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Friday, July 8, 2022
The Bronx Chamber of Commerce - Bronx Business News You Can Use
Governor Hochul Announces Effort to Prevent Underage Drinking and Drunk Driving During Summer Concert Season
Department of Motor Vehicles Investigators will Check for Fake IDs at Popular Concert Venues
Enforcement Efforts Help Promote Healthier Choices Among Young New Yorkers and Enhance Safety on Roadways
Governor Kathy Hochul announced today that state Department of Motor Vehicles investigators are conducting enforcement initiatives to stop the use of fake IDs for purchasing alcohol at summer concerts. Known as Operation Prevent, the effort also includes investigators from the State Liquor Authority, State Police, State Parks Police, and local law enforcement. During the campaign, enforcement sweeps are being conducted at venues across the state.
"Seeing live music is a wonderful experience, and New York has so many great venues all across our state, but I urge everyone to celebrate responsibly," Governor Hochul said. "We want New Yorkers to enjoy these events safely, and this enforcement effort will be crucial to helping prevent underage concertgoers from purchasing alcohol and potentially getting behind the wheel."
Operation Prevent enforcement sweeps will be conducted at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater, Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, CMAC in Canandaigua, and the Lakeview Amphitheater in Syracuse, as well as other locations where underage concertgoers are likely to gather.
Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner and Chair of the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee Mark J.F. Schroeder said, "Our investigators are experts at detecting fake IDs. It may look realistic to you, but they know how to spot the telltale signs of a fraudulent document. We are not trying to ruin anyone's fun. We are trying to keep everyone safe."
State Liquor Authority Chairman Vincent Bradley said, "As underage drinking leads to reckless behavior that can result in dangerous, lifelong consequences, the SLA remains committed to working with our partners in the DMV and in local law enforcement to keep alcohol out of the hands of underage youth. Working collaboratively, we can discourage both businesses from selling to minors as well as young New Yorkers attempting to purchase alcohol using fake IDs."
New York State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen said, "Underage drinking and the use of fake IDs by minors to purchase alcohol will not be tolerated. Safety is our top priority, and the New York State Police will be diligent in working to discourage, detect and apprehend underage users. I want to thank our partners for their shared commitment in putting a stop to underage drinking and the tragic impact that it can have."
Office of Addiction Services and Supports Commissioner Chinazo Cunningham said, "Alcohol consumption by youth and young adults can have negative effects on their mental and physical health, and ability to make safe decisions. When it comes to underage alcohol use, parents and other caring adults are the most important influence. Make a plan together to help your family celebrate summer safely."
Customers under the age of 21 found to be using fake or another individual's IDs to buy alcohol can be ticketed and their licenses can be revoked for a minimum of 90 days or up to one year.
Operation Prevent is supported by the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee. The committee coordinates traffic safety activities in New York, and it awards federal highway safety grant funds to local, state, and not-for-profit agencies for projects to improve highway safety and reduce deaths and serious injuries due to crashes.
AS COVID-19 CASES RISE, NYC PUBLIC ADVOCATE CALLS FOR NEW ALERT SYSTEM, HYBRID MODEL FOR CITY WORKERS
"Living with COVID doesn’t mean ignoring it. As cases are rising, the city must reinstate a color-coded COVID threat assessment system to better inform and guide people trying to protect themselves and their families amid an ongoing pandemic. Our office pushed for the creation of such a system for months. When this administration created one, it was already out of compliance with its own system – then ignored that system when the alert level was raised. While it’s true that our tools and strategies must evolve with the virus, those methods and metrics must be clear to New Yorkers.
"In line with those adapting approaches, it is past time for the city to support hybrid models of work wherever possible. My office is working remotely currently, and when we return in person, it will be on a hybrid schedule.
"Private companies are recognizing the new reality and offering hybrid options to prospective employees, and the city should be leading as a model, not lagging behind and losing valuable talent by creating unnecessary barriers and risks. Employees and employers alike know that hybrid work systems are possible. While clearly not all municipal jobs have the potential for hybrid work, exploring and enabling hybrid systems wherever possible is essential for a safer city and stronger workforce.
"For New York City to best serve its residents, it must hire and retain the best employees. Right now, the administration is chasing them away."
