topic? >> Right. So, we're gonna have members step us while we take some off. >> Okay. >> Sure. >> Um, how feel about Mayor Mong using the budget as a political prop to push his tax the rich agenda. Specifically, yesterday he announced the budget gap had shrunk even though it was already known the economic forecast would be better than he had first. >> So, we are going to be the council each and every year releases its own projections on the budget. So, we will be releasing our projections in early March. We've been working on that. We believe that there are areas of savings. First of all, our budget analysis will of course include the Wall Street bonuses that occurred the end of December, early January. So, it will reflect that. It will also reflect um the actual number of employees. So, there will be savings there at every single city agency as well. And so, we look forward to the budget process. This budget process is now beginning and we look forward to the conversation with the administration. We believe that there are many areas of savings. I've outlined some of them in the past month. Some of them include the eradication of no bid contracts where we could be saving billions of dollars. Some of them include the office of healthcare accountability where again and the move to emblem health in particular is a billion dollar savings to the city of New York. So we're going to be starting that budget process and having those conversations. The question goes specifically the idea of using the budget as a political prop to push an agenda. Is that something that you and the council plan to engage in? As Mayor Miy engaged, >> we haven't released our budget projections. As we've said from the beginning, we believe there are additional areas of savings that have yet to be identified publicly that we will be identifying. Again, in every single city agency, we believe their areas of savings. So, we will be releasing our budget projections in early March and I think people will see that there are actually some savings to be had. >> Thank you. >> Um, hi Madam Speaker. >> Hello. >> My question is about outdoor dining. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. Do you mind just speaking up just a little bit about dining? You announced your support for outdoor dining. You had also suggested that some neighborhoods may be, and you use the word oversaturated um with restaurants and that you want to have more community conversations. We talked to some outdoor dining supporters and they had felt like that could be a sort of dog whistle for people who just simply oppose outdoor dining because they want, you know, to free up more parking spaces. >> No. >> What is your response to that sort of >> No, not not at all. What I mean by that is there are certain council members, council member Harvey Epstein for example, who has heard from um some community groups and residents in the district who for example have concerns about sanitation issues, rats, etc. So I want us to see how we can address some of those issues while absolutely 100% committing to yearround outdoor dining. I also at the same time want to reduce fees for these businesses as I mentioned um some of the revocable consent fees are very very high for these small businesses to be able to bear. So I think in terms of comments that I've heard from some council members, council member Epstein, um for example, is just he wants to and others want to make sure that when we do pass these package of bills that we are thinking about issues like sanitation, rat mitigation, some of those quality of life issues. And so I I'm confident that we can do that in this new package of bills. And >> the package, um do you have any timing updates? like do you think it would be something that you want to get done before you know the spring season comes? >> We're going to work as quickly as we can. We're also of course balancing the budget hearings which are coming up. So I mean we're going to work as quickly as we can to move the package along. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Hi Joe. >> Um I have two questions for you. Sure. >> One, >> did you see these uh like the tweets that this hot girls for Zoron founder had and uh he was working for Bradlander as a campaign? I have not. Sorry. I was up in Albany and Oregon. I have not seen the tweets on that. >> Okay. Um, so I imagine you don't have a reaction. The mayor was asked about today, but he hasn't condemned anything this person says. He basically is just saying he wasn't a part of the campaign. Okay. For Zornity. >> Okay. Yeah. I don't really have a a comment on that because I'd have to see the tweets to be able to comment on it. >> And so I was wondering um do you have a take on the city's decision by the mayor? not he doesn't want to pursue this expansion. I think they're working on a settlement. What's your reaction? >> So, first of all, um we worked very hard on this city FEPS litigation and we believe it is cheaper to move people into supportive housing than for them to stay long-term in the shelter system. It's not only fiscally uh a better idea, but it's also the right thing to do to be able to provide long-term supportive housing. So we uh believe the litigation should end. We don't believe there should be endless litigation on this issue. So we do not agree with the approach of asking for a delay and continuing to litigate. We do not agree with that at all. We remain very open to talking to the administration about this issue and so you know we will certainly do that. that we believe the litigation should end at this point and there should be uh a candid conversation about how to move this forward. Win issued a report today indicating that there are significant savings to this approach and that it's actually less expensive to provide this supportive housing and to do this expansion of of vouchers as opposed to leaving people long-term in shelters. >> Time for a few more questions. >> Thanks. >> Hi Annie. >> Hi. How are you? >> Good. How are you? >> Thanks. Uh, more budget questions. I guess we're a couple days away from seeing the preliminary budget. How much of a surprise will it be to you? Yeah. >> You know, talk behind the scenes, especially unofficially with the other side of city hall about what their savings plan or 1 billion savings might look like. Yeah. >> And then relatedly, um, you've talked before about staffing shortages at the law department. You know, this being an issue for many years now. Would you like to see the city's sort of unofficial official for one hiring policy and do you think that vacancy reductions is a way that the city should be saving some money in the next budget? How are you thinking about staffing issues right now as relates to the budget? >> Sure. So, first of all, I'll take