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New York City Mayor Eric Adams begins with ethics controversies and an early scandal in low-income housing

Mayor Eric Adams starts off on the wrong foot, with controversies already threatening to hobble his nascent administration.

On the third day of being in office, Mayor Eric Adams (D-New York City) faced a barrage of criticism in a report published in the Guardian. He was exposed for being personality-driven instead of policy-driven. He was expected to keep exploiting identity to his personal advantage over helping the communities, which elected him to office. And he was expected to continue the sell-out of public housing.

Mayor Adams’ critics spanned across the focal points in progressive politics, from the Working Families Party to institutional nonprofit groups, like Make The Road New York.

“His focus is going to be on his big-money donors. That’s been his track record all along. That’s not a secret,” said a member of Fight For NYCHA.

Critics of Mayor Adams were validated, in part, by questionable appointments made by Mayor Adams to top administration roles : scandal-tarred Philip Banks III to serve as deputy mayor for public safety ; Bernard Adams, the mayor’s younger brother, to serve as deputy commissioner at the NYPD ; and Brooklyn political-fixer Frank Carone to serve as his chief of staff.

The appearance that Mayor Adams was rewarding his supporters with patronage jobs came as Mayor Adams attacked individuals in front-line service industries, like restaurants, as “low-skill workers.”

Slumlords are advising Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams faced new questions about his ethical judgment after it was revealed that his transition team included an officer for one of the landlords of the Bronx apartment building that was the site for a deadly fire last week-end. Rick Gropper is an officer of the Camber Property Group, one of the owners of the apartment building’s operating company, Bronx Park Phase III Preservation LLC.

In the face of the obvious conflict-of-interest, Mayor Adams has promised to “investigate” the cause of the fire at one of the properties of one of his key political supporters.

Many are worried that, as Mayor Adams tries to do damage control over so many scandals and controversies, he’ll be unfocused to formulate sound public health policy in the face of the uncontrolled Coronavirus pandemic. In a show of no-confidence, hundreds of public school students walked out on classes on Tuesday to highlight unsafe conditions in schools ; they are calling for a remote education option until the Omicron variant outbreak subsides.

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We keep us safe : Stay home at least one day a week to stop community spread of the Delta variant in New York City

By staying home one day a week to stop community spread of the Delta variant, we can begin in this easy way a general strike until the Government improves pandemic care and ends the privatisation of NYCHA.

The Coronavirus pandemic is not over, but politicians reöpened the economy without addressing any of the racial disparities in society. They didn’t fully- fund public housing to save Section 9, give us universal healthcare, or fully-extend the eviction moratorium. They don’t care !

Now comes Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City), who is using vaccine passports to force us to get the vaccines, even though many public housing residents live with disabilities and are immuno-compromised. The vaccines won’t work, or are not appropriate, for us. For those who can take the vaccines, they should speak with their doctor about it. But Mayor de Blasio makes no exceptions for people, who can’t !

We keep us safe

Mayor de Blasio refuses to issue a compulsory indoor mask mandate. There’s no more talk about “bending the curve” or reducing at least some public activities in order to stop the community spread of the Coronavirus. As a result, Mayor de Blasio has decided to let the pandemic infect as many as possible with no regard for people, who come down with Long Covid or get sick enough for something worse to happen. Until Mayor de Blasio provides us with N95 or KN95 face masks and creates home-based jobs for NYCHA residents and until Congress passes H.R.235 to stop RAD/PACT, we need to take care of ourselves in the face of the Delta variant outbreak.

Please stay home at least one day a week. Make a big pot of soup and stay home.

In this easy way, we begin a general strike until they take care of us.

What you can do

  1. Stay home.
  2. Call 311 for food.
  3. Join our meeting on Aug. 21.

Food banks

If you need food, please call 311. You’ll be provided with hours of operation and directions to food pantries and soup kitchens.

Join our meeting

We will be having a meeting on Saturday, Aug. 21 at 344 E. 28th Street, Manhattan, at 2 pm. If it rains, we meet at the same place and time on Sunday, Aug. 22.

At this organising meeting, we will begin to plan how to get our demands met as we escalate our general strike until the Government takes care of us.

