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Keys City
BY ANTHONY D. WEINER
Printed In-house

Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class

TO THE

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Keys City
CONTENTS
TO THE

Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Healthcare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Reform and Transparency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Crime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Transportation & Infrastructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Environment.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Technology & Innovation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Tax Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Housing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Hunger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class

INTRODUCTION
Even if you havent read The Powerbroker, Robert Caros now-classic tome on Robert Moses rise to the pinnacle of municipal power, you likely have some sense of the way politics used to work in the five boroughs. In the years that followed the Tammany Hall era, the hackish rhythms of New Yorks old political game spurred politicians to piece together coalitions out of mutual convenience, breeding a sort of us against them mentality that ignored the interests of the city as a whole. Its no secret that that way of governing turned out to be a disaster. The citys finances fell apart, crime rose, neighborhoods decayed, and many wondered through the 1970s whether the worlds most dynamic city was destined to rot. I remember just how bad things had gotten because I grew up during some of the citys leanest years. A middleclass kid from Brooklyn, I was a student at PS 39 when city officials were forced to go down to Washington, hat in hand. My parents and neighbors were worried and angry when it seemed like our fate was being determined by Washington Republicans who didnt care about us. We are all familiar with that iconic Daily News headline, Ford to City: Drop Dead. For many, it was a call to action. We must never let the city fall into that sorry state of affairs again. New Yorks place as the capital of the middle class and those trying to get there is a treasure worth fighting for; and in that spirit, Ive spent my career making that fight my mission. Weve come a long way since those dark days. After a long, hard struggle, the city bounced back. New Yorks Finest, taking advantage of a renewed sense of community in many neighborhoods, managed to ensure that the Big Apple became the nations safest large city. Teachers like my mother, who worked in the New York City public schools for 31 years, gave kids a better-than-decent education. And as the economy evolved, the creative class began to flock back to the five boroughs, driving both new opportunities as well as bringing a host of new challenges. The first of these challenges is that the tripod that once supported middle class life in New York has come under threat. Its not that New Yorkers are fleeing for the suburbs because their neighborhoods arent safe; they are instead being priced out because housing is too expensive. Its not that the job market is drying up; its that the good, middleclass positions with benefits that were once the backbone 3 of the citys economy are being replaced with jobs that can barely keep a family above the poverty line. And what about the schools? Well, they continue to need improvement, especially as the parochial schools that provided so many middle-class families with an escape hatch from the failing Board of Education have struggled to stay open. Anyone who read my first book of ideas, Keys to the City: 64 Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class, or who has come to meet me on the campaign trail, knows that restoring the foundations of middle class life will be my focus as mayor. The second challenge, however, is less about what we do and more about how we govern ourselves. Whats become clear more recently, even though the pundits and analysts havent registered it, is that New Yorkers have moved past that old way of thinking about the city. Theyre not interested in the us against them mentality that pitted one group against another. The pundit class age-old wisdom that we vote with our tribe has yielded to a larger unifying sense of our challenges; most of us accept that were all in this together. And so most New Yorkers arent thinking about which candidate looks like them or comes from a particular corner of the city as much as they are asking themselves: who has the best ideas for how to restore New Yorks place as the capital of the middle class? Open a local paper today or catch a clip on the evening news, and youre likely to hear a self-styled expert divvy the city up into different demographic pockets. Candidate A is doing well with African-Americans and candidate B has a lot of female support. This guy needs to do better among voters in the outer-boroughs and that woman needs to court newly-arrived immigrants. Its a tempting way to understand whats happening in the electorate, but only because thats the kind of information that tracking polls reveal. And so as analysts think and talk about whats going to happen in any upcoming election, they generally begin with the premise, Well, so-and-sos chances really depend on whether his (or her) campaign can get enough support in [fill in the blank]. But thats an outdated and frankly distorted way of understanding how New York works today. In some ways, the five boroughs are more divided than evera factor of decaying foundations for middle class life in the Big Apple. But in other ways, the fights that once defined the citys poli-

