Wednesday, April 29, 2020

BRONX DISTRICT ATTORNEY DARCEL D. CLARK URGES COMMUNITY TO BE VIGILANT ABOUT CHILD ABUSE DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS


Reports of Abuse Have Dropped Significantly, Leading to Concerns That Staying at Home Decreases Contact with Mandated Reporters of Abuse 

  Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today urged the people of the Bronx to be vigilant about children at risk of abuse or neglect during the COVID-19 crisis, as social distancing and home schooling is isolating children from teachers, pediatricians, daycare staff and others who would normally be checking on their safety. 

  District Attorney Clark said, “As a direct result of this pandemic, we are seeing an enormous drop in reporting of abuse. We at the Bronx District Attorney’s Office continue to work with the Bronx Special Victims Squad of the NYPD and other partnering agencies to ensure that children in our community are kept safe. If you suspect a child is being abused, neglected or maltreated, please report it to the numbers below. If you have any questions, call the Bronx District Attorney’s Office Child Abuse Hotline at 718-838-7344. 

 “We must find ways to connect with families to make sure that they are supported, safe, and feel empowered. April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, which reminds us that everyone has a role in preventing child abuse. Now more than ever we need to stand together to prevent physical and sexual abuse of children behind closed doors. The risk to children increases when contact with mandated reporters, such as teachers and health care providers, decreases.”

  The Instant Response Team (Administration for Children’s Services, NYPD and Bronx DA’s Child Abuse/Sex Crimes Bureau) jointly investigated 34 incidents of severe abuse or maltreatment in the Bronx in April, compared to 103 incidents during March (schools closed on March 16) and 152 incidents in January.

 To Report Abuse or Neglect 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, anonymously, call the New York State Central Registry Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-342-3720. Mandated Reporters: 1- 800-635-1522. Deaf/Hard of Hearing: 1-800-638-5163. If you believe that a child is in immediate danger, call 911.

 RESOURCES: 

COVID-19 Websites NYS Parent Portal: 
https://www.nysparenting.org/coronavirus-resourcesparents

NYS Department of Health COVID-19 Information: 
https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/home

New York City-specific COVID-19 resources: 
http://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/about/covidhelp.page

Free Mental Health Services are available at NYC Well. Speak to a counselor via phone, text, or chat and get access to mental health and substance use services, in more than 200 languages, 24/7/365. For more information, visit: https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/en/

NYS COVID-19 Emotional Support Hotline: Free mental health counseling can be reached at 1- 844-863-9314

MORE TESTING, MORE TRACING, MORE PROGRESS: MAYOR DE BLASIO ANNOUNCES NEW SELF-COLLECTED COVID-19 TESTING AND CONTACT TRACING JOBS


Builds on Mayor’s commitment to expanding COVID-19 testing and tracing across the city

  As the City rapidly expands its testing capacityMayor de Blasio today announced new self-swab testing at NYC Health + Hospitals testing sites across the five boroughs. Self-swab testing will minimize contact between patients and healthcare workers, allowing the City to test more New Yorkers without putting healthcare workers and patients at further risk. To ensure all confirmed cases are promptly treated, the City will also hire 1,000 contact tracers immediately to help trace, isolate, and support these individuals.

“Defeating this virus begins and ends with our ability to test quickly and safely,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We are working to ensure that every New Yorker who needs a test will get one with speed and efficiency, beginning with those who are most vulnerable and at risk for serious illness.”

Self-Swab Testing
Self-collection will be available at NYC Health + Hospital testing sites by the end of this week. In addition to minimizing contact between patient and healthcare workers, self-swab collection will increase the capacity of existing test sites from the current rate of 15 per hour to up to 20 per hour. Over 5,000 New Yorkers have been tested across the 8 NYC Health + Hospitals testing sites that are currently operational citywide.

Contact Tracers
Jobs have been advertised for people with public health backgrounds to investigate and trace COVID-19 cases and contacts. The City is looking to hire 1,000 people by the end of May with an immediate start date. Details on the scope of work, job requirements, salary, benefits, and how to apply available at: https://fphnyc.org/about/careers/.

Daily Indicators

Admissions for suspected COVID-19 cases at hospitals citywide continue to decline. On April 24, there were only 122 admissions citywide.

The daily number of people in ICUs across NYC Health + Hospitals with suspected cases of COVID-19 continues to decline. Today, 766 people are in H+H ICU’s citywide.

The number of individuals testing positive for the virus at the City’s public health lab increased to 52 percent. The current number of individuals testing positive in private labs is 29 percent.

You can find these metrics here.