DEC Announces Six New Certified Climate Smart Communities
Local Actions Support Nation-Leading Goals of New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act
Certified Climate Smart Municipalities Are Models for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Building Local Climate Resilience
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos today announced the latest round of communities to achieve certification as part of New York State's Climate Smart Communities program, which supports local efforts to meet the economic, social, and environmental challenges posed by climate change. By taking meaningful steps to mitigate and adapt to climate change, six local governments successfully met the criteria to be recognized as leaders during the second quarter round of review.
"DEC applauds the work of these six communities helping address the climate crisis by acting locally and bolstering New York State's climate leadership," Commissioner Seggos said. "We look forward to working with our Climate Smart Communities and other local leaders who are ramping up clean energy, improving climate resiliency, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, among other actions, to benefit quality of life and advance the State’s climate goals."
The town of New Castle achieved silver certification, which is the highest level currently available. New York's new bronze-certified Climate Smart Communities are the towns of Ancram, North East, Wawarsing, and Yorktown. The town of Huntington was recertified at the bronze level and increased its total points by completing additional climate actions.
Established in 2009, the interagency Climate Smart Communities program provides guidance and technical support to local governments to take locally driven climate action. The first step to becoming a Climate Smart Community is to register by pledging to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. To date, 356 local governments representing more than 9.4 million New Yorkers adopted the Climate Smart Communities pledge.
The certification program launched in 2014 to document and celebrate the accomplishments of communities taking climate action. There are now 94 total certified Climate Smart Communities in New York State, nine silver and 85 bronze. To be certified, communities must demonstrate an active climate change task force that includes residents and municipal representatives. Most certified communities complete greenhouse gas inventories that calculate emissions at the local level and help local leaders identify how best to help New York State meet its ambitious greenhouse gas reductions mandates.
New York's newest certified Climate Smart Communities:
Capital District
Town of Ancram
The town of Ancram achieved bronze level certification in part by installing solar panels and an electric vehicle charging station at Town Hall, and increasing access to renewable energy for residents and local businesses by streamlining the permitting process for rooftop solar and running a community solar campaign.
Town of Ancram
The town of Ancram achieved bronze level certification in part by installing solar panels and an electric vehicle charging station at Town Hall, and increasing access to renewable energy for residents and local businesses by streamlining the permitting process for rooftop solar and running a community solar campaign.
Mid-Hudson
Town of New Castle
The town of New Castle has newly achieved silver level certification, having received bronze in 2021. New Castle was also the state’s first municipality to take the pledge and register as a Climate Smart Community. New Castle’s continued commitment to local climate action enabled the town to achieve its silver-level certification, including actions such as converting all of the town’s 531 streetlights to energy-efficient LEDs, installing electric vehicle charging stations for public use, and developing a climate vulnerability assessment to identify and reduce risks to the community from climate change.
Towns of North East, Wawarsing, and Yorktown
These municipalities demonstrated climate leadership through actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve community resilience to climate change, earning them all bronze-level certification. The town of North East’s actions included launching waste reduction and climate change education programs to inform and inspire the public. Wawarsing updated its zoning codes to preserve natural areas like wetlands and stream buffer zones, which offer protection from flooding. Yorktown streamlined the permitting process for battery energy storage systems to help drive the decarbonization of energy supply and reduce energy demand and power outages.
Long Island
Town of Huntington
The town of Huntington carries on its commitment to climate action by recertifying its bronze-level designation, achieved in March 2022. Huntington’s accomplishments include installing solar panels at Town Hall and electric vehicle charging stations at the town’s train station, as well as implementing a bike share program at parks and beaches.
For more information, see the online certification reports that describe all the actions each certified community took to achieve certification.
All six of the newly awarded communities also participate in the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Clean Energy Communities program, which assists local governments to implement clean energy actions and save on energy costs. Ancram, Huntington, New Castle, North East, and Yorktown completed a least four high-impact actions and are designated as Clean Energy Communities. The town of Wawarsing completed three high-impact actions under the program.
NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen M. Harris said, “It is up to all of us to ensure a healthier, more sustainable New York, and continued local action to combat climate change is an essential piece of these efforts. Congratulations to these six communities for furthering their commitments to energy efficiency and renewable energy, improving air quality for residents and stewarding our environment for generations to come.”