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class comes with a corollary: when things arent being done right, were rarely bashful about saying so. Its in New Yorks DNA to speak truth to power. And by that standard, Im about as New York as you can get. That mentality has defined how I think about government and how Ive discharged the duties of my offices. Ive never believed in waiting on something because when someone says, No, sorry, we cant do that, Im not willing to go on my merry way. Some complain Im impatient; and theyre right. But thats not an accident and Im not sorry for pushing the envelope. Citizens dont want to hear that the pothole on their street isnt in this years fiscal plan any more than they want to hear about the big plans to make New York safe from storms after one has hit. Wanting to get things doneand quicklyis a virtue in New York, and is therefore a virtue of mine. More than that, New Yorkers dont really have time for those prone to missing the point, a failure that has become a staple of todays political debate. Lets look at the crisis facing the citys schools. The crux of the public debate today seems to hinge on the role of charter schools, namely the public schools established outside the purview of the old Board of Education. But much as that conversation dominates the headlines, its largely besides the point. As most of the citys parents know, charters are bit players on a huge stage. Of the 1.1 million students in New York City, only 56,000 attend charter schools. So while editorial pages talk about the benefits of new charters, advocates are raising money off the debate and union officials are using the prospect of more chartering to gin up their rank-and-file. But thats just the tip of the iceberg. Its time that we had leaders willing to take responsibility for getting things done. Beyond being exasperated when City Hall misses the point, New Yorkers cant stand those who just want to pass the buck. Blaming Washington or Albany or unelected boards and authorities for things that are happening here in the five boroughs isnt what we want to hear. Dont get me wrong: its not that New York can operate in a vacuum, or that were capable of solving all of our problems on our own. However, we cant allow ourselves to become dependent on bureaucracies with priorities that distract them from tackling challenges uniquely facing New York. We need to demand control over our own destiny; and when our partners wont initially concede, we need to keep pushing. Simply put, we should work together when we can, but we must be prepared to fight when its necessary.

ticsthis neighborhood vs. that one, one ethnic group vs. another, this union vs. that companyhave been overshadowed by the sense that we all want a government that works well, no matter where were coming from. New Yorks challenges arent driven by cleavages inside the city as much as theyre defined by our need to out-hustle cities throughout the country andnow more than everaround the globe. And so, tempting as it is to try to figure out which candidate can piece together a winning coalition with what combination of voters, the truth is that elections in New York today arent about demographicstheyre about ideas. Its ideas for making the city work better for everyone that average, middle class New Yorkers are focused on. Theyre not blindly choosing which candidate to support based on their demographic profiles. Ive never met a voter who said to me, Well, Im an outer-borough resident from a church-going household, so I support Nor has anyone ever told me that the color of their skin was going to pigeonhole their vote. All of us use the subway and we all want the same thing: better, safer, more reliable service at reasonable fares. Every family depends on the schools, and we all want teachers that help students reach their fullest potential. We all depend on the NYPD, the FDNY, and the Department of Sanitation, and we all want the city to be kept safe and clean. This new focus on ideas has been accelerated dramatically by technological democratization. We are all now blessed with access to much more information than weve had before. The free movement of information has sped up the idea ethos that now dominates New Yorks politics. No matter your race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, or any other identifying marker, what people want is a mayor prepared with ideas to fight for them. And for that reason, below is a second installment of ideas I will pursue as mayor to ensure that New York remains the global capital of the middle class and those struggling to make it there. Theres another reason that ideas have replaced pedigree and parochialism as the key feature of Big Apple politics. Every time I talk to a New Yorker at an event, along a parade route, or even when Im on the subway with Huma and Jordan, Im struck by the quality of the ideas people have to make the city better: There oughta be a law to fix, The craziest thing Ive seen is the way the city, Ill tell you one thing, if you were able to change the way we That unending hunger for improvement explains New Yorks charm. And it

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class I want to bring that same mentality to City Hall. Ive devoted my life to the five boroughs not just because of its dynamism or resilience or because theyve got a sort of edge and diversity that cant be found anywhere else in the world. Ive spent my career fighting for New York because I believe its the best place in the world for parents in the middle class to build the sort of foundation that will allow their kids to reach a little bit higher. New York needs a true New Yorker at the helm, and I have the ideas and drive to be a fighter for the middle class. In that spirit, what follows are another set of ideas that I think will benefit New Yorks middle class. Im eager for you to read them and tell me what you think. Odds are you wont like all of them, and that youll have others you think I should consider. Thats fine; I look forward to talking them over. But I hope at a minimum well be able to agree that City Hall should be doing everything it can to ensure that the Big Apple remains a shining beacon for the middle class and those struggling to make it. And from here, let the debate of ideas continue! Anthony Weiner August 2013