Share this post with your neighbors, friends, and family.

La enfermería, la gobiernaría — la misma porquería !

Hasta que el gobierno nos dé mejores máscaras para la pandemia, cree trabajos que podamos hacer desde casa, y proporcione todos los fondos para salvar la vivienda pública, le pedimos que se quede en casa un día a la semana. Llame al 311 si necesita comida. Únase a nuestra reunión el sábado 21 de agosto a las 2 pm en 344 E. 28th Street, Manhattan. Si llueve, nos reunimos el domingo 22 de agosto.

R.S.V.P.

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A recovery in New York City most certainly not for us

The call by Mayor Bill de Blasio to reopen the economy, now being rushed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, promises a return to the discriminatory power dynamic and social hierarchy of the past.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) went on State media on Thursday morning to announce by authoritarian dictate that the economy will be fully reopened in New York City by July 1, 2021. “We are ready for stores to open, for businesses to open, offices, theaters, full strength,” the mayor said, according to the City-provided transcript of his on-air remarks.

A fully-reopened economy will mean that the Government can stop providing assistance to compensate people for the racial disparities that were revealed in glaring detail by the Coronavirus pandemic, namely, how the profit-driven healthcare system tolerates racial disparities in healthcare outcomes for people. It means that the free healthcare (the free Coronavirus testing and the free Coronavirus vaccines) will come to an end. It means that the emergency food banks that have been providing people with nutrition due to the rise in joblessness will come to an end. It means that the extensions of unemployment assistance will come to an end. It means that the emergency shelter being provided to people without homes will come to an end. There’s only one goal Mayor de Blasio has : “We’re going to keep driving down COVID through vaccinations.”

On the way to delivering these free vaccinations, Mayor de Blasio has conveniently forgotten about the lip service he paid to racial disparities that were exposed during his two terms in office. In March, the mayor announced the formation of a racial justice commission that was supposed to replace the racial justice commission he had announced last year and which was never formed. Damn the racial justice commission reports, at this point, the mayor just wants to reopen the economy. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) was made jealous enough to call for a reopening sooner than July 1.

There’s no thought to end the systemic racism in our society. Even with the healthcare disparities made clear during the Coronavirus pandemic, that didn’t stop Gov. Cuomo from cutting Medicaid, and it hasn’t stopped him from trying to close still yet more hospitals in Brooklyn or Queens. In terms of business, corporate retail giants, like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, saw online sales skyrocket as local, small businesses were forced to close due to the pandemic. The politicians are focused on returning us to an economy with even more disturbing economic inequalities, including higher rates of poverty.

This is one test that reveals how wedded Mayor de Blasio is to systemic racism : His non-stop scheme for RAD/PACT and Blueprint conversions of NYCHA public housing.

Even though Mayor de Blasio was left unindicted following a wide-ranging, Federal corruption investigation into his campaign finance activities and even though Gov. Cuomo faces another round of corruption investigations coupled with an independent counsel investigation into sexual harassment allegations that are, collectively, the subject of an impeachment inquiry, they are the ones making decisions affecting our lives.

Already, a group of New York City parents and teachers filed a lawsuit last December to stop compulsory Coronavirus testing over Fourth Amendment privacy rights, including concerns that DNA samples may wind up in a database without patients’ consent, according to a report published by Gothamist. And Saturday, dozens of municipal employees protested Mayor de Blasio’s demand that 80,000 City workers return to office work this week, according to a report published by the New York Daily News. The mayor’s obsession with reopening the economy flies in the face of the relentless Coronavirus pandemic, which, world-wide, has reached a new peak of deaths and cases, according to a CBS News report broadcast on Sunday.

Of particular concern to New York City Housing Authority residents is Mayor de Blasio’s non-stop push to continue the privatisation of strategic public housing assets. Despite no basis in law, the Government has countenanced Mayor de Blasio’s failure to hold public meetings about his scheme for the the RAD/PACT conversion of public housing. For example, on April 23, the de Blasio administration announced the issuance of a Request For Proposal for the RAD/PACT conversion of the Fulton Houses, Elliott Houses, and Chelsea Houses — the last hold-outs of affordable housing in the gentrified Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea.