MAYOR DE BLASIO AND SPEAKER JOHNSON ANNOUNCE PLANS TO IMPLEMENT UP TO 100 MILES OF SAFE STREETS


  As the weather gets warmer and New York City’s fight against COVID-19 stretches into the summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Speaker Corey Johnson today announced plans to implement at least 40 miles of street closures, sidewalk widening, and additional bike lanes over the next month – with a goal of implementing 100 miles, focusing on communities hardest hit by the pandemic

The open streets will be sourced from five broad categories: up to 60 miles of streets within and adjacent to parks; up to 20 miles of streets identified in consultation with local precincts, in consultation with Community Boards and other partners; up to 10 miles of streets managed by local partners such as BIDs, block associations, or other civic groups; up to 2.5 miles of widened sidewalks; and up to 10 miles of protected bike lanes.

“This summer is going to look different from any other in our city’s history – and we’re ready to give New Yorkers more ways to leave home while staying safe from COVID-19,” said Mayor de Bill Blasio. “I’m proud to work with Speaker Johnson, the Department of Transportation, and the NYPD to find creative solutions that support our broader goals of ending this pandemic and rebuilding a fairer city.”

"The Council is thrilled our calls for open streets have been answered and looks forward to working with the administration to give New Yorkers the space they need to socially distance properly,” said Council Speaker Corey Johnson. “As the weather gets nicer and this unprecedented crisis stretches on longer, we need to do everything in our power to keep our neighbors safe and healthy. This announcement is a great starting point for the ongoing conversation about how we share our public spaces during this pandemic and in a post-coronavirus future." 

Open streets will only be in effect for the duration of “NY PAUSE,” with the exception of bike lanes. Conversations with communities and local stakeholders will take place in the coming weeks.

“We thank the Mayor and the Council for this exciting agreement to open up to 100 miles of our City streets for outdoor activity, especially in the communities most impacted by COVID-19,” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg.  “DOT looks forward to working with the City Council, our sister agencies — NYPD, Parks and Citywide Event Coordination and Management— and local BIDs and community groups to open our streets up and create more critical cycling routes.”

“These unprecedented times require us to think outside of the box, to be creative with how we look at and utilize the public realm,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP. “The additional open space that this plan will provide by way of our parks, their perimeters and so much more, will go a long way at helping New Yorkers socially distance and ensuring our city’s stay safety and health.”

“Throughout the year,  New Yorkers use their streets as a venue for celebration, commemoration and recreation, and now these spaces  will  be available for our communities to safely access much needed fresh air and movement. We look forward to working with BIDS, community boards, and other community partners to  provide New Yorkers with an opportunity to enjoy their city during these challenging times,” said Ellyn Canfield, Executive Director, Citywide Events Coordination and Management.



Tuesday, April 28, 2020

ASSEMBLYMAN DINOWITZ STATEMENT ON NYS BOARD OF ELECTIONS ELIMINATION OF PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY



“I am sure the decision which functionally eliminates the Presidential primary was not easy to arrive at, and I can appreciate the significance that this decision has on our democracy. Many people worked very hard to qualify for the ballot, eleven Presidential candidates and their associated slates of candidates for delegate, and that work absolutely should be affirmed and admired. It will take all of us, regardless of which candidates we preferred early on, to work together and restore sanity and professionalism to the White House.

I wholeheartedly support the decision by Commissioners Kellner and Spano to eliminate this primary, which will eliminate entirely the need for many local Boards of Elections to operate on June 23 and will significantly reduce the workload for local boards in all sixty-two counties. It would be unconscionable to send thousands of election workers into a pandemic to operate an election that’s result had already been decided when ten of eleven candidates dropped out and endorsed the remaining candidate – Joe Biden. Almost one-third of New York State’s counties will now not have to operate an election at all, and remaining counties can now focus on operating the congressional, state, judicial, and party elections that have always been scheduled for June 23. We cannot forget that our elections rely on people to function, from poll workers to technicians and administrative staff. These people have families too, and it is the right decision to allow as many of them as possible to stay home.

The presidential primary campaign is now over, but there are still primary elections on June 23 to decide candidates for congress, state legislature, judgeships, and party positions. We will continue to have an exchange of ideas, some of which have taken on new urgency as millions of workers lose access to employer-based healthcare and are struggling to pay rent and put food on their tables.

Whatever the disagreements may be within the Democratic Party, our differences are not nearly as vast as with the Republicans – our leadership does not tell people to inject disinfectant to cure coronavirus, our leadership does not tell states to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying people their hard-earned pensions, and our leadership does not put millions of lives at risk just so that the richest among us can get even richer.”

EDITOR'S NOTE:

We have highlighted part of Assemblyman Dinowitz's statement.

