Tenants and housing rights groups are racing to get the New York State Senate to pass their rent-law reform agenda before the session ends June 22. They are intensifying pressure on senators who are standing in the way, and lobbying for a complete 10-bill package instead of concentrating on repealing the state’s vacancy decontrol laws. Growing increasingly impatient, tenants are ratcheting up their tactics — and it is paying off.
“You are asking for the right to occupy your apartments, a place where dreams are born and lived,” said State Senator Eric Adams (DBrooklyn). “You must reach the level of anger to say enough is enough. We are going to repeal vacancy decontrol.”
Tenant organizations are backing legislation that would give the city home rule over rent and eviction laws, protect tenants against mass evictions for “owners’ use,” and try to combat fraudulent rent increases. Their top priority, however, is repealing the law that lets landlords deregulate vacant apartments if there’s a vacancy and rent surpasses $2,000 a month. Once this happens, there are no limits on rent increases and tenants do not have the right to renew their leases automatically, so vacancy decontrol gives owners a strong incentive to harass rent-regulated tenants.
The top target for protests has been Pedro Espada Jr. (D-Bronx), the Senate housing committee chair.
Espada, hit hard by tenant protests and critical news reports, shocked the 250 tenants assembled for a May 12 lobby day by appearing at a press conference in support of repeal of vacancy decontrol. Though he did not specifically say he would support repeal of vacancy decontrol, his presence was a clear victory for the tenant movement.
“I want to assure every one of you to go home knowing that Pedro Espada Jr. is your housing champion,” Espada said.
“Espada came because of the pressure we’ve applied. It didn’t come from the heart; he’s in survival mode,” said Joseph Ferdinand, a Bronx tenant.
Also atop tenants’ list of targets are Senators Craig Johnson (D-Nassau County), Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) and Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/ Westchester), the Senate deputy majority leader. Activists are sending the senators letters and phone calls and canvassing in their districts.
Espada may be the least of the housing movement’s concerns. Crain’s New York Business reports that the bill to repeal vacancy decontrol may go to the finance committee headed by Kruger. According to the Village Voice reporter Tom Robbins, Kruger has a campaign war chest of $1.6 million, “much of it from city real-estate moguls who appreciate his support.” Kruger has not taken a position on repeal of vacancy decontrol.
“Essentially, Espada and Kruger are conspiring to bottle up the bill in the finance committee,” said Michael McKee, of Tenants Political Action Committee (TPAC).
Johnson, closely aligned with the centrist Klein, relied heavily on both union and New York City tenant support to win office, taking a Republican-held seat in a special election in 2007. At the time, Johnson needed tenant manpower to help his campaign. “If elected,” he promised in a letter sent to the TPAC, “I will be a visible and vocal advocate for repeal of vacancy decontrol and other pro-tenant measures in Albany.” But Johnson has failed to endorse repealing vacancy decontrol bill.
Bennett Baumer is an organizer on the West Side of Manhattan.
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A Tenant Advocate Revels in Espada's Problems
By Jimmy Vielkind
ALBANY—The pressure mounting on State Senator Pedro Espada Jr. coincides with a push by tenant advocates to have his chamber adopt various measures to strengthen tenants' rights. They're not exactly sympathetic to his situation.
"Obviously Pedro's in trouble, and he's in trouble in the long range," said Mike McKee, treasurer of the Tenants PAC. Espada Jr. managed to get the chairmanship of the housing committee as he and others stood in the way of Malcolm Smith's rise to the majority leader's office, but he has never been seen as a friend of tenants.
McKee said he was incredibly skeptical Tuesday when Espada showed up at a press conference in which 16 other senators called for an immediate passage of several measures that have already been approved by the Assembly. Two bills remain before the Housing Committee.
"People were very cynical and very suspicious of him when he came to our rally," McKee said. "I said, ‘Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. We'll see if this is a sincere gesture on his part.' He dispelled those doubts in a few hours with what he said to Crain's."
