Five-Boro Resiliency Plan is fi rst
step in protecting NYC’s future
COURIER LIFE, JULY 24-30, 2020 21
OP-ED
BY COSTA CONSTANTINIDES &
JUSTIN BRANNAN
Many of us were heartened
to see the $2 trillion climate
plan proposed by Joe Biden
last week. It fi nally addresses
the needs for clean, renewable
energy as well as the environmentally
racist policies that
got us into this mess in the fi rst
place.
Yet as we push for a national
Green New Deal that
frees us from the fossil fuel industry,
we must accept that climate
change, to some degree,
is here to stay. That’s why the
United States must not only act
to mitigate the effects of pollution,
but adapt to the damage a
hotter planet will bring in the
decades to come.
Nowhere do we need that
more than here in New York
City, where 520 miles of coastline
will be battered by rising
tides. The next federal administration
and Congress must
use its fi rst 100 days in offi ce
to invest in a resiliency plan
that keeps every New York
City neighborhood safe. We are
staring down a crisis like we
have never seen — and right
now we’re set to blink fi rst.
Hurricane Sandy barreled
into our neighborhoods almost
8 years ago and killed 43 New
Yorkers. Since then, we’ve gotten
little more than studies and
sandbags; far-fl ung promises
of investments to come, and
single-neighborhood proposals
that were frankly insulting
to seven-eighths of the City.
This keeps us up at night,
which is why we introduced
legislation last year to create
a fi ve-borough resiliency plan.
While the Army Corps of Engineers’
storm surge study was
well intended, it was incredibly
limited by the legislation
that created it.
A fi ve-borough resiliency
plan can begin implementation
as soon as the Council passes
our bill. It would literally lay
the foundation for a Green
New Deal, provide thousands
of sorely needed jobs and set
us on course for a safer future.
But we still need those federal
dollars. Right now, the current
U.S. Senate has essentially left
New York State for dead — even
though we pumped out more
than $250 billion in federal tax
revenue in 2018 (almost 19% of
the national budget).
Manhattan may still be the
economic engine that drives
our city, but the fuel for that
roaring engine lives in the
outer boroughs. To lose New
York City, the economic engine
of the nation, would be to lose
the nation itself.
With COVID-19 still here
and the worst of the climate
crisis ahead, we need that kind
of support again. Resilience in
every borough is a strong place
to start.
Costa Constantinides represents
the 22nd City Council
District, which includes the
Queens neighborhoods of Astoria
and Long Island City.
Justin Brannan represents
the 43rd City Council District,
which covers the Brooklyn
neighborhoods of Bay Ridge,
Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst
and Bath Beach.
LESSONS LEARNED WHILE ON THE BEAT
WITH BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT ERIC ADAMS
A Plain-Spoken Approach to Plainclothes Policing Reform
In the midst of an unprecedented
pandemic, our city
is facing yet another crisis:
one of public safety. The
trends are disturbing: Shooting
incidents are up 69 percent
this year to date, while shooting
victims are up 78 percent.
In one week alone, we saw 101
people across the city shot —
all of them Black and Brown.
I have said before that
there can be no justice without
safety, nor safety without
justice. The two goals are not
mutually incompatible; they
go hand in hand. The protests
that followed the death
of George Floyd have forced a
necessary reckoning here and
around the country about racially
discriminatory policing.
While prescriptions for change
may differ, we are united in
the belief that reform is long
overdue. We can uphold public
safety while ensuring police
are held to the highest standards
of conduct.
Earlier this year, NYPD
Commissioner Dermot Shea
announced the department
was disbanding its anti-crime
unit and reassigning the majority
of the 600 plainclothes
offi cers that comprised them.
Plainclothes offi cers were
tasked with stopping violent
crimes and cracking down on
illegal guns. However, the old
unit also embodied some of
the worst aspects of policing:
From 1999 to 2019, plainclothes
offi cers were responsible for
nearly a third of all fatal police
shootings in New York
City. One of the most infamous
cases of police misconduct in
New York City, the shooting of
Amadou Diallo, involved plainclothes
offi cers.
We must adopt an approach
that addresses the very real
public safety crisis we’re facing
while correcting the abuses of
the past. That’s why I believe
we need to rebuild the anticrime
unit from the ground up,
ensuring that its operations
are more transparent, and that
the offi cers who make it up are
better equipped to do the job.
I learned during my time
on the force that there are two
essential components to containing
surges in crime like
the one we’re seeing now: omnipresence
and unpredictability.
Police need to have eyes
on the street to prevent criminal
actions before they occur,
and they need to be able to do
so in a way that catches the
people committing or planning
to commit those actions
off guard. If every offi cer has
to wear a uniform and drive in
a marked vehicle, bad actors
will easily be able to identify
and avoid them.
Rebuilding our anti-crime
unit must start with identifying
the right offi cers for the
job. During the George Floyd
protests, I spoke about the
need for the NYPD to identify
a corps of offi cers with stellar
communication skills to serve
as the frontline response to ensure
demonstrations did not
escalate. The same is true of
the people who would make up
the new, revamped unit. They
should be screened for an assignment
in the anti-crime
unit based on their ability to
communicate and de-escalate
without resorting to force.
While force may be warranted
in some circumstances, having
plainclothes offi cers who
know how to communicate
properly would ensure it isn’t
the default.
We also must institute
greater oversight measures
on the unit. In the past, plainclothes
offi cers operated with
little to no behavioral constraints,
which too often led to
fatal outcomes. We should empower
civilian oversight bodies
like the Civilian Complaint
Review Board to investigate incidents
in which a plainclothes
offi cer discharges a weapon
and see whether or not it was
justifi ed. Gone are the days
of the “Wild West” mentality,
in which plainclothes offi cers
could be the cowboys of their
respective precincts.
I often speak about how
New York cannot return to the
era when I policed this city,
when we were seeing more
than 2,000 homicides a year. A
deterioration in public safety
has negative ripple effects, as
we saw in the ’80s and ’90s.
People fl ee the city in droves,
which in turn decimates our
tax base, which leads to drastic
cutbacks in services upon
which low-income New Yorkers
rely. I am concerned that
we are seeing this vicious cycle
play out again, albeit amid
a vastly different backdrop. I
witnessed fi rsthand how turning
policing around helped
turn the city around. Now, we
must adapt yet again to ensure
we create a safer, more
just city. A re-envisioned plainclothes
detail should be part of
that adaptation.
Eric Adams is borough president
of Brooklyn. He served 22
years in the New York City Police
Department (NYPD), retiring
at the rank of captain, as
well as represented District 20
in the New York State Senate.
Borough President Eric Adams.