It would be unconscionable to send thousands of election workers into a pandemic to operate an election that’s result had already been decided. 

Almost one-third of New York State’s counties will now not have to operate an election at all, and remaining counties can now focus on operating the congressional, state, judicial, and party elections that have always been scheduled for June 23. 

Assemblyman Dinowitz left out from  that sentence Except Bronx County, which has one of the the highest rates of COVID-19 infection and deaths. Who are those effected the most by COVID-19, the same people who work the elections.

Assemblyman Dinowitz, the law was changed last year to move the state and local elections to June from September. 

Assemblyman Dinowitz, make it safe for election workers - Move Primary Day back to September this year

Monday, April 27, 2020

State Senator Julia Salazar Introduces a “Relief for All” Emergency Housing bill.


A10318/S8190 is a closed-loop commonsense rent relief bill that businesses, tenants, homeowners, co-ops, not for profits, and landlords can all get behind. New Yorkers need a solution with no losses, no loans, and every rent paid.

  State Senator Julia Salazar introduced legislation this week to address the economic hardship on New York tenants, homeowners, small businesses, and not-for-profit affordable housing providers, caused by the COVID-19 public emergency. 

The Emergency Coronavirus Affordable Housing Preservation Act of 2020, is a Relief for All bill that aims to protect and preserve affordable housing and small businesses in New York. The ECAHPA provides state and federally funded relief during this emergency period, for New Yorkers who have lost income, or are struggling financially, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Sen Salazar’s bill, sponsored in the assembly by AM- Lentol, provides security for property owners and affordable housing providers to ensure that safe, sanitary, affordable housing remains available for New Yorkers. 

The ECAHPA is the most comprehensive legislative proposal, addressing the impact of the COVID-19 public emergency on housing and small businesses. The provisions offer immediate financial relief to residential and small commercial tenants and small property owners, while also providing financial resources to property owners to guarantee that New York State's affordable housing stock remains safe and in good repair. 

Senator Salazar also introduced another bill, a “Rent Freeze” bill that would protect rent-stabilized tenants with one year leases from facing rent increases during this emergency period.
 

“New Yorkers are facing down an unprecedented crisis, and we need an unprecedented response. By passing Relief For All, we can preserve affordable housing, while keeping families in their homes and businesses afloat. With no home left behind, and every rent paid, this is a unity bill that meets the needs of this moment.” 
- State Senator Julia Salazar

     “ New York State faces unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With so many New Yorkers losing their income and facing economic uncertainty, we must enact bold solutions in order to provide stability and security during these difficult times. This starts with providing relief for tenants, homeowners, small businesses, and not-for-profit affordable housing providers. I’m proud to join Senator Julia Salazar as a sponsor of the Emergency Coronavirus Affordable Housing Preservation Act of 2020 (A10318) in the Assembly because the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of many New Yorkers and we must do all we can to restore stability in their lives. Stable housing means stable lives and the ECAHPA will go a long way to provide necessary relief for all New Yorkers,” 
- Assembly Member Joseph R. Lentol 

     "Tenants are in crisis right now. An eviction moratorium is simply not enough to protect them, especially poor people of color. We desperately need legislation that cancels rent. The Emergency Coronavirus Affordable Housing Preservation Act addresses the needs of New Yorkers because it leaves no home behind. It lifts the burden of this crisis off the backs of tenants who simply cannot pay rent and places it squarely on the government -- where it belongs -- to help all those affected by the pandemic's devastating impacts on housing. Communities Resist is proud to have worked with Senator Salazar, Assembly Member Lentol, and our community partners on this bill. We're very grateful to the Senator and Assembly Member for introducing it and leading the way forward."
-Shekar Krishnan, Attorney & Chief Program Officer, Communities Resist   

     “Southside United Housing (Los Sures) enthusiastically  supports the Emergency Coronavirus Affordable Housing Preservation Act being introduced by Senator Julia Salazar in the NY State Senate and Assemblyman Joseph Lentol in the NY State Assembly. By providing rent relief for tenants impacted by the pandemic, it will enable non-profits like ours to continue maintaining and improving affordable housing in our community.  As a well as managing hundreds of low-income housing units, we also work with many low-income HDFC cooperatives where collection of monthly maintenance is crucial to being able to provide basic services.  This bill will go a long way toward keeping New Yorkers in affordable housing.”
-Barbara Schliff, Dir. Housing Resources, Los Sures.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Where are our Bronx elected state legislators in the State Senate and State Assembly on this bill before them?

