Fix our bail laws. Now.
It’s time for Adams’ plan for park equity
COURIER L 44 IFE, OCTOBER 15-21, 2021
EDITORIAL
OP-ED
You can hear the groan
of criminal justice activists
whenever Mayor
Bill de Blasio or Police Commissioner
Dermot Shea bemoans
the state’s bail reform
laws.
Repeatedly over the past
two years, de Blasio and Shea
have suggested the changes
related to bail reform essentially
turned the courts
into revolving doors — giving
judges little discretion in
keeping even fi rst-time gun
offenders locked up upon arraignment.
And when shootings and
murders surged across the
city during the COVID-19
pandemic, de Blasio and Shea
called for changes to the bail
reform laws to keep gun offenders
locked up. Many
criminal justice advocates
dismissed the notion as relying
upon an antiquated “lawand
order” way of thinking.
But de Blasio and Shea
were right all along about
gun violence.
While it is clear that more
must be done to prevent people
from falling into lives of
crime, it is also clear that the
state’s bail reform laws must
be tightened a bit to ensure
that those arrested for gun
crimes remain behind bars
and off the streets.
A number of City Council
members are appealing
directly to Governor Kathy
Hochul to do exactly that.
In a letter, they called upon
her, along with state Senate
Majority Leader Andrea
Stewart-Cousins and Assembly
Speaker Carl Heastie, to
reform state law in order to
give judges “the discretion to
remand individuals caught
with fi rearms, based on factors
including current violent
offense and prior criminal
history.”
That change alone would
empower jurists to fi nally
keep behind bars individuals
who pose the most immediate
threat to the safety of New
Yorkers. It would also fi nally
put an end to the growing gun
violence trend that endangers
every resident in every corner
of the city.
New York City must be
an environment where there
is zero tolerance for gun violence.
Too many of our citizens
have been maimed or
murdered at the hands of
reckless individuals who act
with no regard for the safety
of others.
Anyone arrested for possessing
or fi ring a gun, or
for assaulting someone in a
shooting, should be kept behind
bars either on high bail,
or no bail at all, pending trial.
No excuses.
We implore Stewart-Cousins
and Heastie to fi nally close
the loophole in our bail reform
laws — and urge Hochul
to call the legislators back
into a special session to make
it happen. A change like this
cannot wait till January.
BY ADAM GANSER
For decades, New York
City has put our parks on the
fi scal chopping block, consistently
dedicating between just
0.5 and 0.6 percent of the city
budget to these critical green
and open space resources. In
comparison, other cities with
fi rst-rate parks systems typically
contribute 1 to 4 percent
to their parks.
New Yorkers bear witness
to this issue every time a
park’s gates are closed, waste
bins overfl ow, or there are no
parks employees in sight when
illegal activity is happening in
our parks.
But as we inch toward a general
election and learn more
about Eric Adams’ priority issues,
we have a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to reposition
our parks and open spaces
as critical infrastructure.
Recently Adams took to
Twitter to reinforce his support
for New Yorkers for Parks’
call for 1 percent of the city
budget for parks, committing
to signifi cant and decades in
the making investment in critical
maintenance and operations
while reversing 50 years
of chronic underinvestment.
Adams knows how important
our parks have been for
New Yorkers seeking a safe,
healthy refuge from quarantine,
telling us at New Yorkers
for Parks as much in our survey
ahead of this year’s primary.
“We need to support our city
parks that provide so many vital
services to this city. In the
moments of this pandemic our
green spaces provided a place
for us to gather, express ourselves,
and too simply catch a
breath of fresh air. We need to
do everything we can to preserve
the future generations of
New Yorkers the right to these
essential parks,” he wrote at
the time.
NY4P has been calling on
our elected offi cials to make
this investment for 20 years,
starting with our Parks 2001
campaign. There is an extraordinary
opportunity for
our next mayor to make funding
for parks a priority and act
on it.
Increasing the city’s Parks
Department budget to 1 percent
signals a new direction
for the city that prioritizes people,
open space equity, sustainability,
economic development,
and green jobs. This funding
is foundational to a 21st century
parks system that is suffi
ciently staffed and tended to
so they can remain safe and
accessible for all New Yorkers
to enjoy.
One percent for parks would
begin to address an untenable
scenario where the Parks
Department is woefully underfunded
and understaffed,
which as an example is tasked
with maintaining 30,000 acres
of parkland with a staff of just
350-400 Parks Enforcement Patrol
Offi cers and 1 gardener for
roughly 133 acres of park land.
We’ve seen what neglected
parks and budget cuts lead to,
especially when the Parks Department
budget was again
sacrifi ced due to the pandemic
and shrinking budgets. Despite
a capable and dedicated
Parks Department, the physical
spaces showed the impact
of chronic neglect and crumbling
infrastructure. The conditions
of our parks were the
worst seen in 15 years with an
understaffed agency, and inequitable
conditions depending
on where you live and your
immediate community’s resources.
Thanks in part to a brighter
short term fi nancial outlook
following federal investment,
and the efforts of New Yorkers
for Parks, the New York
League of Conservation Voters,
DC37 and the Play Fair Coalition,
our City Council was
able to temporarily restore the
budget back to pre-COVID-19
levels this year. But we cannot
simply return to normal;
normal was not working for
everybody, especially low-income
communities and communities
of color across the
boroughs.
Earlier this year, New
Yorkers for Parks laid out a
vision for a parks system that
better serves all New Yorkers
called the Five Point Plan for
Park Equity, the cornerstone
of which is 1 percent of the city
budget for parks. The plan outlines
our path toward a thriving,
healthy, and climate-resilient
New York.
We need to address how
we spend taxpayer money on
our vital capital projects, reforming
a slow and expensive
capital process with a
new system that ensures every
dollar is spent responsibly
and effi ciently. We need a
comprehensive plan for parks
that prioritizes equitable access
and centralizes governmental
leadership with a unifi
ed vision of open space. We
need to build new open space
in under-resourced communities
and invest in our natural
areas, including waterfronts
across the boroughs. And we
need to support the community
organizations and volunteers
who play a crucial role in
the stewardship of our parks
and open spaces.
The past few years have
highlighted both how essential
our parks infrastructure
is and what happens when our
policymakers neglect it. Soon
it’ll be time for the next mayor
to turn rhetoric into policies
and we are confi dent that Adams
will deliver a robust fi -
nancial commitment to our
city’s parks.
Adam Ganser is the Executive
Director of New Yorkers
for Parks and Julie Tighe is
the President of the New York
League of Conservation Voters.