What's Happening in the 81st Assembly District?
- Mobile Testing Truck Coming to Woodlawn Playground Address COVID-19 Positivity Spike in 10470
- Note on Vaccination Process
- Rent Relief Program and Eviction/Foreclosure Prevention Reminders
- Marble Hill Houses Residents Need Hot Water
- Montefiore and United Healthcare Dispute Impacting Working People
- Albany Update: Session Begins and Appointment to Chair Codes Committee
- Additional Thoughts on Attempted Coup at U.S. Capitol
- Updates from Government & Community Partners
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Mobile Testing Truck Coming to Woodlawn Playground Address COVID-19 Positivity Spike in 10470 |
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I was deeply troubled to learn that our community has the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in all of New York City. The 10470 zip code, which includes Woodlawn and western Wakefield was reported earlier this week to have 18% of COVID tests coming back positive.
In response, I have successfully secured a mobile testing truck from NYC Health+Hospitals Test & Trace Corps to come to Woodlawn Playground in the coming week by working with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and Community Board 12. My understanding is that the truck should be there all week but we have not received a formal schedule at this time. Additionally, there is an existing testing site (which has a larger capacity than the truck does) at 4101 White Plains Road (also known as the Wakefield Town Hall).
Please utilize these testing resources - even if you are not symptomatic. Please also continue to wear masks, maintain physical distance, and avoid large gatherings - especially indoors.
It is hard to say what the cause of this spike in COVID-19 positivity is, but I believe it is likely due to a combination of reduced mask wearing, proximity to indoor dining across the county line in Yonkers, and the two-week holiday period of family gatherings. On the issue of indoor dining, I am deeply sympathetic to the desire to support local businesses, but you must remember that even though indoor dining is technically allowed in Westchester County - that doesn't mean it is safe. I urge everyone who wants to support local restaurants to instead get their food and beverages to go.
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Note on Vaccination Process |
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My office has received a number of inquiries regarding vaccination efforts for COVID-19. Although I am an ardent supporter of vaccinations and strongly urge everyone who is medically able to be vaccinated to do so as soon as they are eligible, I cannot intervene to get anyone special or priority access to vaccines. The order of who gets vaccinations first is determined by the New York State Department of Health.
New York City is tasked with administering the vaccine program in our community. They have created a Vaccine Command Center online at nyc.gov/covidvaccine. Overall, vaccines will be distributed in phases that are determined by New York State Department of Health (here). These phases are based on things like job, age, and risk profile.
Currently we are in Phase 1A of the vaccine rollout which includes high-risk health workers, home care and hospice workers, nursing home residents and staff, EMS workers, coroners and medical examiners, congregate care facilities, vaccine administrators, and others.
The next phase (1B) will include teachers and education workers, first responders, public safety workers, public transit workers, and people 75 and older.
When it is your turn to get vaccinated, the City will have vaccination sites available. The list of locations can be found here. I am aware that none of the current vaccine sites are in our community, and I am working with my colleagues to ensure that as the number of sites grows with the start of the next vaccination phase – some of those sites are located in the 81st Assembly District. Please also check with your employer about whether they have a vaccine distribution plan in the workplace before you go to a City location. For questions about the vaccination process in New York, please call the New York State COVID-19 hotline at 888-364-3065.
There is a substantial amount of misinformation being spread (especially on social media) and it is important that we are basing decisions on facts and science. If you are concerned about the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine, please speak with your physician or another legitimate medical professional. If you insist on doing your own research about things like side effects and trials, medical experts suggest starting with the FDA Emergency Use Authorization Fact Sheets for Recipients and Caregivers. Those can be found online here: Pfizer-BioNTech & Moderna.
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Rent Relief Program and Eviction/Foreclosure Prevention Reminders |
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As you may be aware, there are two significant initiatives that are underway in New York State to help keep people in their homes.
1) The Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act, which is a law that I am proud to have introduced and debated last week, pauses all eviction proceedings for sixty days from December 28, 2020 (so until February 26, 2021) and creates a hardship declaration form that will extend that pause until May 1, 2021 for everyone who has a hardship during this pandemic. Those hardships can include financial distress, health concerns, unemployment, inability to find alternate housing, and more. This law also provides similar relief against foreclosures and tax liens for homeowners and very small landlords (10 or fewer units).
