Press Room

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams issued the following statement in response to Mayor Bill de Blasio's comments dismissing the Charter-mandated role under Ch. 58 Section 1518 of the Public Advocate to sign the property tax warrants allowing the execution of the city budget after its adoption. The Public Advocate has formally notified the Mayor and Speaker of the City Council today that he does not intend to sign the warrants under current budgetary conditions.

"I respect the Mayor's opinion, but he's been wrong before - whether in misinterpreting 50-a to prevent police accountability for the last six years, misinforming the public about instances of police misconduct over the last six weeks, or misallocating hundreds of millions of dollars in the last sixteen hours. If the Mayor would rather have a legal battle with my office than a meaningful fight to redefine public safety at moment when the city needs a real plan, it's just another instance of misplaced priorities for an administration that says we can't afford additional doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, counselors, but can only afford to hire more police."

General Counsel to the Public Advocate Elizabeth Guzman added, "Pursuant to section 1518 of the New York City Charter, property tax warrants need to be 'signed only by the public advocate and counter-signed by the city clerk.' Without his signature, the city's Department of Finance cannot collect billions in property taxes during the city's 2021 fiscal year. The Public Advocate has made clear the most egregious and potentially reconcilable issues within this budget and asks the Mayor to come to the table to meet this moment of need before the next collection cycle is set to begin."

# # #

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after the New York City Council voted to adopt the FY2021 budget. He announced that he plans to prevent the execution of the budget during the final tax warrant process, under the New York City Charter  Ch. 58, Section 1518 after the budget did not include an NYPD hiring freeze or a commitment to true school safety reform.

"In a moment when New Yorkers, with the entire nation, are demanding a reimagining of public safety, a reckoning with systemic injustices and inequities, the city falls far short with a budget that misses the moment of need.

"It sends a message to New Yorkers that in a time of economic and public health devastation, the city cannot adequately fund senior services, city hospitals. or youth jobs, cannot afford to hire doctors, nurses, teachers, guidance counselors, social workers - but unquestionably needs to add over 1,000 police officers. It perpetuates the idea that the NYPD is sacrosanct and the solution is always more police, and that we must accept this. This budget reiterates that message in a failure to commit on paper to a just transition for school safety. It is one that I cannot support and will not sign off on.  "These are not my only objections in this budget, but they are the most glaring, the clearest actions that this administration could have corrected, and emblematic of such an unwillingness to commit to real transformational change that I am compelled to act in my charter mandated capacity as Public Advocate.  "This action cannot be taken lightly. But it seems that when New Yorkers raised their voices for change, when my office called for specific, tangible actions, this administration either did not listen, did not care, or did not take us seriously. Nor, it seems, did they read the charter."

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement in response to Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing the immediate end of punitive segregation for people with underlying medical conditions, his support for ending solitary confinement entirely in New York City, and the creation of a working group to determine the path forward. This decision came after the announcement that 17 officers will face disciplinary action related to the death of Layleen Polanco in solitary confinement.

"I was glad to see that the officers involved in Layleen Polanco's death are facing some level of consequence, and I hope that her family will see some semblance of justice. No amount of charges or suspensions can take away the pain and reality of her death, and we need to dismantle the systems that tacitly or overtly permitted it. 

"As I have said many times before, we need to end solitary confinement in the city and ultimately the state of New York, for Layleen Polanco and Nicholas Feliciano, for Kalief Browder, and for so many others who have been subject to this torture. Solitary confinement causes deep and permanent psychological, physical, and social harm, and the Mayor's working group, which has been convened too late but is welcome now, must move quickly to develop a plan that the administration can immediately enact. I thank all of the advocates who have gotten us to this point, and I would point the Mayor to the blueprint they have already developed to move us forward. We cannot wait any longer to end what is for all an abuse and for some a death sentence."

The Public Advocate has called for a complete end to solitary confinement since 2019, and reiterated that call in an op-ed last week.

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams advanced measures included in his COVID-19 Response and Recovery Agenda with the City Council today, as the Council passed one critical piece of legislation and the Public Advocate introduced three additional bills aimed at addressed the public health and economic impacts of the pandemic in both the immediate and long term. Each of these measures were proposed in the Public Advocate's Response and Recovery Plan released in early April.

At its Stated Meeting on Thursday afternoon, the New York City Council unanimously passed legislation from the Public Advocate to defer the property tax liabilities on certain residential property owners impacted by COVID-19. The bill, Intro 1974-A, would require the city's Department of Finance to offer agreements to defer real property tax liability otherwise due and payable as of July 1, 2020, until October 1, 2020. It will provide a significant tax relief for property owners, and will apply to 99% of Class 1 homes, including 87% of Condos.

It also provides that if property owners are unable to make their payment by October, they can apply for the City's Property Tax Aid Program, which provides an installment agreement.