Thats the approach I took when I served in Congress. Take, for example, the issue of DNA evidence backlogs. For years, victims of rape would submit crime-scene samples to their local police department in the hopes that their attacker could be matched to the DNA profile of a known criminal. But in too many cases, the samples sat in boxes without being tested. When a huge warehouse of untested samples was uncovered in Queens, I helped lead the effort in partnership with the GOP Congress at the time to allocate the first-ever federal funds to eliminate the DNA backlog, one of my proudest accomplishments in Congress. That set the tone for my career in Washington; whenever and wherever I could, I fought to return power to New York and to ensure that the federal government was responsive to the middle class demands. That same spirit defined my efforts to ban the sale of black-market cigarettes, to cobble together a public-private partnership to build a $15 million recreation facility that reinvigorated Gateway National Park, to build up the COPS program that helped the NYPD hire thousands of additional cops, and to fight for all 9/11 first responders.

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class

HEALTHCARE
For too long, we have chosen a passive approach when it comes to the provision of healthcare in New York City. In the past decade, 16 hospital campuses have closed with another 4 in jeopardy of closing this year. That means we are at immediate risk of losing almost 1,000 inpatient beds and placing a massive strain on both public and private hospital systems, which are now going to experience huge growth in the amount emergency and ambulatory care they will have to provide. With patient-to-bed ratios in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island already among the lowest in the state and 1.2 million city residents uninsured, we need to address our healthcare challenges boldly and comprehensively. Under my administration, New York City would be the first big city in the United States to create a single-payer laboratory. Ive proposed a special task force, THRIVE, or the Task Force of Healthcare Reform, Innovation, and Vitality for Everyone, to do this. THRIVE would be an interagency body tasked with bringing all city agencies, non-profits, and entities who provide or pay for healthcare to determine how New York City could best introduce and implement a single-payer plan. There are, however, some very specific challenges that must be dealt with. New York City currently lags behind many parts of the world and even the private sector in our own country in providing maternity and paternity leave and the asthma crisis amongst our citys children is worsening. We also need to ensure that those of our residents that face particular challenges, such as LGBTQ residents or those living in public housing, are given the tools they need to lead safe, happy, and productive lives. of Health, however, requires trans* people to undergo surgery before it is willing to reissue documents, particularly birth certificates. This policy serves no purpose. Not every trans* person requires or undergoes surgery and determining gender identity should remain in the hands of the individual, not a city agency. The Department of Health must bring its policies into the 21st century and allow people to be recognized for who they are to prevent discrimination and harassment.

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Provide Paid Maternity Leave for City Employees. Permitting parents to be at home with newborns for as long as possible provides pivotal bonding time, the importance of which is backed up by science. Studies show that spending large amounts of focused, dedicated time with newborns and talking to them in those early years is crucial to long-term development. Currently, the city allows new moms to take up to twelve weeks off, but forces them to do so using disabillity compensation. To ensure that our citys newborns get the care they need in those crucial first months, we should offer three months of fully-paid maternity and six weeks of paternity leave to new parents.

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Create a Detailed Asthma Map. The fact is that rates of asthma are much higher for some communities than others. To give health professionals, community leaders, and regular citizens the tools to address the challenge means sharing information more widely. The Department of Health should publish a map showing instances of asthma and their general locations. Combat Mold in Public Housing. NYCHAs toxic mold has been causing a variety of health issues, including digestive problems, loss of memory, and most significantly, an asthma crisis among children. In fact, children in the citys public housing complexes are three times as likely as those outside of them to develop asthma. We need to combat this health care crisis by creating an educational campaign for NYCHA residents about the dangers of indoor mold, and develop guidelines for both preventing indoor mold growth as well removing mold when it does grow. Toxic mold elimination requests should jump to the front of NYCHAs repair request lines, as mold is hard to remove and becomes more dangerous the longer it remains.

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Modernize the Department of Healths Gender Policies. One of the most basic obstacles faced by those who identify as trans* is that their identification documents birth certificates and drivers licenses, for exampleoften reflect a gender with which they do not identify. Most city agencies are understanding of this and make correcting documents they issue relatively easy. The Department

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class

REFORM & TRANSPARENCY

Technology has allowed information to be shared more democratically and encouraged a flatter governing structure. City leaders should embrace this evolution by rethinking old challenges and preconceptions about our government.

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Make Absentee Voting Hassle-free. The ability to vote absentee should be hassle-free in New York City. Currently, New Yorkers must provide a reason for voting early or absentee, a process that can be a barrier to the ballot box. After Superstorm Sandy, both New York and New Jersey accommodated displaced voters by allowing noexcuse absentee ballots. No claims of voter fraud emerged. No nonsense, no excuse necessary absentee voting should be the law from now on.