Climate Smart Communities Coordinators
On Earth Day this year, DEC announced a new initiative, called Climate Smart Communities Coordinators, which brings three regional partners serving as technical support providers and strategic planners to guide local governments in the development of successful local climate action initiatives in three territories covering New York State.
Climate Smart Communities Coordinators will use the New York State Climate Smart Communities Certification program as a roadmap for providing technical support to communities to help reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, build resilience to climate change, and thrive in the new green economy.
Municipalities can learn more and connect with the Climate Smart Communities Coordinator for their territory by visiting this webpage: https://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/
Climate Smart Communities Funding Programs
In May, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that $14 million is available through the Climate Smart Communities Grant program. Three of the communities certified today received funding through the DEC Climate Smart Communities Grant program - the towns of New Castle, North East, and Huntington. Established in 2016, this 50/50 matching grant program supports municipalities in completing certification actions and implementing projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to extreme weather.
DEC is currently accepting applications for the Climate Smart Communities Grant program through 4 p.m. on July 29, 2022. Visit http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/
New York State's Nation-Leading Climate Plan
New York State's nation-leading climate agenda is the most aggressive climate and clean energy initiative in the nation, calling for an orderly and just transition to clean energy that creates jobs and continues fostering a green economy as New York State recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. Enshrined into law through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, New York is on a path to achieve its mandated goal of a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040, including 70 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, and to reach economy wide carbon neutrality. It builds on New York's unprecedented investments to ramp-up clean energy including over $35 billion in 120 large-scale renewable and transmission projects across the state, $6.8 billion to reduce buildings emissions, $1.8 billion to scale up solar, more than $1 billion for clean transportation initiatives, and over $1.6 billion in NY Green Bank commitments. Combined, these investments are supporting nearly 158,000 jobs in New York's clean energy sector in 2020, a 2,100 percent growth in the distributed solar sector since 2011 and a commitment to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035. Under the Climate Act, New York will build on this progress and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050, while ensuring that at least 35 percent with a goal of 40 percent of the benefits of clean energy investments are directed to disadvantaged communities, and advance progress towards the state's 2025 energy efficiency target of reducing on-site energy consumption by 185 trillion BTUs of end-use energy savings.
Five Men Indicted for Crimes Related to Transnational Repression Scheme to Silence Critics of the People’s Republic of China Residing in the United States
Defendants Include Federal Law Enforcement Officer and Private Investigator Who Lied to FBI Agents and Obstructed Justice
A federal grand jury in Brooklyn returned a superseding indictment yesterday charging five defendants, including one current federal law enforcement officer and one retired federal law enforcement officer, with various crimes pertaining to a transnational repression scheme orchestrated on behalf of the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Defendants Fan “Frank” Liu, 62, of Jericho, New York; Matthew Ziburis, 49, of Oyster Bay, New York; and Qiang “Jason” Sun, 40, of the PRC were charged in March 2022 with allegedly perpetrating a transnational repression scheme that targeted U.S. residents whose political views and actions are disfavored by the PRC Government. Among other items, these defendants allegedly plotted to destroy the artwork of a PRC national residing in Los Angeles, who was critical of the PRC government and planted surveillance equipment in the artist’s workplace and car to spy on him from the PRC. Liu and Ziburis were arrested pursuant to a criminal complaint in March 2022, while Sun remains at large.
The superseding indictment adds two new defendants, Craig Miller and Derrick Taylor, to the scheme. Miller is a 15-year employee of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), currently assigned as a deportation officer to DHS’s Emergency Relief Operations in Minneapolis, and Taylor is a retired DHS law enforcement agent who presently works as a private investigator in Irvine, California. Miller and Taylor are charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence after they were approached by FBI agents and asked about their procurement and dissemination of sensitive and confidential information from a restricted federal law enforcement database regarding U.S.-based dissidents from the PRC. Both Miller and Taylor were arrested pursuant to a criminal complaint in June 2022.
“We will defend the rights of people in the United States to engage in free speech and political expression, including views the PRC government wants to silence,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olsen. “As charged, these individuals aided agents of a foreign government in seeking to suppress dissenting voices who have taken refuge here. The defendants include two sworn law enforcement officers who chose to forsake their oaths and violate the law. This indictment is the next step in holding all of these defendants responsible for their crimes.”
