CITY LAUNCHES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION COVID-19 SITUATION ROOM

 

Multi-agency partnership provides a single point-of-contact for rapid information sharing and response to COVID-19 cases in schools

  Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Richard A. Carranza today announced the opening of the DOE COVID Response Situation Room—a  multi-agency partnership between the Department of Education, Department of Health and Mental Health, and the Test & Trace Corps—to facilitate a rapid response to positive COVID-19 cases in public schools. The Situation Room provides a single point-of-contact between schools and agency partners responsible for performing both testing, contact tracing, and ensuring the appropriate interventions are being taken by school communities.

 

“The Situation Room is the precise system we need to identify, trace, and treat positive cases within our school communities,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.  “My pledge is simple: every case will be met with swift and decisive action to keep transmission low and our kids and teachers safe.”

 

This unprecedented school year requires all hands on deck, and that’s exactly what we’ll have in the Situation Room, resulting in quick, decisive action for our schools and clarity and transparency for all families,” said Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza. “ Our principals will now have a one-stop shop to raise concerns and receive rapid, coordinated responses that put the health and safety of our school communities first.”

 

“Keeping our students and teachers safe requires an unprecedented response to an unprecedented time.  Through our multi-agency partnership we are ensuring a clear path of communication, decisiveness, and transparency to give Principals and school leaders in correct information they need in order to lead their communities as well as providing families and staff with the transparency and clarity of action they deserve.  Our focus is the health and wellbeing of our school communities and we will achieve this together.” said Buildings Commissioner Melanie E. La Rocca.

 

Beginning today, school leaders can call the Situation Room if they receive notice from a staff member, student, or parent/family member of a positive COVID-19 test or if a student or staff member is isolating or sent home with symptoms. School leaders are encouraged to contact the Situation Room if they have any alerts, questions, or concerns related to responding to suspected or confirmed cases.

 

Upon reporting a possible case to the Situation Room, DOHMH will verify the case and, if needed, trigger a Test + Trace investigation. Case response will begin within three hours for NYC residents, with documented cases being confirmed as quickly as 15 minutes. Schools will communicate to all families and students within school anytime a case is laboratory confirmed and what next steps need to be taken - including whether or not students and staff need to quarantine or if the school will be temporarily shut down.

 

The Situation Room will be open Monday through Friday, 5:30 AM – 9:30 PM, and Sunday, 11:00 AM – 9:30 pm. Response to reported cases will follow the previously announced health and safety policies found here.  

 

In the interest of the health and safety of our entire city, DOHMH recommends that all New Yorkers get tested, whether or not you have symptoms or are at increased risk. School staff and students can receive free, expedited COVID-19 testing at 22 city-run testing locations. Testing is one component of stopping the spread that, when combined with social distancing, face coverings, proper hand hygiene, and staying home when you are sick, can significantly decrease the risk of transmission.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea along with Department Executives Announced Advancements in Technology

 

In an effort to provide increased transparency around important data, the Department publishes user-friendly interactive dashboards that allow the public to view our information in a different way.

To access the dashboards, click on one of the links below. Once the content has loaded you can interact with the information in a variety of ways including:

• Clicking on various visuals, which will in turn update the content based on your selections
• Using your mouse to hover over visuals to bring up additional information
• Right clicking on a visual to show a table view for a different way of seeing the same information

Personnel Demographics Dashboard

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is the largest and one of the oldest municipal police departments in the United States, with approximately 36,000 officers and 19,000 civilian employees. This dashboard provides a breakdown of our members by race, gender and rank/title.

Hate Crimes Dashboard

Hate Crimes are offenses that are motivated in whole or substantial part by a person's, a group's or a place's identification with a particular race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, ancestry, national origin or sexual orientation. This dashboard allows you to navigate these offenses and view incident level data by precinct, bias type and law code.

Attorney General James Stops Debt Collection Company from Unlawful Practices Harming Thousands of Student Borrowers

 

Borrowers with Student Loan Debt Now Being Provided Protections

Required by Law and Being Reimbursed Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

  New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that she has secured protections for thousands of student borrowers who defaulted on student loans and who were subject to misleading and unlawful actions by Transworld Systems, Inc. (Transworld), one of the nation’s largest debt collectors. The agreement resolves an investigation of Transworld — the principal debt collector for the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts — after the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that Transworld violated multiple federal and state consumer protection laws by making false, misleading, and deceptive statements in National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts lawsuits and in communications with borrowers, and for filing these lawsuits beyond the applicable statute of limitations. Under the settlement agreement, Transworld has agreed to make significant changes to its debt collection practices and to pay $600,000, which will be disbursed as restitution to New York borrowers and/or penalties to the state.