the first question um first about what what do we expect to see in the prelim budget. So uh uh we would obviously there are many priorities that this council has of which we've you know been outlining um in the last uh month. So we look forward to this presentation. This begins a budget dance. I've you know publicly said that I think the budget dance is that it's somewhat of a dance which is unfortunate. It always would be better if there could be more um coordination and and not so much of that back and forth. I'm I do believe we can do that. I've been talking very constructively with the mayor about that and the need to again we want to get on the same page in terms of what some of these costs are going to be, what some of the investments are going to be, what some of the joint priorities are going to be. Um, in terms of staffing at the agencies, I have for the last couple years said I am like deeply deeply concerned that many city agencies have been gutted. The law department is one of many agencies that are facing these staffing shortages and the staffing shortages are resulting in a dimmunition of city services that we saw over the past couple years. So, we want to get those agencies fully staffed. We're asking many of these agencies to do a lot with less and then New Yorkers, you know, see the the result of that, which is a demunition in response times and city services, 311 complaints go up, all of the above. So we do want to see them fully staffed and we will be engaging in this process of conversation about what is the best way to ensure the staffing increases. >> Given that would it be inappropriate do you think to see vacancy reductions in the primary proposal or is there room for that and also staffing up? >> So it's hard to comment on that yet until we see the full I don't want to comment on something in isolation. I want to look in in totality at the prelim budget when it is released. But there are many areas that we're going to need to focus on. I do want to highlight another area of vacancies as paraprofessionals. You know, we have enormous vacancies for paraprofessionals which are really on the paraprofessionals are on the front lines in our schools. You know, helping special needs kids in particular. There are the the number of vacancies is unacceptable. Their starting pay is 32,500. The city of Boston starting pay for paras is 40,000 and the cost of living is much higher in New York. So we have situations like that that I want to ensure are being addressed in the budget. >> One more question. One from Matthew. >> Hi. Uh speaker, the administration made several promises to you at your snow response hearing to provide data and other follow-up information. Have you gotten that information? If not, what's the deadline and will you release it? And a second question about one more second question about ICE and customs protecting potentially surging into New York. Do you have any legislative ideas to address that or do you think the status quo is okay? The mayor is meeting with Mayor Maldani is meeting with Mayor Fry or Fred, however. >> So, uh certainly on the snow removal, we fully expect to get the information from the city agencies. We were very clear that we want to get that information ASAP. So, we do expect that we should get that shortly. We don't have it yet, but we do expect to get it soon. And I think that the point of that is again these oversight hearings are incredibly important because through that like we're as city council members we're on the front lines. So a lot of constituent issues people generally call the council member first um or the council member's office. And so it again with these oversight hearings it's an opportunity to show where there may be gaps and how they can be fixed. The warming centers was one of them. We heard a lot about that from various council members and constituents. And so I feel like that was particularly an area where there were a lot of good ideas that came out of that hearing. But when we do get the information, we're happy to share that. And and in terms of ICE, I mean, as I said at the top of this um uh event that you know what is happening with ICE is wholly and completely unacceptable. We are talking internally about a lot of different ideas. I mean, one way that the council has focused on is obviously on the legal representation to beef up funding to support a 24-hour hotline because for so many um uh for so many immigrant communities, that first call is the most important call. Like our employee, Raphael Rubio, was given one call. He called the city council HR. So, making sure that immigrant communities know their rights, making sure that they're being connected to legal representation, making sure that they know about this 24-hour hotline. All of these are things that we're looking to beef up and expand upon. And then legislatively, there are things that we are looking at internally that I'll be able to comment on when we're ready to. Do >> you have any message for meeting with the >> I look forward to hearing about that meeting and the conversations about it? >> Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry, >> sorry. Um, this is more on topic. >> Ah, um, at his confirmation hearing, there were some outstanding questions from council members about his commitment to have confidential counsel with the city council. Um, confidential legal advice, um, increasing law department staffing >> and on current litigation, especially city Did you receive any additional information of his commitments on those? >> So, I mean, as you know, I was present for that hearing. I had a number of questions, including the ongoing representation of uh Tim Pearson, which I think is unacceptable and should needs to cease immediately. I understand it's via outside counsel, but that has to end the So, that's something I feel very strongly about. In terms of increased staffing at the city law department, I used to work at a senior level in the city law department. and the vacancies are really hampering the effective running of that agency. So, we want to see those vacancies filled. We asked Steve Banks about that. He, you know, also wants to see them filled and I know some of that will depend on the budget. So, that's why that when the prelim budget is released, we're going to be able to see what that number is. Very important that those vacancies are filled because a law department obviously is the outside council, so to speak, for every single city agency. It's also our council. We rely on the law department each and every day. So we really do want to see those vacancies filled. I think it's, you know, imperative that that happen. And so we did have a lot of questions and those questions I feel that were answered at our hearing. So thank you so much. Thank you.