“As alleged, this case involves a multifaceted campaign to silence, harass, discredit and spy on U.S. residents for exercising their freedom of speech – aided by a current federal law enforcement officer and a private investigator who provided confidential information about U.S. residents from a restricted law enforcement database, and when confronted about their improper conduct, lied and destroyed evidence,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “This office will always work closely with our law enforcement partners to root out corrupt officials in all levels of government and will prosecute those who act on behalf of a hostile foreign state to target the free speech of U.S. residents on American soil.”
“This case exposes attempts by the government of the PRC to suppress dissenting voices within the United States. Actions taken by the defendants – two of which are current or former federal law enforcement officers – demonstrate how the PRC seeks to stalk, intimidate, and silence those who oppose it,” said Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “The FBI battles transnational repression because it is an evil in its own right, and an assault on the freedoms of an open society. Our community’s safety and our nation’s security were jeopardized by this criminal behavior, and we remain dedicated to combating transnational repression and bringing to justice those that perpetrate it.”
Liu and Ziburis are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government. Liu, Ziburis and Sun are charged with conspiring to commit interstate harassment and criminal use of a means of identification. Liu and Sun are charged with conspiring to bribe a federal official in connection with their scheme to obtain the tax returns of a pro-democracy activist residing in the United States. Both Miller and Taylor are charged with obstruction of justice, while Taylor is charged with making a false statement to the FBI.
If convicted, Liu faces up to 30 years’ imprisonment; Ziburis, Sun and Taylor face up to 25 years’ imprisonment; and Miller faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment. The defendants will be arraigned at a later date.
As alleged, Liu and Ziburis operated under Sun’s direction and control to discredit pro-democracy PRC dissidents residing in the United States, including those in New York City, California and Indiana. with efforts to disseminate negative information about, and to spy on, stalk, harass and surveil U.S.-based dissidents.
According to the indictment, one of Liu’s co-conspirators (“Co-conspirator”) retained Taylor to obtain personal identification information regarding multiple PRC dissidents residing in the United States, including passport information and photos, and flight and immigration records, which Taylor allegedly tasked to two DHS law enforcement officers, including Miller. As alleged, Miller and the other DHS agent obtained the information from the restricted database and improperly provided it to Taylor, who shared it with the Co-conspirator. Liu, Ziburis and Sun used this information to target and harass these U.S. residents while acting on behalf of the PRC government.
According to court documents, Miller and Taylor both lied about their past conduct when confronted by the FBI. According to the indictment, Miller deleted text messages with Taylor from his phone while being interviewed by the FBI, and Taylor instructed a co-conspirator to withhold evidence from the U.S. government. When interviewed by the FBI, Taylor falsely claimed that he obtained the records in question from a friend who was using the “Black Dark Web” — likely a reference to the dark web.
According to the indictment, the Co-conspirator called Taylor and claimed he received a subpoena from the Department of Justice seeking the Co-conspirator’s communications with Taylor, and Taylor directed the Co-conspirator to withhold such information from the U.S. government.
According to court documents, when interviewed by the FBI, Miller initially claimed to be in sporadic contact with Taylor and said the two did not discuss work matters. After agents admonished Miller to be honest, Miller admitted that Taylor provided him names to run through law enforcement databases. Miller granted consent to the FBI to search his phone, and ultimately admitted that he ran the queries for Taylor and sent the results to Taylor via text message, and that Taylor had provided a gift card in return. Miller then admitted that he deleted the text chain with Taylor during the interview earlier that day and that he fabricated all earlier statements about the text chain, including whether the chain included the names requested by Taylor.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alexander A. Solomon and Emily J. Dean for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case with assistance provided by Trial Attorney Scott Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher D. Grigg for the Central District of California and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Svendsen for the District of Minnesota. U.S. Attorney Peace also thanked the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Office of Professional Responsibility, for its assistance in the investigation.
The FBI has created a website for victims to report efforts by foreign governments to stalk, intimidate, or assault people in the United States. If you believe that you are or have been a victim of transnational repression, please visit https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/transnational-repression.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.