Merge Separate City Employee Pension Systems. The city unnecessarily juggles five different pension systems: the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS), the New York City Teachers Retirement System (TRS), the Board of Education Retirement System (BERS), the Police Pension Fund, and the Fire Pension Fund. Lets reduce the number to threethe same number that the state maintains. The police and fire funds have a lot in common and could be merged without too much difficulty. By reducing administrative overhead, we could save the city $87 million over the next three years, even when factoring in up-front costs associated with any mergers.

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Modernize Voter Registration. In one of the most high-tech cities in the world, requiring paper voter registration is as old-school as checking out a library book by stamping the card in the books back pocket. The Board of Elections needs to upgrade to an online registration system New Yorkers can easily access, instead of forcing them to travel to the post office or the DMV. We should also permit people to register on Election Day, so that we are not denying citizens their right to vote.

Create a Multipurpose Big Apple Card. Undocumented New Yorkers need a way to identify themselves. But an ID card for them alone would create an unworkable stigma. If we combine the card with other services that many people need, such as food stamp benefits or ATM services, then we would have a widely-used and badlyneeded multipurpose Big Apple Card. The card could also be used as a cultural institution discount card, allowing all New York City residents lower-cost access to museums, cultural events, and other attractions.

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CRIME
Though New York City has continued to experience a significant decline in violent crime over the past two decades, many of our successes have come at great costs. For too many of our residentsespecially men of colorfighting crime has become less about making our neighborhoods safer and more about targeting them through the excessive misuse of Stop, Question, and Frisk. Our communities will not be safe and justice will not be served until this policy undergoes a major overhaul. We must reform a system in which over 90% of stops yield no criminal activity. We also must remain vigilant and aggressive in combating terrorist threats from at home and abroad, as tragedies like the Boston Marathon bombings make all too clear. Protecting our air space and our subway system must be a top priority. Public safety should never be set aside for the sake of convenience.

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Put More Cops on Bikes and on Foot. Officers need to be in patrol cars to respond to emergency calls, but having more on bikes and on foot can go a very long way in easing tensions between cops and communities. When residents know who their local beat cops are, theyre more likely to come forward with information when asked, and beat cops are much more effective when physically walking or biking around a community, gaining firsthand knowledge that cant be collected from behind the wheel.

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Add 250s to Public CompStat Reports. Every time an officer stops a citizen to question them, they have to document why theyve done so on a form called a 250. Just as other data are helpful in fighting crime, a full accounting of where stops are happening and what they yield is essential to our efforts in improving community/police relations. We use CompStat to drive down crime. Now we should use it to drive up trust and respect.

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End Arrests for Small Amounts of Marijuana. These arrests serve no purpose; they worsen NYPD/community relations, create criminal records that ruin lives, and waste the time and energy of officers who should be fighting serious crime. Require Beat Cops to Wear Cameras. The more documentation we have of the relationship between officers and the citizens they protect, the better. Video would ensure citizens have recourse when they are mistreated, provide an invaluable training tool, and protect cops from false accusations. A pilot program should be instituted to see if we can get results like those achieved in Rialto, California, where wearable cameras reduced the number of complaints against police officers by 88% and the use of force by officers dropped by 60%.

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Introduce Focused Deterrence in Crime Hot Spots. In the 1990s, less than 1% of Bostons youth were committing over 60% of youth homicide. With the implementation of Focused Deterrence, cops there saw a 63% reduction in youth homicides. As a two-part crime prevention/rehab strategy, the method calls for police to aggressively learn about and pursue the small number of criminals that commit the bulk of crimes. Focused Deterrence has become state-of-the-art in crime hot spots around the country in reducing violent crime and drug use.

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class expanding education and job training programs equally throughout the five boroughs, we should aim to halve the rate of recidivism to under 20%. This effort would stabilize and secure our communities and give offenders opportunities to more easily adapt to the social and economic fabric of our city. This approach would also focus resources on the neighborhoods to which we know former offenders are returning.

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End Tourist and Commuter Helicopters over New York City. Over the last three decades, there have been 28 helicopter crashes over the city. It is time to prohibit helicopter flights over the five boroughs except for first responders and news choppers. While helicopter travel is relatively safe, its very noisy and our crowded and narrow airspace increases the risks of tragic incidents. Moreover, we must remain vigilant in protecting the city from new terrorist threats.