Despite resident and community opposition, Mayor de Blasio acts like he cannot be stopped from disposing public assets — even when confronted with a very public effort by U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY 07) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to fully-fund the backlog of capital repairs across the Nation’s entire public housing stock. U.S. Rep. Velázquez and Sen. Schumer are basically teaming up to promise to end the decades of racist divestment of public housing, but Mayor de Blasio is more concerned with making sure that the economic gears resume their grinding of people of colour and people living with low incomes.

The de Blasio administration suspects that human remains and cultural items belonging to Native American tribes may be buried underneath Williamsburg Houses, but that still didn’t stop him from moving forward with RAD/PACT, in violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Whether you are dead or alive, Mayor de Blasio believes that the privatisation of our heritage must go on.

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Fight For NYCHA’s protest march accuses LGBTQ electeds of pinkwashing racism and austerity

LGBTQ politicians came to power based on their experience of discrimination, but they have done nothing to end discrimination for all oppressed people.

Austerity leads to racism

There is a convergence in the betrayal of public housing with the Coronavirus pandemic. Hospital closings led to disparities in healthcare outcomes, as we have seen during the Coronavirus outbreak. The refrigerator trucks are a sign that austerity leads to racism. Now, NYCHA residents are being used as guinea pigs for testing and contact tracing in order for politicians to dangerously fast-track the reopening of the economy.

Fight For NYCHA targeting some politicians, who claim to experience oppression, but who have done nothing to end racism or austerity. We visited the apartment houses of : Christine Quinn, Corey Johnson, Deborah Glick, and Brad Hoylman — each of whom had a role in the closing and luxury condo conversion of the old St. Vincent’s Hospital. They thought nothing of taking away a safety net hospital from us, and they have done nothing to fight austerity or racism, as evidenced by how public housing has been neglected on their watch — and in their own district.

Contact Tracing poses risks to NYCHA tenants. Fight For NYCHA demands HRA Rent Vouchers for All.

The political and media fallout : “Willful ignorance,” silence, and distraction

Quinn, Johnson, and Glick chose to ignore our protest, with Quinn’s doorman videotaping our protest outside her million-dollar luxury condo. Quinn gets paid $500,000 a year as the ringleader of a poverty nonprofit that skims money off of homeless shelters. A kind of a new age, “transformational” Madame Thénardier.

For his part, Hoylman addressed Albany red tape on hospital closes but refused to address the pinkwashing by the LGBTQ White CIS power establishment of racism. But we made him nervous, and he took to Twitter that very same night and, for the first time in his career, tweeted the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

Pinkwashing means that the LGBTQ politicians in Chelsea and the West Village have exploited their experience of discrimination for political power without uplifting POC.

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Join us on May 30 for a March Against Racism and Austerity from Chelsea to Greenwich Village

Poverty is barbarity !

Our march route has been finalised !

We are visiting the apartment houses of politicians, who had a role in the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital, a situation that has wrecked the healthcare outcomes of low-income communities and POC. We are demanding that politicians stop #PinkWashing racism and austerity ! Join us as we protest :

  • Christine Quinn, former City Council Speaker ;
  • Corey Johnson, current City Council Speaker ;
  • Deborah Glick, Assemblymember ; and
  • Brad Hoylman, State Senator.

They enabled gentrification of New York City and never championed the full-funding of NYCHA. These politicians claim to know oppression. But what have they done to end racism and austerity ?

None of these politicians said one word to stand up against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s dangerous scheme to sell-out NYCHA to RAD landlords. It’s time that politicians, who claim that they are allies of POC, start acting as allies.

Please join us :

When : Sat., May 30, at 1 pm
Where : Meet at 9th Ave. and West 27th Street
RSVP : March Against Racism and Austerity [Facebook]

Stop ”pinkwashing” racism and austerity !

An LGBTQ activist is taking the lead in the planning of this protest march, so this is not an attack on identity, but, rather, criticism on how politicians have used the experience of oppression for personal political gain — only to countenance the oppression of others.

Watch our Facebook Live

Please start watching at about 5 minutes in, due to technical issues.