Bill De Blasio

Mayor De Blasio’s Epic Rikers Island Failure

October 3, 2021 Glenn E. Martin, New York Daily News. Educate! Bill De Blasio, Criminal Justice and Prisons, New York City (NYC), Rikers

In 2017, a year after launching the campaign, the mayor was brought to his knees by the unavoidable momentum built by the campaign. He begrudgingly conceded that Rikers needed to close. But the devil was in the details. The mayor punted responsibility by outlining a scantily detailed 10-year plan to close the complex of eight jails on Rikers Island and build four skyscraper jail facilities in locations around the city.

Rejoice! New York Is The Biggest City To Ban Foam Packaging

January 12, 2015 Sara Bernard, www.grist.org Create! Bill De Blasio, Environment, New York City (NYC)

This week, New York officially became the largest city in the U.S. to ban that squeaky ecological scourge: plastic foam, usually (incorrectly) known as Styrofoam. The everlasting stuff is finally getting less ubiquitous now that it’s been kicked out of at least 70 cities across the country. (OK, yeah, they’re mostly located in California). Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg originally proposed the ban during a February 2013 State of the City address, but Mayor Bill de Blasio is seeing it through: If all goes as planned, it should roll out on July 1, preventing foam cups and containers and even packing peanuts from being sold in the Big Apple.

Time To Stand Up To The NYPD

January 4, 2015 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! #BlackLivesMatter, Bill De Blasio, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Bratton, NYC, NYPD, Police abuse, police brutality, Racism

What kind of relationship do communities and individuals want to have with the police? Do police want the respect of the communities and people they serve? How does a city create a vision for the type of policing it wants to see and then achieve it? Unfortunately, the NYPD union leadership seems committed to making things worse. Patrick Lynch has threatened “When these funerals are over, those responsible will be called on the carpet and held accountable.” What does that mean? Is he threatening a police coup of city government? Leaked emails and comments in chat rooms show that the NYPD is working with GOP politicians to continue to escalate protests in order to remove de Blasio from office. De Blasio should not back down. The public is with the mayor because they know there are serious problems within the NYPD. He should escalate his efforts for positive police reforms. It is time to talk about an era of community control of policing where structures are put in place that give the community power in their relationship with police.

Rasmea Responds To Travesty Of Justice: ‘I Am Strong!’

November 15, 2014 Answer Coalition, www.answercoalition.org Organize! Bill De Blasio, Israel, Law, Palestine, Wars and Militarism

On Nov. 10, after just two hours of deliberation at the Detroit federal courthouse, a jury decided that Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian American community leader, is guilty on one count of unlawful procurement of naturalization. Rasmea faces up to 10 years in prison and could be deported. The defense is going ahead to file an appeal of the verdict after sentencing. Both the prosecution and the defense teams were informed by Judge Drain that the jury had wanted to meet with them after the announcement of the verdict; however, the jurors only met with the government attorneys and never asked to speak with the defense. “That’s the kind of jury we had: they were kept ignorant of 75 percent of our defense and then they didn’t even want to hear from us at the end,” told Michael Deutsch, lead defense attorney to the crowd of supporters outside of the courthouse after the verdict.

Fight For 15 In NYC Just Got A Lot More Promising And Complicated

June 14, 2014 William Blueher and James Hoff, www.truth-out.org Resist! Bill De Blasio, Minimum Wage, New York (NY)

Bill de Blasio's role in helping Andrew Cuomo attain the endorsement of the Working Families Party has opened up a space for a more vigorous and radical discussion of a minimum wage for NYC. In politics, the greatest opportunities often present themselves amid the least promising of circumstances. The New York Working Families Party's (WFP) scandalous and much decried endorsement of Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 1 is but one example of how, out of the chaos of internal conflict, opportunities for more radical change can become possible. Though the WFP endorsement was a shameful capitulation to the politics of business as usual, it very well may have opened up a new front in the fight to raise the minimum wage in New York City. Though Cuomo had several times expressed opposition to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's longstanding plans to increase the city's minimum wage, the mayor's last minute role in securing the endorsement of the WFP for Cuomo seems to have changed the ground of that debate, and it is looking increasingly likely that Cuomo may now be more open to allowing the city to set its own minimum wage above the state level - with caveats, of course. By just how much and when the minimum wage (currently an insultingly low $8 an hour) might be increased remains to be seen, but it is clear that lawmakers in New York City and Albany, including de Blasio, are feeling the heat of the grassroots minimum wage movement that has been sprouting up in cities across the country - most notably in Seattle, which recently passed legislation increasing that city's minimum wage to $15 an hour.

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