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Put Cameras in Every Subway Station. After bombings on trains in Moscow, Madrid, and London, and with thwarted attacks here in New York, we need to remain vigilant. Less than a quarter of our subway stations have cameras, which leaves too many stations vulnerable to attack. We cannot be casual about our safety and should install cameras in every station. Install Bombproof Cans on Subway Platforms. An odd blind spot in our efforts to keep our subways safe from terrorism is a spot that isnt visible to cops and straphangersthe inside of platform trash cans. No matter how many cops patrol the subway, it is too easy for an explosive device to be placed in a garbage can. Many other transit systems, including the Port Authority, use bombproof receptacles. The city began a pilot program to test bombproof cans that can alert the public and lock down immediately in case of a threat. The MTA should install these cans throughout the subway system.

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Hire Ex-Cops for Parade and Festival Barrier Detail. With fewer cops on the beat than we had on 9/11, using New Yorks Finest to put up barriers along parade routes and at street fairs isnt an effective use of our officers time. This is nonetheless an important job that requires trained professionals who know what they are doing. Lets turn this job over to ex-officers. Transferring the responsibility of the barrier detail gives work to former cops, saves the city money, and keeps active cops focused on more pressing needs.

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Help Ex-offenders Build New Lives. Over 40% of those who have been in prison return there within three years. To stem this recidivism, we should help first-time offenders readapt to society by eliminating bans to benefits like public housing and supporting programs that lead to stability, such as New Yorks Prison-to-College-Pipeline. By

Secure State Reimbursement for City Inmates Awaiting Trial. The citys Department of Corrections is responsible for housing city inmates who are awaiting state trials. As a result, New York City bears hundreds of millions in detention costs while the state prepares its cases. Although the state requires non-felony cases to go to trial within six months, there are over 1,700 prisoners who have been awaiting trial for more than a year. These excessive detention times force city taxpayers to pay the penalty for the states backlog. The state should reimburse the city for the housing of pre-trial inmates in excess of six months at the average cost of $232 a day per inmate, ensuring that the state is paying its fair share in relation to demands it makes of the city.

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EDUCATION
The pillars of middle class life are under duress, and the strain starts in our schools. New York City spends nearly 20% of its budget on education, but only onefifth of our students graduate ready for college, and that number is even lower for many students of color. The City canand mustprovide an excellent education for all of our kids. Our system is about to go through some big changes. New leadership, the new Common Core State Standards and, of course, an influx of new kids. With these challenges come opportunities to finally transform our schools to be ready to send another generation of kids to the middle class and beyond.

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Ease the Path for Scientists and Computer Geniuses into Teaching. The model of training teachers through the old path of teacher colleges and education training has served us well. But it needs to evolve as our teachers needs have changed. Now we need to try to attract practitioners in the most demanding fields by opening of doors to citizens who might lack an education background but have outstanding technical skills.

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Expand Mayoral Control of Our Schools. Despite the notion that we have mayoral control of our schools, when New York City decides to change many elements of education policy, we must still first seek permission from Albany. Whether you love charter schools or loathe them, we can all agree that the decision on how many there are should rest with the citizens of New York City and its elected officials. Mayoral controlsuch that it isis due to sunset in 2015. Lets make this the last time we ask for permission to govern our schools. Get Albany out of our way.

Grow CUNY Prep. A collaboration of the Mayors Center for Economic Opportunity and The City University of New York, CUNY Prep is a non-profit that helps high school dropouts in the Bronx earn their high school equivalency diploma and enter college. CUNY Preps 200 grads a year face serious obstacles: a number have children themselves, are homeless, or must support their parents. With too many of our kids not graduating high school, lets expand this program to the other boroughs so that more of our kids leave the system with a diploma in hand.

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Add Financial Literacy Classes for High School Students. New Yorkers carry an average credit card debt of nearly $6,000, an albatross around the neck of both consumers and the economy. On top of that, our foreclosure rate is the third-highest in the nation. Just like when Home Economics was part of the school curriculum, we need to bring essential financial literacy skills into schools. We should require high school students take a onesemester course devoted to personal finance. Learning about the implications of debt, risk and reward, and the importance of savings will teach our kids financial independence.

Promote Multilingualism in City Schools. 60% of our kids come from bilingual households, yet we evaluate success based on how quickly they become fluent in English. In fact, we see non-English speakers as something to be righted (our English Language Learners Division is actually combined with our Special Needs Department). Its time to shift our thinking. Imagine graduating a generation of multilingual college and career-ready kids. We should also use this rich language base to teach kids to tutor each other in their native tongue. We can engage parents in these programs too, as many of them cannot read with their kids or help with homework.