“Today, my office is holding Transworld accountable for the unlawful and manipulative student loan debt collection practices that affected thousands of New Yorkers,” said Attorney General James. “For years, Transworld used fraud and deception to pursue defaulted borrowers and obtain default judgments on a massive scale. Our investigation not only is putting hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the pockets of student borrowers, but brought about concrete changes by Transworld, which is now finally providing consumers struggling with defaulted student loan debt all the protections required by law.”

For numerous reasons — including inadequate underwriting standards and the higher default risk associated with direct-to-consumer loans — the loans held by the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts have defaulted at unprecedented rates. Transworld developed and implemented an aggressive strategy to rely heavily on litigation to collect defaulted debts. This strategy required lawsuits against borrowers to move quickly from complaint to judgment, while impeding borrowers’ ability to mount a defense.

To carry out this strategy, the OAG’s investigation concluded that Transworld repeatedly, directly or through law firms it retained on behalf of the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts:

• Filed complaints that falsely identified the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts as the borrower’s “original creditor” when, in fact, the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts are assignees of the original creditors (large financial institutions that originated the loans);
• Filed sworn affidavits in support of default judgment motions attaching documents Transworld identified as “redacted” versions of original documents when, in fact, they were documents Transworld created for the purpose of litigation;
• Filed sworn affidavits in support of default judgment motions in which Transworld staff asserted that they had personal knowledge of certain business records when, in fact, they lacked such knowledge;
• Filed sworn affidavits in support of default judgment motions that stated that a particular student loan was transferred to particular National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts when, in fact, the documents submitted to support this assertion failed to conclusively demonstrate a link between the loan at issue and the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts;
• Filed complaints representing that a borrower applied for a loan from a “servicing agent” when, in fact, the borrower never dealt with such an entity;
• Filed National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts lawsuits outside of the three-year statute of limitations applicable to such lawsuits in New York; and
• Threatened legal action against borrowers even though the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts could not or would not sue because the statute of limitations for suing on the debt had expired.

Many of these practices hindered borrowers’ ability to defend themelves by disguising who they were being sued by and on which loans. 

As part of the settlement, Transworld has agreed to:

• Cease identifying the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts as “original creditors,” stop identifying documents prepared for litigation as “redacted,” end the obfuscating of entities involved in originating National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts loans, and discontinue the use of misleading language in communications with borrowers by implying that they cannot sue due to the expiration of the statute of limitations;
• Enhance training for Transworld staff to ensure accuracy of statements concerning personal knowledge and chain-of-title;
• No longer file National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts lawsuits beyond the three-year statute of limitations applicable to such lawsuits in New York;
• Voluntarily dismiss all lawsuits — which should have never been filed because of the expired statute of limitations — that were filed between January 1, 2018 and the date of the settlement;
• Voluntarily release all pending garnishments, levies, liens, restraining notices, attachments, or any other judgment enforcement mechanism obtained as a result of judgments obtained in wrongfully-filed lawsuits where the statute of limitations have expired;
• Take steps to vacate any judgment obtained in an wrongfully-filed lawsuit where the statutue of limitations have expired (provided the relevant parties, including the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, consent to the suit being vacated); and
• Pay $600,000 in penalties to the state and/or restitution to certain New York borrowers.

These practices will dismiss wrongfully-filed lawsuits against student borrowers in situations where the statutue of limitations expired and will protect borrowers who default on their loans in the future. Transworld also recently replaced its senior management and changed many of the practices identified by the OAG’s investigation prior to entering into this formal settlement.  

The OAG’s investigation concluded that Transworld’s acts and practices specifically violated New York Executive Law § 63(12); New York General Business Law § 349; the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq.; and the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, 12 U.S.C. §§ 5531 et seq.

