13
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, APR. 15-21, 2022
political columns
I’m sure by now many of you
have heard of or unfortunately
experienced Con Edison’s recent
rate hike fiasco. It has
been suggested that hundreds
of thousands of New Yorkers
are behind on their energy
bills, including many in the
Bronx. Some bills increased by
more than 200% with no warning,
creating a significant and
unexpected financial burden. I
have heard from countless people
that these bills have caused
difficulty in paying their
monthly expenses, which is not
only unfair and unjust, but bad
public policy.
As your representative, I am
working with Attorney General
Letitia James as well as
the City Council Committee on
Consumer Affairs and Worker
Protection to address the rate
hike. I recently wrote a letter
with the attorney general and
my other colleagues to Con Edison
demanding answers for
the spike in utility bills and
how the amount charged per
kilowatt for electricity almost
tripled. Con Edison needs to
answer how and why these increases
occurred without any
concern for our residents or
families.
Since sending the letter, I
have been speaking with Con
Edison’s representatives. Con
Edison will claim that they
only distribute energy and
don’t generate it, thus as the
cost of natural gas goes up,
they need to raise their prices.
But that response is insufficient
when people simply don’t
have alternative electricity options,
and were not warned in
advance about the exorbitant
increase. After the recent pushback,
they are working on sending
notices to all customers
with price predictions on bills
multiple times a year. My office
will be working to make sure
that information is appropriately
distributed to everyone
within our community so that
people can be aware of future
price changes.
In the meantime, if you are
in need of assistance, please
reach out to my office or Con
Edison, which can help with
payment plan assistance, payment
extensions, senior services,
as well as other programs
to help reduce your
energy costs.
A company with annual
profits in the billions should
not be pushing people into debt
for trying to keep their family
warm in the winter. Know that
as your council member, and
chair of the Committee on Consumer
and Worker Protection, I
will continue fighting for you.
Marjorie Velázquez is a member
of the New York City Council,
representing the 13th District
in the Bronx.
This week, on April 11,
marked my first 100 days in office
as your council member.
In November, we started
off our term representing the
community’s voice in City
Hall with commitments to get
stuff done within our first 100
days in office. The way to counter
years of divestment was to
start off with the understanding
that District 18 deserves
transit justice, a brighter,
cleaner community, to have a
say in where their tax dollars
go, and to create more opportunities
to keep our residents
here at home.
I committed to a list of
goals for my first 100 days and
I wanted to share them with
you again to summarize the
work my office has been focusing
on in our first three
months in office. We’re working
to:
• Advocate to extend transit
services.
• Launch participatory
budgeting.
• Push to expand sanitation
services to keep our community
clean.
• Work to advance a Municipal
Jobs Guarantee.
Advocating for extended
transit services in our community
where transit is changing,
I have published two opeds
about the need for more
transit options for Bronxites,
one around “Transit Equity
Starts in the Bronx” and the
second “NYC Must Commit
Funding to Expand CitiBike.”
In both of these opinion pieces,
I made clear that District 18
needs more transit options
because our local infrastructure
is growing to meet the
needs of an adapting city postpandemic.
That is why I am
excited to announce that the
DOT e-scooter pilot program
will be coming to our neighborhoods
in the spring for the
first time. This e-scooter pilot
has been on the calendar from
the previous administration,
and is on its way to help all of
us get where we want, when
we want, in both a healthy and
sustainable way.
The people’s budget has
been underway. Yesterday,
we wrapped up our first-ever
participatory budgeting vote
week. Thank you to our community
partners Castle Hill
Library, Castle Hill YMCA,
Clason Point Library, Comp
Sci High, Linden Tree Elementary,
Parkchester Library,
Sonia Sotomayor
Community Center and the
Stevenson Campus, and our
amazing budget delegates
who organized their local
communities around the people’s
budget. We had more
than 700 people share their
budget priorities with our office,
and I want you to know
that I hear you loud and
clear. We will be counting
the votes all week and will
share the results via all social
media platforms and our
e-newsletter.
The NYC Council announced
our budget response
to the mayor’s FY23 preliminary
budget proposal. In the
council’s response, I fought
to include increasing sanitation
services as one of our
major priorities to keep and
restore within our city’s preliminary
budget. In the council,
my colleagues and I are
urging the mayor to restore
that baseline reduction, as
well as increase the budget
with an additional $18.2 million
in funding to bring back
the sanitation services our
communities deserve.
I am also calling on the
administration to do more
to restore any baseline programs
that will ensure we
are responding adequately
to cleaning needs citywide.
I proposed $3.6 million for ewaste
collection; $3.4 million
for illegal dumping enforcement
operations; $2.2 million
for lot cleaning; $2 million
for more street sweeping;
and $864,000 for increased
highway ramp cleaning programs.
Last, but certainly not
least, we need a plan to get
people back to work and create
more job opportunities
to ensure we get to stay, live
and raise our families in
our communities. A Municipal
Jobs Guarantee is in the
works. You can read more
about first steps on a new, big
and bold idea in my interview
with the Daily News. I may
have some work cut out for me,
but when it comes to fighting
for New Yorkers to have safe
and good paying city jobs, I
will happily jump in the ring.
Stay in touch with my office
@CMAmandaFarias on Facebook,
Instagram and Twitter
to stay updated on my office’s
#communityfirst platform.
Financial burden caused by Con
Ed rate hikes are not acceptable
First 100 days
To the Editor,
On April 6, the Federal Transit
Administration published Federal
Notice of Available Funding for Federal
Fiscal Year 2021. The accompanying
tables by funding programs
make for very interesting reading.
Gov. Hochul, Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand,
members of the New York
congressional delegation, Mayor
Eric Adams, city DOT Commissioner
Ydanis Rodriguez and other
elected officials constantly complain
that Washington shortchanges NYC
and the MTA. Yet none of them has
ever said a word about the following.
There are still two Federal Transit
Administration (FTA) discretionary
funded project allocations
worth a total of $19 million that
city DOT has yet to secure under
approved grants. They include: under
Table 5 Prior Year Unobligated
5739(b) Buses and Bus Facilities
Competitive Allocations: (1) 2019 —
NYD2019-BUS C-065 NYCDOT Safe
Routes to Transit project to make infrastructure,
pedestrian safety and
accessibility improvements for transit
riders along 86th Street in Brooklyn
– $9 million and (2) FY 2020 —
NY2020-Bus C-163 NYCDOT South
Bronx BZ 6 Select Bus Service – $10
million.
DOT should have previously submitted
grant applications for these
funds. Why has DOT been unsuccessful
in having these funds obligated
under approved grants? Has
DOT entered formal grants in FTA’s
Transit Award Management System
(known as “TrAMS”), used to
award and manage federal grants.
If so, have they failed to answer all
of FTA’s concerns and issues as part
of any ongoing grant review? These
funds will lapse in September 2023
and be lost.
City DOT is in intense competition
against transit agencies from
other cities and states around the
nation. It hurts NYC, the MTA and
Metro NY area, when DOT leaves
these discretionary dollars on the
table year after year. Our congressional
delegation loses credibility
when lobbying for more transit dollars.
There is no incentive for Washington
to approve additional discretionary
transit dollars. As each year
goes by, the project cost also tends to
increase. The dollar value of the earmark
does not. In the end, taxpayers
and commuters are the losers. When
will Mayor Adams and city DOT
Commissioner Rodriguez make this
a priority and secure funds?
Larry Penner
letters & comments
City set to lose out on $19M in discretionary federal grant money