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Launch a Common Core Boot Camp. This fall marks the introduction of the Common Core State Standards in our schools. In August, city teachers will undergo a very short training session on the implementation of what will be a transformational change in our class-

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class roles like fundraising, translating written/verbal communications for one another, and supplementing lessons in the classroom in their area of expertise. Weve met success with the groundbreaking Harlem Childrens Zone and a recent pilot by the UFT. Lets continue to bring parents into the fold by turning our poorest-performing schools into hubs by next fall.

rooms. This clearly calls for far more teacher input and training. How can we expect our teachers to overhaul their strategies in a few hours? Instead, we should develop a Common Core Boot Camp in which experienced teachers mentor younger educators in an intensive summer seminar and then on an ongoing basis throughout the school yearperhaps two hours per week all year long. By using the latest in technology and innovative education methods, we can give teachers the necessary support, while they receive feedback from respected peers. Lets have a teacher training system that reflects the importance of our childrens education.

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Stop the Summer Slippage. For too many students, the summer months represent a disruptive break in the learning cycle. But emerging technologies can lead to creative ways of getting kids to learn outside the classroom in the summer months. Kids should be able to earn credits for hitting digitally-tracked education goals. They could use these credits for theater and baseball tickets and students can have their progress certified and tracked by an app on their smartphones.

Give Teachers a Career Ladder. Salary and benefits are important motivators for all jobs. But if we want teachers to make a career of their challenging and vital profession then we need to listen to what teachers say they want a career ladder. By getting more professional development, more experience, and more great evaluations, we should let teacher move up in responsibility as they grow in the job and become master teachers, team leaders, or administrators.

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Create Union Skills Apprenticeship Programs. Part of having a nimble and adaptable workforce is preparing our students for the jobs of tomorrow. But that means more than teaching nanotechnology and rocket science. For some students, learning to be an auto mechanic, a plumber, or a computer networker is a smart, viable choice and can also be a draw for some kids who might otherwise drop out. But often the best training facilities and instructors are not in the schools but at the local union hall. We should ask our trade unions to help us create the next generation of union laborers while helping our schools meet a growing demand for technical skills.

Aim Higher in Teacher Recruitment. In the highest-performing countries, 100% of teachers graduate in the top third of their class, whereas in America its 23%, and in many high-need schools, its just 14%. We need to hold our teachers in the highest esteem to attract top-tier talent. We need to lose the notion that our schools have to settle for lower-performing college students. We might need to pay more, but if we aim higher, we will elevate the whole school system.

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Turn Schools into Community Hubs for Parents. In the decade between 2001 and 2011, the graduation rate for Cincinnatis high schools climbed from 51% to 82% and the achievement gap between black and white students has been largely eliminated. How did this happen? Community and parent involvement. Community Schools engage students, parents, and entire neighborhoods by providing public health programs, social services, parent programs, and after-school programming. These hubs offer an outlet for parents to take on integral

Put Principals in the Classroom as Master Instructors. While it is a challenge to maintain tens of thousands of quality teachers in the city, we must also continue to attract the very best principals. Our principals should experience the classroom firsthand, and our kids should benefit from their talents with a Principals as Master Instructors program. Create a School Business Manager Corps. With changing standards and an intense need to focus on instruction in the classroom and the professional development needs of our educators, each of our principals needs the support to run the business operations of their schools. We should provide funding for School Business Managers who can focus on these day-to-day operational needs, thus freeing up our principals to focus on academic instruction and staff support.

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TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE

With our city projected to add a million people by 2030, its crucial that we lean into sustainable modes of transportation. In the Transportation Equity Act that passed while I was in Congress, I obtained millions in funding for pedestrian safety, road and boardwalk improvements, Bus Rapid Transit expansions, and highspeed ferries around the city. With 7.5 million daily riders using the MTA in New York City, we must focus on providing faster, convenient, and affordable transportation to help the middle class and those struggling to make it.

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Launch Cab Stands in Every Zip Code. A major obstacle to outer-borough cab service is the inability for hacks to connect with fares. Despite its aim of fixing a chronic problem, the new outer-borough taxi plan would actually leave people in the underserved boroughs with even fewer options. Unlike in Manhattan, where nearly every corner is bustling with potential fares, street traffic in many outer-borough neighborhoods is clustered in hubs. By placing at least one taxi stand for yellow cabs in every zip code, we can incentivize cabbies to remain in the outer-boroughs by creating hubs of available fares.