Governor Cuomo Outlines Phased Plan to Re-open New York Starting With Construction and Manufacturing


 Governor Andrew M. Cuomo outlined a phased plan to re-open New York and re-imagine a new normal for the state starting with construction and manufacturing. The plan will be implemented in phases and will be based on regional analysis and determinations. Based on CDC recommendations, once a region experiences a 14-day decline in the hospitalization rate they may begin a phased re-opening. The State is closely monitoring the hospitalization rate, the infection rate and the number of positive antibody tests, as well as the overall public health impact, and will make adjustments to the plan and other decisions based on these indicators.

  • Phase one will include opening construction and manufacturing functions with low risk.
  • Phase two will open certain industries based on priority and risk level. Businesses considered "more essential" with inherent low risks of infection in the workplace and to customers will be prioritized, followed by other businesses considered "less essential" or those that present a higher risk of infection spread. As the infection rate declines, the pace of reopening businesses will be increased.
  • The region must not open attractions or businesses that would draw a large number of visitors from outside the local area.
  • There will be two weeks in between each phase to monitor the effects of the re-opening and ensure hospitalization and infection rates are not increasing.
  • This plan will be implemented with multi-state coordination, especially in downstate New York. The plan will also coordinate the opening of transportation systems, parks, schools, beaches and businesses with special attention on summer activities for downstate, public housing and low-income communities, food banks and child care.
  • The phased re-opening will also be based on individual business and industry plans that include new measures to protect employees and consumers, make the physical work space safer and implement processes that lower risk of infection in the business. The state is consulting with local leaders in each region and industry to formulate these plans.

Governor Cuomo Announces Completion of Nation-leading L Project Tunnel Rehabilitation With No Shutdown


There's a tunnel in New York called the L-train tunnel. People in New York City know it very well. It's a tunnel that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn, and 400,000 people use this train and this tunnel. 400,000 people is a larger group than many cities in this country have, okay. So they had to close down the tunnel because the tunnel was old and the tunnel had problems and everybody looked at it and they said, we have to close down the tunnel. 400,000 people couldn't get to work without that train, and they had all these complicated plans on how they were going to mitigate the transportation problem and different buses and different cars and different bikes and different horses, the whole alternative transportation. And this went on for years.

Everyone said, you had to close the tunnel and it was going to be closed for 15 to 18 months. Now when government says it's going to be closed for 15 to 18 months, I hear 24 months to the rest of your life. That's my governmental cynicism. But that was the plan. We're going to close it down, rebuild the tunnel, 15 months to 18 months, the MTA. This was going to be a massive disruption. I heard a lot of complaints. I get a few smart people, Cornell engineers, Columbia engineers, we go down into the tunnel. And we look at it. And the engineers say, you know what? There's a different way to do this. And they talk about techniques that they use in Europe. And they say not only could we bring these techniques here, and we wouldn't have to shut down the tunnel at all. Period. We could just stop usage at nights and on weekends and we can make all of the repairs. And we can do it with a partial closure for 15 months.

The opposition to this new idea was an explosion. I was a meddler, I didn't have an engineering degree, they were outside experts, how dare you question the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy knows better. It was a thunderstorm of opposition. but we did it anyway, and we went ahead with it. And we rebuilt the tunnel, and the tunnel is now done better than before, with all these new techniques. It opens today. It opens today. And the proof is in the pudding, right? We went through this period of, I don't believe it, this is interference.

It opened today. And it opens today not in 15 months, but actually in only 12 months of a partial shutdown. So it's ahead of schedule, it's under budget, and it was never shut down. I relay this story because you can question and you should question why we do what we do. Why do we do it that way? I know that's how we've always done it, but why do we do it that way? And why can't we do it a different way? Why not try this? Why not try that? People don't like change, you know. We think we like change but we don't really like change. We like control more than anything, right?

So it's hard, it's hard to make change. It's hard to make change in your own life, let alone on a societal collective level. But if you don't change, you don't grow. And if you don't run the risk of change, you don't have the benefit of advancement. Not everything out there has to be the way it is. So we just went through this wild period where people are walking around with masks. Not because I said to, but because they understand they need to. How do we make it better? How do we make it better? And let's use this period to do just that. And we will. And we'll reimagine and we'll make it a reality because we are New York tough and smart and disciplined and unified and loving and because we know that we can. We know that we can. We showed that we can.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

MAYOR DE BLASIO on COVID-19 April 26, 2020


Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. You know, you already see naysayers coming out, suggesting that New York City has seen better days and won't be able to overcome this crisis. You already see people talking about what we may have lost in this crisis. There's no question a lot of pain has happened, an immense amount of pain. There's no question that we've lost people dear to us. There's no question that so many of our small businesses that are struggling are going to struggle to come back. But there is, in my mind, also no question that New York City will come back strong, stronger than ever. This is what New York City does. This is who we are. This is what we've always done. I get very upset when I see people betting against New York City, when I even see New Yorkers putting down New York City. They need to go and read a little bit of history. They need to go and understand how many times this city has been put back on its heels and fought its way back.