The hardship declaration form must be provided by your landlord along with any eviction notice, and if the proceeding has already begun then the landlord must re-send the notice along with the new form. You can also download the form online from the New York Office of Court Administration. The form can be returned to your landlord or to the courts (or to a lender, in the case of foreclosures).
English and Spanish language forms have already been posted online (www.nycourts.gov/covid-eefpa), and additional languages should be added in coming days and weeks.
2) The COVID Rent Relief Program, which was launched over the summer but has been re-opened with modified eligibility criteria. This application period is open until February 1, 2021 and anyone who applied previously does NOT have to reapply again. If you were previously denied, HCR will reconsider your previous application using the new criteria. Please note that although the program has been expanded, it still covers the same months between March and July 2020.
If you need assistance with this program application or have questions, HCR has established a multilingual dedicated call center to assist. You can reach the COVID Rent Relief Program Call Center at 1-833-499-0318 or email at [email protected]. Call Center representatives are available Monday through Friday 8:30am – 5:00pm. My office is also able to help answer questions and we can be reached by email at [email protected] or telephone at 718-796-5345.
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Marble Hill Houses Residents Need Hot Water |
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My office has received numerous reports from tenants at Marble Hill Houses about a lack of hot water for several months. This is unacceptable and I am furious by the continued lack of compassion or competence from NYCHA leadership that has resulted in this inhumane living situation.
We are in the middle of a pandemic, at the beginning of winter, and tenants along certain apartment lines do not have hot water in their bathrooms. As a result of my office's needling, NYCHA did attempt to do repairs last weekend on what they describe as a problem with certain cross connections. However, I am continuing to hear that some tenants still do not have hot water in their bathrooms.
Nobody should be forced to boil water to take a bath or shower, or to wash their hands in cold water. If this were happening in a building that was not public housing, I am confident that the problem would have been resolved in a matter of hours or days - not months.
There is a clear societal need for public housing, but it is clear that the current management structure is grossly inadequate to meet the needs of tenants. At a minimum, I am calling for NYCHA to hire additional maintenance workers at Marble Hill so that each of the eleven buildings has a dedicated maintenance worker who can familiarize themselves with the residents and their apartments and who can marshal additional resources when necessary.
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Montefiore and United Healthcare Dispute Impacting Working People |
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You may have seen some notices from either Montefiore Health Systems or United Healthcare about a dispute that they are having over health insurance reimbursement rates for patient care. Currently, these two massive multi-billion dollar corporations have stopped negotiating - meaning that United Healthcare members are unable to access medical services at Montefiore locations as of January 1.
Although this type of dispute happens often and is usually resolved at a certain point, I am deeply angry that yet again - working people are suffering because billion-dollar corporations can't agree on how much money each of them should make off of patient care. I believe both Montefiore and United Healthcare should grow up and do the responsible thing, which is to come to a reasonable agreement on reimbursement rates that accurately reflects the cost of care.
Broadly, this dispute exemplifies why we need to enact the New York Health Act. This bill proposes to functionally eliminate medical care networks that restrict who can be treated depending on what insurance they have. Our goal needs to be universal access to affordable and high quality medical care - not padding the profits of corporate executives and their investors.
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Albany Update: Session Begins and Appointment to Chair Codes Committee |
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It may have gotten lost in the shuffle of January 6, but the 2021-22 Legislative Session has officially begun. I am proud and honored to have been named as the new Chair of the Assembly Committee on Codes, which is a key committee dealing with issues involving the civil and criminal justice system.
My predecessor, Joe Lentol, has done incredible work in this committee during his tenure and I have big shoes to fill as his successor. I am grateful to have the confidence of Speaker Carl Heastie to get this job done and I am excited to work with my colleagues, advocates, and residents of New York to ensure that we have a fair and equitable justice system for all New Yorkers.
There are a lot of critical issues that we must confront in the coming year. The largest challenge is likely to be the state budget, as we confront one of the largest fiscal crises that our state has ever experienced. I support raising taxes on the superwealthy and will be a strong voice in the Assembly to get these revenue raisers done. I also think we need to include the taxation and regulation of cannabis, both for the fiscal boon as well as the social justice component.
Over the next several weeks, I will share more in-depth looks at certain policy issues that I am focused on. Broadly, I will be pushing hard to enact universal healthcare in our state. I will also push for additional housing aid for tenants and homeowners in desperate need of financial relief. We need to continue pushing forward on climate change mitigation efforts, especially the transition of our transportation system to zero-emission vehicles. We need to enact solitary confinement reform, safe-staffing ratios for medical care facilities, and much more. Please continue sharing your thoughts on policies that you support or believe should be changed. I do my best to read and respond to all emails I get and I am deeply appreciative of the wonderful advocacy that so many of you bring to our community.
