Children of nursing home COVID
victims still waiting on gov’s apology
CUNY counter COVID-19 setbacks
COURIER LIFE, FEB. 26-MAR. 4, 2021 15
OP-ED
BY MATTHEW LIPSCHIK
Now that Senator Schumer
is the majority leader, I hope
he becomes a true leader in
the fight to save the planet
from climate catastrophe.
We need someone to champion
a national ban on fracking.
We need to prohibit increased
investment in fossil
fuel and nuclear investment.
And we need policies to hasten
the transition to sustainable
energy.
When the Senate Democrats’
Climate Committee
report was released last August,
Senator Schumer said,
“The climate crisis is not
some distant threat. It is
here now, and it will be catastrophic
if we don’t strike
back immediately.”
As a member of Food
& Water Watch, Senator
Schumer, I urge you to live
up to your words. Lead the
war against climate catastrophe.
Strike back immediately.
BY FÉLIX V. MATOS RODRÍGUEZ
It has been an extraordinarily
diffi cult year for
New Yorkers, including the
270,000 students enrolled every
year in the City University
of New York. In the last
12 months, our students have
weathered a global pandemic,
suffered the loss of loved ones
and withstood economic hardships,
all while transitioning
to remote learning — a daunting
and at times overwhelming
experience, especially for
students juggling multiple responsibilities
— as they tried
to hold onto their academic
dreams.
Despite their perseverance
— the University awarded
56,527 diplomas last year, the
second-highest total in our
history — our current students,
and high school seniors
who will soon be CUNY students,
will need additional
support to succeed after this
once-in-a-lifetime experience
and nearly a year and half
of distance learning. CUNY
has been building on existing
and new student-support programs
and partnerships to
help students navigate a classroom
experience that has been
upended by the pandemic.
The pandemic exposed
the systemic injustice of longstanding
social and economic
inequities, conditions that so
many CUNY students — 80
percent of whom are either
Black, Latino or Asian —
struggle to overcome even in
the best of times. Students derive
greater benefi t from mentors
who can address their linguistic
and cultural needs, as
well as their educational ones.
Because they are students
themselves, CUNY mentors
can speak from the perspective
of personal experience.
As Nataly Toro, a John
Jay senior and Tutor Corps
mentor says: “It’s important
for students to hear from current
college students like myself
because it lets them know
they are not alone. We were
high school students not too
long ago; we can relate.”
Another new program,
the Application Advisors Initiative,
is enabling CUNY to
support 7,000 New York City
high school graduating seniors.
Working under the supervision
of high school counseling
staff from February
through May, CUNY students
will ensure that seniors complete
their college applications,
fi le for fi nancial aid and
complete all of the requisite
paperwork, as they transition
to college.
We also recently launched
CUNY Winter Bridge, a new
program to re-engage seniors
who committed to a CUNY
college last fall but for a variety
of reasons never matriculated.
An outgrowth of our
College Bridge for All program,
which helped support
57,000 DOE high school seniors
thanks to a $1.1 million
grant from both Bloomberg
Philanthropies and the Petrie
Foundation, Winter Bridge
college coaches reached out to
8,000 recent DOE graduates by
Zoom, email and text, starting
last December, to guide
them through the full enrollment
process. I’m happy to say
1,000 of those students were already
participating in one of
our transition programs such
as CUNY Start/Math Start, or
polishing their English language
skills in our CUNY Language
Immersion Program.
These are just some of the
ways that CUNY is making
sure the pandemic doesn’t
erase the progress we have
made. As I’ve said many
times, CUNY is an integral
New York institution. By
helping CUNY students, current
and future, obtain a college
education and learn the
skills they need to succeed in
the job market, we are helping
our beloved city to rebuild,
and planting the seeds
for its steady rebound.
Félix V. Matos Rodríguez is
the chancellor of The City University
of New York (CUNY), the
largest urban public university
system in the United States.