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Turn Tracks into Trails. The High Line is a success. But why stop in Manhattan? Lets bring pedestrian, biking, and sightseeing walkways to abandoned train tracks around town. In Forest Hills and Woodhaven in Queens, we can transform the long-abandoned tracks of the Long Island Rail Road line into a greenbelt of trails. Expand Citi Bike to All Five Boroughs. New Yorks new bike share program has passed its first test. With about 40,000 annual subscribers and 1.5 million miles ridden in the first month, the program is helping us get around Manhattan. Unfortunately, all 6,000 bikes are concentrated in some of the wealthiest areas of the city, which also already have some of the best public transit options in the city. We need to expand the program by setting up racks linked to subways and shopping strips in underserved areas like Canarsie and Castle Hill.

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Bring Back the Barnes Dance. The most dangerous place for pedestrians to be is in the crosswalk traveling with the light. That is because turning vehicular traffic is crossing their path. We should bring back an old ideathe Barnes Dance. Named for a former head of the Transportation Department, it holds all car traffic at a red light while it gives the walk signal to pedestrians. Although the head start is only a few seconds, it lets walkers cross in any direction without competing with cars.

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Increase Parking Spots Near Fire Hydrants. Parking your car in New York City can be a near-impossible task and just when you think youve found a spottheres a hydrant. New York City code requires that parkers must leave 15 feet on either side of a fire hydrant to avoid a ticket. If that distance were reduced to 10 feet on either sidethe standard in other citiesemergency vehicles could still easily access the hydrants and we could add up to 100,000 spots.

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Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class southeast Queens to rise by 35 feet in recent years, which has meant more flooding and more damage. The city needs to fully take over the now-shut water wells that once allowed southeast Queens land to be properly drained and restart pumping. We must also make sure that Albany plays its part in helping the city do just that.

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Ban Horse-drawn Carriages. London, Paris, Beijing, and Toronto have all banned horse-drawn carriages; its time for New York City to follow suit. Lets move away from horses and towards more pedicabs and creative electric vehicles in and around Central Park. This way, we can keep carriage drivers employed, tourists engaged, and stop an inhumane practice. Mandate More Bike Spots in New Buildings. Car parking requirements for developers may have made sense in the past, but now our needs have evolved. The city should amend the building code to reduce the parking space requirements which incentivize car ownership while also increasing space allotted for bike parking. Get More Control of the MTA from Albany. Although a vast majority of the mass transit riders in the tri-state area reside in New York City, the mayor currently only gets four appointments on the 23-member MTA board that governs fares and service for subways and buses. Under Albanys control, MetroCard fares have gone up 67% in the past decade. If we must have this unelected board, the mayor should at least appoint the majority of voting board members so the future of mass transit is in the hands of New Yorkers, not suburban interests.

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Adopt Neighborhood Parking Stickers. Some neighborhoods get overrun by commuters who park in the area and commute to work. Others have big magnet businesses whose staffers gobble up available spots. Still others are seasonal magnets for day trippers. The solution to all these challenges is a neighborhood parking sticker that limits street parking to locals. This would also have the benefit of discouraging insurance fraud that leads scofflaws to register their car at out-of-state addresses but park them in New York.

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Restart Well Water Pumping in Queens. Storm water and sewage floods have created ongoing, untenable health and financial hazards for residents in central and southeast Queens for decades. A combination of greater development, climate change, and the closure of water wells have caused the water table below

Move the Statue of Liberty Ferry from Battery Park to Pier A. Just north of Battery Park, Pier A is a site of great historical significance and is currently undergoing a large-scale renovation to become a dining and recreation center. This redevelopment, along with its landmark status and large structure, makes Pier A an excellent fit for a new landing for Liberty Island Ferries. In addition to making travel easier and safer, promoting economic activity, and highlighting history, transitioning the Liberty Island Ferry would end the ad-hoc use of the Battery Park walkway.

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ENVIRONMENT
The giant challenges faced by our environment can seem daunting but the collective ability of City government to influence improvements actually could make a big difference. Reforming the way we move around, the way we build and the way we dispose of waste, can all help us grow into a cleaner and greener city.