Think about what happened after 9/11. A lot of places might never have been able to find a way back after something as horrifying as 9/11. This city fought back. We remembered the heroes we lost, but we were inspired by their example. Think about Hurricane Sandy, worst natural disaster in the history of this city. So literally 9/11, worst attack on the city in our history; Sandy, worst natural disaster in our history. People fought back – those extraordinary efforts at the grassroots to help each other. Just in the hours immediately after the storm hit, the way people came together and helped each other in neighborhoods all over the city, and then the way people fought back and rebuilt, learned lessons, did things better. We will rebuild. We will be stronger. There is no question. That does not in any way minimize or ignore the pain that we are going through now. But it is, to me, so clear who we are, and that we will find a way back. 

And it's important to remember even as we grieve, that it is the nature of this place to work together and to build something new. That's always been the history of this city. So, we're going to build something new and we're going to build something better and not just better because it's more modern. We're going to build something more fair. We're going to build something for everyone. This recovery has to have that spirit, that New York spirit, that everyone matters. Doesn't matter who you are or where you come from – everyone needs to be included and we need to build a better and more just society than the one we left behind.  

Everyone wants to know about the restart and that discussion is going to happen over these next few weeks. We're obviously watching our health care indicators every day. I'll talk about them again in a few minutes. They will tell us a lot about the timing of what we can do. We're working right now on what each element of a restart looks like and it will not all happen at once and I keep cautioning, restart happens in careful smart phases because the last thing we're ever going to do is allow this disease to reassert itself. We're not going to risk people's lives, we're going to be smart about it, but that work of framing the restart is going on right now and we're going to bring in a lot of people to help us and I'll talk about that. And then we have to focus on these disparities in everything we do. They've been laid bare in this crisis. We have to talk about how we fight these disparities now in the work we're doing now and then in a much deeper, bigger way going forward. The economic and racial disparities that have been made so clear by this crisis, we knew about them before. They've been just – a powerful, painful exclamation point has been put on them by this crisis. It is a clarion call to us to start right now fighting back against those disparities and to build a deeper plan to fight them on a more permanent basis. 

We have to look at our basic laws, our basic government structure. We have to look at the whole thing to think about how we can much more deeply ensure a fair recovery. So, I'm going to be talking to you again about some of the initial steps that will help us with the first acts of restarting. I'm going to be talking about the immediate and ongoing effort to address the disparities. I'm going to be talking about a bigger effort to create a vision for a fair recovery that then can be put into action. And I'm going to talk about how we consider the very reality of our government in this moment of crisis and where it needs to take us in the future. And I'm going to bring in a lot of very, very talented people to help augment all we do here at City Hall and our agencies. This is a moment where we're going to invite in tremendously smart, innovative New Yorkers from many, many parts of our city, many different parts of our life of the city, of our economy – bring their brain power, their ideas, their perspectives to help us do all we do. So, the restart is the first thing in our mind. We know it directly interrelates with what we're learning about this virus and its presence in our city and those indicators. We're going to constantly talk about where we stand each day, what kind of element of restart we can think about now, what we have to think about later. 

Okay. Let's start with the question of when we restart. We restart when we have evidence. Look, we see some states around the country rushing to restart their economies. I'm worried for them. I'm worried for their people. Some seem to be paying attention to health care indicators more than others. Anybody, any state, any city that doesn't pay attention to those factual health care indicators, that evidence, is running a risk, is endangering their own people. And their whole idea of wanting to rush a restart so we can have an economy again and recover, it could all backfire because if the disease reasserts you're delaying potentially by a long time when you could have that kind of recovery. We won't let that happen here. We will focus first and foremost on the health and safety of New Yorkers protecting our health care system so it can be there for all of us, making our moves when the indicators tell us and then making them piece by piece, testing to see how they're working, making sure that each step we take is a strong foothold before we take the next step. So, that's the when.