"Pedro is a major impediment, but in a way he's irrelevant," McKee continued. "Our real enemies are Carl Kruger and Jeff Klein. I think it's amazing that Pedro is so dumb that he would make a fiery speech making no commitments, and then tell a reporter that he's not going to have time to move the bills."
He also did not believe Espada would be able to bring his elections filings up to date by Monday; Smith has promised "immediate action" if he does not do so by Monday.
"All I can tell you is it's not going to be a problem for Senator Espada," his attorney Daniel Pagano just told me by phone. If he does, he's still facing investigations by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.
Let's say he doesn't make it, and Smith chooses to remove him from the committee's chair. I asked State Senator Bill Perkins what would happen.
"The world doesn't fall apart," he said.
Here's what McKee had to say:
"Ultimately, I hope he gets defeated for re-election, and somebody decent takes that seat. It's an absolute scandal that someone in his position is allowed to get away with what he's getting away with," he said. "This is a guy who does have a history of pulling the stake out of his heart and rising from the dead, and he probably thinks he can do it again. He probably thinks he can do it again."
Liz Benjamin, The Daily Politics (New York Daily News)
Smith 'Satisfied' With Espada
May 15, 2009
Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith has announced (at 7:05 p.m. on a Friday night) that Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. has "satisfied" his call for "immediate action" on the the longstanding campaign finance debt and accompanying fines that date back to the Bronx lawmaker's City Council days.
With two members under indictment and facing possible conviction on felony charges, which would leave the Senate deadlocked at 30-30 with no tie-breaker (no LG and no provision in the state Constitution to replace the one who ascended to replace the former governor), Smith can't afford to alienate any of his members.
Here's his statement:
“After speaking with Senator Pedro Espada earlier this week about concerns relating to his campaign finance records, I am now satisfied that Senator Espada has sufficiently complied with my request."
"Senator Espada filed a campaign committee, “New Yorkers for Espada,” made a $1,500 down payment to the State Board of Elections (BOE) toward satisfying previous judgments and has expressed to the State BOE his intent to reach an agreement for repayment and compliance within the next 30 days."
"Additionally, Senator Espada has reached an agreement with the New York City Campaign Finance Board to pay the $61,000 owed by August 31, 2009.”
The funny thing is, Espada has been working since at least March at settling his score with the CFB. So really, there have been no new developments here.
In addition to vacancy decontrol, one bill that the Real Rent Reform Campaign, NY Is Our Home, Housing Here & Now, Tenants & Neighbors, the PIE Campaign, WFP and more are trying to get through is S.3326 / A. 4359-A . That bill, proposed in the Senate by Andrea Stewart-Cousins and in the Assembly by Gary Pretlow will protect those in buildings leaving or THAT HAVE LEFT Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 projects. In short, it would put all buildings leaving Mitchell-Lama or Section 8 projects into rent stabilization
=> regardless of the year they were built (right now only pre-1974's are protected)
=> whether they were taken out of Mitchell-Lama earlier or are still in that or Section 8
=> without "unique or peculiar circumstances" increases that threaten the affordability of pre-1974 buildings now.
This bill would keep affordable tens of thousands of apartments in New York City, Westchester, and in Nassau and Suffolk - and is just second on the "let's get these passed" list of the combined tenant groups. (See http://newyorkisourhome.blogspot.com/ )
For these and other bills, go to www.save-ml.org and go to "proposed and new legislation."
I hope we have other projects in mind in addition to waiting for the NYS Senate to give us something. They have been a cynical bunch, in my opinion - making all kinds of promises when they were the
minority party but will they deliver, as the majority (deliver for tenants, that is)?
I went to OpenSecrets to find who donates to NYS legislators, but could only find info on Congressmembers Anyone know of a source? I'd like to read who (as in Real Estate) donates to and how much to which NYS Assembly and Senate members.
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