A QUESTION TO NYC'S SO-CALLED PROGRESSIVE LEADERS

 By Councilman Rev. Ruben Diaz

You should know that the Progressive Democratic leaders in NYC, proclaim that they exist to protect the minority community predominately (Blacks and Hispanics). The “Progressives” claims that their efforts, protests, demonstrations are supposedly geared to assist People of Color move up the ladder by obtaining prestigious positions. According to the “Progressive” argument, we the people of color, have been for decades faced with discrimination, racism, and continue to be oppressed, with no hope of meeting our aspirations and getting a piece of the “equality” pie. The "Progressives" have created various movements to help realize their agenda, like the "Women’s Liberation Movement" the "Me to Movement", " The Woman’s Right To Choose, have Equal Pay and Job Opportunities". For Black Americans now the outcry is the movement for "Reparation’s " and the very powerful movement of "Black Lives Matter". They have also taught the concept of “White Privilege”. This is a movement that proclaims that Whites have special privileges due to the color of their skin.   It is important for you to know that among the candidates for the next NYC elections’ there are three (3) African American candidates, (1) Hispanic candidate and (4) women seeking to become the next Mayor of the City of New York. These candidates are Brooklyn’s county President, Mr. Erick Adams, Mr. Ray McGuire, Ms. Maya Wiley, Ms. Diana Morales, Ms. Katherine García, and Ms. Loree Sutton.  These candidates are all well qualified to occupy the position of Mayor for the greatest City in the world. I imagine that after all the protests, struggles, rioting, arrests, demonstrations and constant outcries from the so-called leaders of these “Progressive” movements, they would be ready to support a member of the minority community, or to have the first woman occupy Gracie Mansion.  You would think, that right? But NO! Life has its Surprises, Surprises come in life! You should know that the “Progressive” leaders are lining up behind Comptroller Scott Stringer’s candidacy for Mayor. Wait! What? Say it isn’t so. Some women when they seek or run for certain positions stand on the argument of equal opportunities for women. They criticize and attack others for not supporting them, claiming that the lack of support is due to their female gender. Those very same women, surprisingly, now ignore the women that aspiring to become our first female mayor and would prefer to throw their support behind Scott Stringer, going against four qualified women. Moreover, what can we say about the large number of Black African American leaders, who have forgotten about the Black Community, and the chants that "Black Lives Matter", and have ignored the qualifications, of candidates like Erik Adams, Ray McGuire, Maya Wiley, and Diane Morales, and have decided to back City Comptroller Scott Stringer. This leads me to ask the “Progressives” the following questions, what happened? What happened with the Black Lives Matters Movement? Where are the aspirations to finally have the first female Mayor of New York? What happened with the outcry of white privilege that is being taught to our Black and Brown children in Public Schools? It is important to remind everyone that I am a Conservative Democrat, and that as a minister, The, senior Pastor of the Christian Community Neighborhood Church, and as the President of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization, I have always proclaimed and fought for Christian biblical values. In this regard, I have supported and will always support those candidates who are closest to our principles, regardless of race or political parties. I’m clear on my positions But to New York City’s Progressive leadership I am compelled to ask: Why are you now supporting Scott Stringer against the, very qualified, African-Americans, Hispanics and women candidates for Mayor?  What happened now? What happened to the first woman Mayor of New York City? What happened to the nipping White Privilege in the bud?   That being said! Once again, I have to emphasize that this is in no way my agenda. I don’t point this out because I am in support of the Progressive agenda. As I said before, I am a Conservative Democrat. But I don’t know what’s going on with the so-called Progressive Movement who, with their actions, are sending a message to Black Americans, Hispanic Americans and women “Sorry but it is not your time; you must wait for your time to come."  I am Councilman Rev. Rubén Diaz, and this is What You Should Know.

Bus Only Lane Repainted on Pelham Parkway East Again.

 

Every few months the painted Bus Only Lanes have to be repainted. In the past there was a truck that sprayed a thin layer of new paint over the Bus Only Lane to identify that the lane was for buses only. Saturday there was a different system used to repaint the Bus Only Lane on Pelham Parkway East. Traffic was down to one lane Eastbound as two lanes were closed for the painting. Several men were in a truck pumping the orange paint from a large drum into small buckets. 

This time instead of a thin spray the paint was poured out by the bucket across the lane. Men then spread the paint across the lane, while others with rollers at the end of long sticks rolled over the paint to even it out. Blue tape was placed around the 'Bus Lane Only' markings in the lane so they would not get painted over. I was told this paint job would last up to three years. We will see how long it lasts from the rain and road salt that goes on it. 

 

Above - The truck with the drums of paint that are put into little buckets. One such empty paint drum is dropped from the truck. 

Below - Paint is poured onto the lane one bucket at a time. The almost unpainted Bus Only Lane can be seen in the background.

Above - This worker has to go back to get another bucket of paint to spread out on the lane as the paint he poured out is spread across the lane.

Below - The paint is then rolled out carefully as not to cover the taped off area in the lane marked 'Bus Lane Only'.

Saturday Clean Up In Poe Park

 

Saturday was Clean Up Poe Park day for State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Congressman Adriano Espaillat. Poe Park is located on the Grand Concourse at East 192nd street, and over a dozen others joined the state senator and congressman, including 15th City council candidates Elisa Crespo and Oswald Felez.