How – how do we restart? There's so many open questions and the people we're going to bring together are going to help us answer them with their powerful perspective on the life of the city and the different parts of the city they come from, the different industries, etc. They are going to bring perspective so we can get these decisions right. So here are kinds of questions that we all have to ask, and again, some of these will be things we do earlier. Some of these are things we do later, but here are obvious everyday questions. How do you reopen a restaurant and still do it in a way that protects the customers and protects the people that work there? How do you do that right? What kind of protection will people need? What kind of PPEs will people need to wear in a lot of different parts of the city, a lot of different work that they do, to make sure they're safe? Will they need more? When will they need less? We've got to start to fill in those blanks. How much will we be doing temperature checks or symptom checks on a regular basis? Where? How? They’re clearly powerful tools, they fit our test-and-trace strategy. How are we going to do that? How extensively? Are we going to have enough thermometers? All sorts of basic questions have to be answered to determine what's our ideal, but also practically, what can we get done at any given moment? What kind of cleaning protocols will businesses need as they restart? What kind of social distancing will be required in the business? How many customers can be there at any given time. All of these answers need to be filled in. We have some really good information from around the world of some things we see working better and worse. We're going to borrow from that and use it as we formulate our plans. So, this is all going to move fast because we have to be ready for that moment where the indicators tell us it's time to open up a little. But I want to be clear as no on off switch here. It's not like a – I think people know it but I want to say it for emphasis – it's not like there's ever one jump back to normalcy. It's a series of careful and smart moves, and then you test each one along the way to make sure there's not that backfire. And then when you see things working, you take the next step.

Arts, culture, tourism, which we're so proud of, such a big part of our city, they all will come back strong. We want to figure out the right way to get that started and then build upon that. So, these councils are going to get together immediately to help us frame the restart, but they'll stay with us for weeks and months to come as we build out our actions to open up and then to envision our future and build our future. There'll be one for labor. We have to hear from the folks who represent working people and determine what we need to do for working people. Nonprofits and social services, huge part of New York City life and our economy, often not given the credit they deserve. They're going to have a council. I'm going to be meeting with them because we need that part of our city to come back strong. The faith-based community – we already have extraordinary efforts with CORL, the Council of Religious Leaders, with our clergy advisory board. We're going to bring them together to help guide us in thinking about how we restart the life of faith in this city, but also the crucial role that faith-based communities can play in rebuilding our economy, making sure people are protected, making sure people have what they need in their lives even in this struggle. And education and vocational training, obviously bringing back our public schools strong, bringing them back safely, dealing with the trauma the kids and families and educators have gone through, thinking also about all parts of our education system, how we work with our religious education schools, how we work with private schools, higher education, vocational training. All of them will be at the table to help us think through this restart.

So, we're going to start right away. It's going to be very practical and specific about what we need to do together and then also be part of how we build our bigger plans. So, that's immediate. Another immediate piece, and it'll start with immediate actions the City government needs to take and build out as part of the bigger vision, is a City Task Force on Racial Inclusion and Equity. This will be made up of leaders of the City government focusing on the disparities we're seeing already, making sure that we are addressing structural racism that is obviously present in the realities we're facing with this disease. Making sure we take immediate actions through all the agencies in the City government to address this painful reality. This is a right now thing. Right now, we can start to address these disparities. We're doing it in many ways on the health care front with the plans that we have announced, the community-based testing and the outreach programs, the community-based health clinics, many other things we’re working on right now. But I want to make sure that every agency of the City government is moving in that same direction urgently.

The task force will be led by our First Lady, Chirlane McCray, and by Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson. And this is based on ideas that they have both developed in the last few days to address the immediate disparities, but also to make sure that we address these disparities more thoroughly in our recovery plans ahead. We will be naming a group of leaders from the administration who focus on and represent all communities of color in this city. And again, they will think about immediate things that need to happen that work with the community-based health clinics and providers, how we can work right now with minority-owned businesses and obviously deepen our M/WBE efforts right now, how we can support essential workers. This task force will focus on those issues, but also build out and help us think about the bigger structural changes we need to make going forward.

So this is where I want to talk about the concept of a fair recovery. The crisis has laid bare so many things that are broken in our city and in our country. There have been so many amazing acts of heroism. Let's praise the good, the heroism from our health care workers, our first responders, the incredible things people have done for each other, the community, the amazing discipline and strength of New Yorkers with social distancing and shelter in place. There've been many heroic positive stories, but also extraordinarily painful and clear inequalities. So we see it over and over again. We see working families who've been brought to their knees in a matter of weeks and there's not enough safety net there for them. And we finally are seeing some progress from our federal government, but our federal government's always been behind the curve, not dealing with the reality and only coming up with very partial solutions. So for so many working families, this has been a devastating time. We see the federal government focusing on the wealthy and corporations before working people. It's painful to acknowledge how much of the stimulus discussion the beginning was about big business, not small business, and about a pay day for those who are already wealthy and privileged, not those who are struggling, and the federal government here in this case, it's been consistently the case, not only behind the curve, but the focus has been all wrong. Our federal government was much quicker to bail out the airlines, $58 billion, than to focus on cities and states and working people. These contradictions are now clearer than ever and they're more unacceptable than ever.