BY DANIEL & PETER ARBEENY
We knew last year that Gov.
Andrew Cuomo’s March 2020
directive to place COVID patients
into nursing homes was
based not on science or common
sense, but rather on his misplaced
desire not to “discriminate”
against the infected. We
knew, because our father, Norman
Arbeeny, was an 89-yearold
victim of the governor’s
nursing home directive.
Finally, in recent weeks,
the governor has come under
fi re for his fatal mistake. Attorney
General Tish James
put out a report that concluded
that he understated the number
of nursing home deaths by
as much as 50 percent and last
week, Secretary to the Governor
Melissa DeRosa, the second
most powerful person in
New York State government,
admitted the administration
hid the true numbers.
This has all met with growing
calls for investigations, subpoenas
and resignations. We’ll
leave that to the appropriate
government offi cials and agencies.
We, the children of Cuomo’s
nursing home victims, are
still waiting for a simple apology.
In response to his cover-up,
several months ago we staged a
mock funeral for Cuomo’s leadership
and integrity. Mourners
gathered outside the Brooklyn
nursing home where our father
contracted the virus that killed
him. Since then, the families of
the thousands of nursing home
patients who perished from the
virus have asked the governor
to acknowledge his error and
offer an apology. All we’ve ever
asked for was an apology, but he
has bitterly refused. He has castigated
his critics as politically
motivated when we’re simply
grieving family members (and,
in many cases, his own voters)
and told us to seek an apology
from the federal government
instead.
Our family has set out on a
mission to expose how Cuomo
has turned his back on his
own constituency in an effort
to whitewash his bungled response
to the pandemic.
As lifelong Democrats, we
know that the need to ascertain
the full impact of the directive
is not politically motivated. A
proper investigation, whether
by the free press or the state,
or both, is just the right thing
to do. Failure to investigate his
directive and its impact implicates
the state’s entire elected
leadership and my political
party that monopolizes it. But
that is for others to demand and
conduct. We simply repeat our
request for an in-person apology
from the governor.
We are also appalled that he
found the time to write a book
about his supposed leadership
during the pandemic. On Nov.
16, the governor stated, “The
key is to be strong and secure
enough to admit your mistakes
and admit your shortcomings,
don’t get defensive. Denying the
mistake only assures repeating
the mistake.” The hypocrisy is
stunning.
In his book, he admits no
mistakes or wrongdoing but
rather reaffi rms his egocentric
mentality and gives readers an
insight through his own narcissistic
lens. On page 174, the governor
writes, “It still amazes
and heartens me that people
just wanted the truth, competence,
and confi dence from
their leaders.”
Ironically enough, this is
what New Yorkers are waiting
to receive from him – the
“truth” on the true death toll,
“competence” in having a fair
investigation, and “confi dence”
that the governor will someday
own up to his failures.
From pages 227-233, the he
discusses the devastation in
nursing homes but fails ever to
apologize or take responsibility.
He makes a mockery of our
lost loved ones. He suggests the
backlash against his nursing
home order amounts to nothing
more than a conspiracy theory.
What do dead constituents or
indefensible directives have to
do with party politics? Our father
is gone, yet the governor
sees fi t only to shift blame.
COVID knows no political
party — it does not discriminate.
The governor is the only
one politicizing the death toll.
Our grieving family — and
tens of thousands of others just
like us — having lost elderly
loved ones to Cuomo’s nursing
home policies, need humility
and empathy from our leaders.
Not defl ection. We need to hear
an honest acknowledgment of
personal responsibility. We
need Cuomo to own up to his
decisions without scapegoating
others. Families need a sincere
apology to allow us all to heal.
Without it, he insults every
family affected by COVID-19.
Daniel and Peter Arbeeny
are fourth-generation Cobble
Hill, Brooklyn residents. Their
father, Norman, died last year
after he caught COVID-19 in a
Brooklyn nursing home.