State Senator Rivera did not want me to take a photo of the used syringe he picked up among the leaves, but did not say not to mention what is too often found in Poe Park, that being a used syringe. The clean up of the block long park went well with seven bags of trash filled. The Parks Department was on hand to provide trash pickers, rakes, brooms, and trash bags for the clean up.

Above - State Senator Gustavo Rivera bends down to pick up a used syringe.

Below - Congressman Adriano Espaillat knows how to use a trash picker as he deposits this piece of trash into the waiting trash bag.

Above - The volunteers stand behind the full trash bags and other trash that was picked up by the Parks Department.

Below - (L-R) 15th City Council candidate Elisa Crespo, Community Activist Jose Padilla.

Governor Cuomo Updates New Yorkers on State's Progress During COVID-19 Pandemic

 

0.99 of Yesterday's COVID-19 Tests were Positive; 37th Straight Day with Infection Rate Below 1 Percent

6 COVID-19 Deaths in New York State Yesterday

SLA and State Police Task Force Visits 1,543 Establishments; Observes 10 Establishments Not in Compliance

Confirms 725 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 444,365; New Cases in 42 Counties

  Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today updated New Yorkers on the state's progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Yesterday's infection rate of 0.99 percent marked the 37th straight day that the rate has remained below one percent. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available at forward.ny.gov.

"Our numbers continue to reflect the work of New Yorkers, who ultimately flattened the curve," Governor Cuomo said. "For 37 days, our infection rate has remained below one percent, which is incredible when you think back to where we were in the spring. As we head into the fall and flu season ahead, we need everyone to continue to wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands, and above all, stay New York tough."

Yesterday, the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force visited 1,543 establishments in New York City and Long Island and observed 10 establishments that were not in compliance with state requirements. A county breakdown of yesterday's observed violations is below:

• Bronx - 4
• Brooklyn- 1
• Queens - 1
• Suffolk - 4

Today's data is summarized briefly below:

• Patient Hospitalization - 464 (-3)
• Patients Newly Admitted - 57
• Hospital Counties - 33
• Number ICU - 131 (+4)
• Number ICU with Intubation - 54 (+3)
• Total Discharges - 75,767 (+60)
• Deaths - 6
• Total Deaths - 25,390

Governor Cuomo Announces New Record-High Number of COVID-19 Tests Reported to New York State

 

102,925 Test Results Reported to New York State Yesterday

0.82 Percent of Yesterday's COVID-19 Tests were Positive; 36thStraight Day with Infection Rate Below 1 Percent

New York State Has Distributed 6 Million Bottles of NYS Clean Hand Sanitizer

2 COVID-19 Deaths in New York State Yesterday; No Deaths Reported in NYC

SLA and State Police Task Force Visits 1,359 Establishments; Observes 4 Establishments Not in Compliance

Confirms 849 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 443,640; New Cases in 50 Counties

  Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a new record-high number of test results—102,925—were reported to New York State yesterday. Yesterday's infection rate of 0.82 percent marked the 36th straight day that it has been below 1 percent. No deaths were reported in New York City yesterday. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available at forward.ny.gov. 

"Testing is a cornerstone of our efforts to keep New Yorkers safe from COVID-19. The more testing you do, the more accurate a picture of the virus' spread you have," Governor Cuomo said. "Yesterday's record-high number of tests helps the state make informed decisions to protect the welfare of New Yorkers, and helps them make informed decisions for themselves. But testing alone isn't enough, and we need residents to continue to wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands. We will get out on the other side of this together, but in the meantime we have to stay New York Tough."

The governor also announced that New York State has distributed 6 million bottles of NYS Clean hand sanitizer. Throughout the pandemic, hand sanitizer has been provided at no charge to healthcare facilities, government agencies, food banks, schools, colleges, public housing, public transportation, prisons, first responders, frontline workers, and houses of worship, among others.

Yesterday, the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force visited 1,359 establishments in New York City and Long Island and observed 4 establishments that were not in compliance with state requirements. A county breakdown of yesterday's observed violations is below:

• Brooklyn - 1 
• Staten Island - 1 
• Nassau - 1 
• Suffolk - 1

Today's data is summarized briefly below: 

• Patient Hospitalization - 467 (-7)
• Patients Newly Admitted - 58 
• Hospital Counties - 34
• Number ICU - 127 (+7)
• Number ICU with Intubation - 51 (-3)
• Total Discharges - 75,707 (+58)