Thank God our focus was on health care equity, saving our public hospitals, creating a guarantee of health care and making sure people could get insurance or if they couldn't get insurance, had the right to health care through NYC Care, building up access to free mental health care across the board, through Thrive NYC. These acts of equity are serving us right now in this crisis. They're reminders of how much more we have to do as well – and fighting for economic fairness, $15 minimum wage, paid sick leave, rent freezes. The things that we have done to try to bring a beginning of fairness and equity in the city, we need to do even more now.

The only comparison is the Great Depression and I heard those stories from my older relatives and when they spoke about the Great Depression, it sounded like it was yesterday. It was so vivid. It was so intense. The challenges they faced, the pain that they overcame somehow. But it's also clear in those stories and I bet a lot of you have heard them too, and it's very much a New York story, when you talk about how our nation fought back through the Great Depression, it was very much through the leadership of great New Yorkers like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia – giants that we can only think of with awe and in our time we look to them for inspiration. Well, they did not say, let's just rebuild what was happening that day before the stock market crashed in 1929, I want you to remember this. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Fiorello LaGuardia and all the other great leaders in the New Deal, they did not say, we just want to go back to that horribly unequal, volatile, unfair world of 1929. No, they said we're going to build something transformational and different. That was the New Deal. They re-imagined what government could be. They re-imagined what it could mean for people and they very much made clear that it was not going to be government for the few, by the government for the many. 

They were doing things at the time that people said were impossible, but they made them happen and we all have benefited generation after generation from it. We have to find the ideas for our time. We have to dream new dreams and we need great thinkers to help us do it. And so I'm appointing today a Fair Recovery Task Force. And this is an extraordinary group of New Yorkers, each of whom has contributed to this city and really profound ways. They bring different perspectives, different ideas, but all have a common thread. They have devoted so much of their lives to building a better New York City, and a fairer society. 

First, Patrick Gaspard. Patrick is a New Yorker through and through, born to Haitian parents, grew up in New York City, went to our public schools, served in the Obama administration. Now President of the Open Society Foundation, one of the most important philanthropies on earth. Someone who served right here in City Hall, loves this city and believes things can be created and has been part of it all over the world.

Dick Ravitch, former Lieutenant governor of New York State, a legend. Dick Ravitch is one of the people that help this city survive the fiscal crisis of 1970's. One of the great innovators who saw us through, he helped save the MTA in the seventies and eighties. He is someone who time and time again has seen what others could not see and helped us not just to come back but come back stronger. His extraordinary experience will bring so much to this group.

Jennifer Jones-Austin. Jennifer to someone I have such appreciation for. She was the co-chair of my transition when I came into City Hall. She helped us build this administration. As CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, she's a leader in this city in so many ways in our nonprofit sector, in the work of social justice, in the work of the faith community and her family – four generations. She is the fourth generation of faith and social justice leaders in her family. She understands what it is to run a large nonprofit and she understands how crucial those extraordinary nonprofits are to the city. She brings amazing perspective to this effort, and her co-chair in that transition off in that transition effort seven years ago. 

Joining us as well, Carl Weisbrod. Carl has done it all for New York City and most recently served as the Chair of the City Planning Commission in my administration. He has served in one form or another in city administrations going back to the time of Mayor Lindsay, he is legendary for the work he did, taking a symbol of so many things that were troubled about New York City, Times Square and turning it into something strong and vibrant. He knows what resurgence looks like, played a crucial role in bringing back Lower Manhattan after 9/11 as well. I think one of the most respected leaders in government and civic life over the last half century in this city.

Henry Garrido leads our largest municipal union, DC37 AFSCME, the people who do so much of the work that keeps this city going. Henry is a thinker and a change agent and a visionary. I have had many a long conversation over the years with Henry and he's always looking over the horizon. He also comes from the immigrant experience, his family from the Dominican Republic. He fights for working people and believes we can do much better for working families. And he also has the extraordinary experience of running a huge organization that's there to serve and uplift working people. Henry brings a great mind and a great spirit to this effort.

Maria Torres-Springer, Vice President for United States programs at the Ford Foundation. Maria is someone who in her 15 years of public service to our city hit the trifecta, if you will. She's lead three agencies – very few people have done this and done it so well. She led at various times our Economic Development Corporation, our Small Business Services Department and our Housing Department. She understands what it's like not only to run these large organizations, but to serve people who need the help now. Folks who need affordable housing, the folks in our small business community who are going through so much now and need a helping hand. And she certainly understands what it means to foster economic strength, but from a perspective of fairness, child of Filipino immigrants. I remember when I first talked to her, the passion with which she spoke about helping working people and immigrants. She's going to bring that passion and all that experience to this group.