"The compounding crises of public health and economic disaster place an extraordinary burden on New Yorkers, and as this pandemic impacts nearly all areas of life, our response must be as comprehensive, providing a response to and recovery from both the direct impacts of COVID-19 and the systemic inequities it exposed and exacerbated," said Public Advocate Williams. "In providing urgent property tax relief today, and in moving quickly to support small business owners with loans, we can begin to help alleviate the financial devastation the pandemic has brought to many New Yorkers. While timely, immediate response is needed as we move through recovery, it's critical to explore all options to lessen the burden on New Yorkers who were already struggling before this virus, while addressing the revenue deficit with a balanced approach that will have a lasting impact on our city. I thank the Speaker for seeing the need to urgently pass this bill and my colleagues for supporting it today."

The Public Advocate added, "Through the racial disparity recovery task force, we can address underlying failures that have made this crisis worse in communities of color. Through the state of emergency task force, we can ensure the same fatal errors are not made again."

The Public Advocate also introduced new legislation today to provide interest-free loans to small businesses, non-profits, and freelance workers impacted by the pandemic or other emergencies. Specifically, Intro 1990 would require the Department of Small Business Services to create an interest-free loan program for small businesses, non-profit organizations and freelance workers forced to close or operate at reduced capacity due to the impacts of a natural disaster, state of emergency or other emergency circumstances. Qualifying small businesses would be able to use these loans for operating expenses such as rent, payroll, insurance, equipment, and inventory costs.

In order to further guide the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Public Advocate also proposed legislation creating independent task forces to oversee and take action to alleviate this crisis and prevent future ones. Intro 1988 would establish a task force stemming from the racial disparities in COVID-19 impact, which study racial disparities in exposure to infectious disease and related testing, treatment and outcomes citywide, and to make recommendations for legislation and policy to mitigate and eliminate such disparities. This group would rapidly implement an action plan in real time to mitigate racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, testing, access to resources, and fatalities.

The State of Emergency response and recovery task force, created under Intro 1987, is designed not only to oversee elements of the recovery from COVID-19, but to prevent the failures seen in responding to this crisis from happening in the future. It would be responsible for reviewing each City agency's emergency plan, holding a public hearing, and issuing an annual report with recommendations should any concerns be identified.

The Office of the Public Advocate's Preliminary Response and Recovery Report, first issued on April 1, 2020, is a highlights how the city could have acted more swiftly in responding to the pandemic while outlining ways to move forward to better protect lives and mitigate the impact of future crises across a wide range of issue areas. It has since been expanded to address additional systemic inequities, and can be read in its entirety here.

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams introduced legislation in the New York City Council today that would expand and expedite transparency of NYPD body-worn camera footage, creating a process for the handling and public accessibility of that footage. These transparency measures would go beyond what is currently required and provide new access to not only footage in high profile or contested incidents, but all recorded NYPD activity.

The bill, Intro. 1989, would require the New York Police Department to share all body-worn camera footage to both the Department of Investigation's Inspector General for the NYPD and the Department of Records and Information Services, within 5 days of its recording. It comes amid a national movement around police accountability and reform.

"Until now, the NYPD has had near-total autonomy over what body camera footage the public had access to, and when they could have it," said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. "That prevents true transparency over and accountability for police activity. While the administration's recent reforms are a positive steps, they do not go far enough. Providing this level of access to footage is critical to creating a level of trust in this process and creating greater oversight."

While all NYPD officers are currently equipped with body-worn cameras, there has long been controversy surrounding the release of captured footage and the selective employing of body camera footage by the NYPD,  with advocates arguing that such disclosures occur primarily when they depict officer conduct favorably and that such footage is concealed when there may be more negative implications.

Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYPD would be required to release footage of incidents in which officers shoot, kill, or seriously injure someone within 30 days. The Public Advocate's bill both expedites the timeline and removes the qualifier of event to mandate the sharing of all footage.

As protests have continued around the city and nation surrounding policing abuses and reforms, new measures have been proposed and enacted, with the Public Advocate joining calls to go further in creating transformational change.

The Public Advocate has previously introduced legislation that would require reporting on body camera footage, which was discussed in a hearing of the Committee on Public Safety in the fall of 2019 and has yet to be brought to a vote. Last week, Public Advocate Williams' Right to Record Act, which codified the ability of civilians to record police activity, became law after originally being introduced in 2016. He has also recently proposed a number of additional reform measures.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement in response to the New York City Board of Corrections report on the death of Layleen Polanco at Rikers Island. The report can be found here.

"This report outlines necessary changes to move forward in how things are done, but it does not provide justice for what has already been done. Layleen Polanco deserved justice. She deserved respect. She deserved to live. All of that was taken from her. The Board's report shows negligence, abuse and blatant disregard for policy, but we need true accountability.

"I am glad that the Board of Correction recognizes that the system that killed Layleen Polanco, a system that could allow her to lose her life, alone, is one that needs to be transformed. I believe it needs to be upended. The Department of Corrections and Correctional Health Services should adopt these common sense recommendations, but that alone is not enough. It is past time that we abolish solitary confinement in New York City once and for all."