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Additional Thoughts on Attempted Coup at U.S. Capitol |
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Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our nation's history. Yesterday I was angry and sad. Today I am angrier and sadder. I do not want to rehash what I said in my statement before (available here) but I do want to address some of the points that have been raised in response to this. I received many emails, overwhelmingly supportive but a handful of our neighbors disagreed.
Let me start by saying that I have absolutely zero tolerance for anybody who tries to excuse the treasonous behavior that was on display yesterday at the United States Capitol. However you identify politically, it is essential that we maintain an orderly and peaceful transition of power between Presidents. This country has a great tradition, starting with the transition from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, to have a peaceful transfer of power. That is what makes America different than most of the world and that is one of the things that makes America great. Storming the Capitol, trying to destroy one of the most hallowed buildings in the nation, attempting to intimidate our representatives in government to prevent them from completing their sacred duty to uphold the values of our Constitution - none of this is excusable.
One of the most common points raised in responses that disagreed with my statement was criticism that I did not respond to damage caused by Black Lives Matter protesters (or Antifa, depending on who is emailing me) over the summer. What does that have to do with this, attacking the seat of the world's greatest democracy? I can only speculate as to why anyone would try to use last year's protests as the defense for yesterday's terrorism, and it proves now more than ever the need to address racial divisions.
Let me be clear: the protests over systemic racism this past summer are not equatable with the armed insurrection that was attempted yesterday - no matter how much the conservative news media wants to spin the truth. The Black Lives Matter protests (which I supported) were overwhelmingly peaceful, with the exception of a very small number of people who incited violence and destruction who I believe were largely not affiliated with the protests themselves. I did not condone that violence or looting at the time, whether on Fordham Road or anywhere in the country, and I did speak out against it.
To cite these relatively isolated incidents as a defense to the attempted coup that was executed yesterday by Trump supporters is disgusting and wrong. To violently invade the Capitol with the explicit intention of preventing the certification of our Presidential election - which is the hallmark of our democracy - is anti-American. Thousands of rightwing extremists invaded the Capitol building, ginned up by Donald Trump and his band of bigots, carrying confederate flags and Trump banners and other hateful symbols, treating the seat of our democracy like toddlers treat a bowl of cereal they don't want to eat.
These gangs of thugs need to accept that their preferred candidate lost by over 7 million votes and the same Electoral College margin as Hillary Clinton lost by in 2016. These rightwing terrorists need to accept that judge after judge (many appointed by Trump himself) rejected the very same claims that drove this attempted insurrection. These insurrectionists need to stop trying to rewrite history by claiming the violence yesterday was caused by people from Antifa.
This does not need to be a divisive issue. I respect everybody's right to express their opinions on matters of policy, but yesterday's coup attempt is beyond the pale. Everyone who believes in our Great Experiment of representative democracy must recognize those actions for what they are - treason, sedition, and a global embarrassment.
As I write, more and more members of Congress are calling for what I called for yesterday – the removal of Donald Trump from office. More and more officials in the administration are resigning. Maybe some of them grew a conscience. Or maybe they are just rats, deserting a sinking ship.
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Updates from Government & Community Partners |
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MTA Access-A-Ride Program – Fare Collection to Resume on January 19
- Fare is $2.75 per trip and is collected in exact change (no roundtrip payments)
- Can also pay using Access-A-Ride TransitCheck Coupons (no MetroCards)
- Personal Care Attendants can ride along free of charge
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MTA will be notifying paratransit customers directly as well and questions can be directed to new.mta.info/accessibility/paratransit
Riverdale Art Association – New Online Show "Moving Forward"
- "It anticipates better times ahead and reflects the varied moods of the artists. Whether they're seeing light at the end of a dark year or feeling like dancing or looking forward to traveling again, the RAA artists have captured the spirit of hope and optimism through works that include acrylic, watercolor, collage, photography, fractal art, colored pencil, and pen & ink."
- The show is available online now and is curated by Diana Catz and produced by Myra Joyce.
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Enter the gallery at https://youtu.be/ie_cAfoK9T0 or riverdaleartassociation.org.
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Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz
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