Liz Neumark, CEO of Great Performances, she is an extraordinary New York City entrepreneur, a great New York City story. She started a small business to turn to into a much larger business. Now employs so many people all over this city, a New York success story, but not someone who just kept her success to herself. What Liz did was said, how can we turn business into an engine for change? She's led to efforts to empower people, to train people, to bring them into industries that previously they didn't have an opportunity to participate in. She's worked tirelessly to fight hunger in this city. She's a great example of someone from our business community every single day. Ask the question, how can we take our New York City businesses and make them agents of positive change in our city? And she has proven it over and over again that it can be done and it must be done.

And finally, Fred Wilson, Fred is a legend in our technology community. Some consider him the godfather of the New York City tech scene. He was an early stage investor in many of the New York City tech companies that are thriving today. He's someone who really had a profound vision, one of the first to have the vision of New York City as a great international tech hub. And now that vision has come to be true but his true passion is making sure that our kids get computer science education. I've worked closely with Fred. I've been so impressed by his generosity, but also his extraordinary entrepreneurship and his drive. He created the Computer Science for All initiative, that now has been one of the most successful elements of our initiatives at Equity and Excellence in our public schools. Because of Fred, every child in New York City public schools is now getting computer science education, and he led that effort and now will bring that same drive and ingenuity to this group.

So an amazing collection of New Yorkers bringing so many different talents, so much perspective. This group will come together quickly and I'm going to ask of them that they come up with an immediate product to frame our work. Now it's going to be a preliminary product. They're all very, very talented, but I'm going to ask them to, in addition to their very busy day jobs, take some time to come up with a preliminary recovery road map by June 1st. This is not going to be the final word. This is going to be the first outline of how we build that smart recovery, that recovery, that will work, that recovery that will be fair. I'll expect that preliminary road map by June 1st but then their work will continue on in the months ahead.

Finally, we need to look at the bigger changes and I've talked about what it's going to mean, that long road ahead, dealing with things like the inequities in our health care system, dealing with the challenge that New Yorkers faced still finding affordable housing, the profound issues that working people face, the huge issues of protecting this city and our ability to serve people going forward. And obviously the questions that we'll come back to the fore shortly of how we fight global warming and what this role of this city is in. I'm going to expect this group to work on all of these things in the months ahead. Remember, we have 20 months to build this long-term fair recovery. I'm going to depend on them to help in every phase of that. But the last piece of the equation is the structural question of our government and everything that our government is built to do and what we need to do going forward. So the fourth thing I will do is I will plan in the days and weeks ahead to formulate and announce a Charter Revision Commission.

The announcement will come when we've put together the team that will do this work. And again, this is something that will happen in the weeks ahead. First, we need to move, deal with the more immediate matters, but I think it is the right time for a Charter Revision Commission because if ever there was a moment, a breakpoint moment in the city's history, this is it. And it's time to look anew at everything we do and see what works, what doesn't work, what about our city government structure might be outdated or less effective? What do we need to build a fair recovery? The Charter Revision Commission will hold hearings all over the city and again, hopefully someday soon there'll be public hearings again, where people come in person and anything they have to do in the short term, if they need to do it virtually, they will. But I want this group to really think about the big picture of how our government works, how it serves our people, where we could need to go for the future.

So those are four pieces, four building blocks to building the strategies to get us through some of the immediate decisions and on into that broader fair recovery, I am convinced we can pull these pieces together and build something new and better.

Now the part of the day we always wait for, reviewing the indicators and this has everything to say again with the restart. We've seen some good progress in the last few days and today is another good day and I'm very happy about this. Now the first indicator is unchanged and I want to see it go down, but still it's not going in the wrong direction. I am a guy who believes the glass is half full, so I'm happy to see it's not going in the wrong direction and many days this one has gone in the right direction. Indicator one, daily number of people admitted at hospitals for suspected COVID – unchanged. Indicator two, number of people in ICUs across our Health + Hospitals system for suspected COVID has gone down, 785 to 768. Percent of people tested who are positive for COVID-19 has gone down 30 percent to 29 percent. Now, unfortunately, this is the one piece of this that is not so sunny, public health lab tests have gone up 31 percent to 46 percent but still when you look at this day and the days before, overall continuing to move in the right direction, seeing good signs, but I want to see all of these go down consistently for 10 to 14 days. That's what will signal those first steps in opening up.