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Increase Our Vehicle Fleet Fuel Efficiency by 30% in Five Years. New York City has 27,000 cars in our city fleet, which includes cars used by the NYPD, the FDNY, the DEP, and other agencies, but only 2% of them are electric. With advances in hybrid, natural gas, and electric vehicle technologies, there is no reason we cant drive down our emissions by driving up our MPGs. Setting a high goal gives purchasing staff at our agencies a mandate to make our fleet more efficient.

Create a Waste to the Top Reduction Competition. In order to reduce our environmental footprint, we need to reduce the amount of trash that we generate. The city should offer tax credits to building owners if theyre able to hit waste reduction targets set by the Departments of Sanitation and Environmental Protection. This will create a best practices competition that will benefit all New Yorkers.

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Reduce Alternate Side Parking by 25%. Idling New York City cars and trucks produce 130,000 tons of carbon each year. Yet, we continue to require the only in New York ritual of requiring some neighborhoods to move their cars up to four times a week for alternate side parking rules. Lets end 4-day zones and let New Yorkers sleep in and breathe cleaner air.

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Modernize Our Sanitation Trucks. Of the 2,600 trucks in the Department of Sanitations fleet, only 42 run on clean natural gas. To combat both our asthma crisis and pollution, we should convert the compatible trucks to clean natural gas and, when we buy new, purchase hybrids, which are healthier and cheaper in the long run.

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

In 2012, 127 startups were founded in New York City, nearly equal to the 131 that launched in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Its a natural progression that New York is experiencing a renaissance in tech innovation. We are home to leaders in almost every industry, and technology helps them approach their work from a new angle. We see it across the boardin marketing, health care, crime fightingtechnology is an integral part to how we do business. The city has taken big steps in expanding public/private partnerships that give small businesses the tools and training to expand their digital footprint. But we can do more. Tech will continue to impact how surgeries are conducted in hospitals, how taxis drive our streets, and how police fight crime. It is pivotal that the city be fully wired and have the infrastructure in place to encourage growth.

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Add Wi-Fi to the Building Code. New York Citys building code has requirements for new construction that mandate builders to take steps to improve the infrastructure in and around the building. The city should also require buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to provide leaky, or free, publicly-accessible Wi-Fi that covers surrounding areas so that the city hot spot map expands.

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Make 311 a Big Data Treasure Trove. Our 311 city help hotline has fielded over 158 million calls in the past decade. The data about the types of calls and the locations from which they are made are closelyheld secrets by the city. This information should be released in raw form. Obviously we would remove any personal information, but giving the public and city workers access to the data might yield effective mapping, trend-spotting, and innovative solutions.

Get City Workers into an Ideas Lab. Good ideas dont have to come from the top down. The White House created the Presidents SAVE Awards for the best ideas submitted by federal employees, and New York City should follow suit. We need to reward employees for innovative thinking and also establish a culture of engagement on all levels of government. Through an Ideas Lab, we can encourage city workers to generate ideas that cut waste and better serve New Yorkers. The city can lead boot camp workshops, set up by existing institutions such as York or Lehman Colleges, to train our workers on how to create and promote new ideas.

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TAX REFORM
Resolving the inequities in our tax policy is critical to the creation of a fairer economic landscape. Lets start with the mindset that New York Citys tax code should be a driver of middle-class growth. Currently, our tax system is littered with breaks for wealthier residents while ignoring the middle class. We need to lower taxes on the 95% of our population that makes up the middle class and stop squeezing low-income families for more revenue. The citys property tax system is also opaque and unfair. Making these reforms will take independent thinking and vigilance. We cannot be swayed by interests who benefit from a failing status quo. Instead, lets transform our tax system to increase the prosperity of our entire city.

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Create a Zero Tax Bracket. Hundreds of thousands of low-to-moderate income New Yorkers end up paying income taxes to the City of New York, even though many ultimately owe no taxes to Albany or Washington. Eliminating the city income tax burden on New Yorkers who make $40,000 or less in taxable income would cost the city one-half of one percent of our total budget, while generating hundreds of dollars in savings for middle class New Yorkers and those struggling to make it. The Zero Tax bracket would also make city filings for these citizens the size of a postcard and reduce the administrative costs associated with tax time.

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Allow New Yorkers to Auto-File. Roughly two in every five Americans use the two simplest federal tax return forms the 1040EZ or the 1040A formwhen filing their taxes each year. The percentage of New Yorkers who do so is probably even higher. In California, the Ready Return program enables the state to take on the burden of filling out certain classes of returns for those who dont itemize their deductions. We should work with Albany to bring a similar program here.

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Tax Vacant Residential Property the Same as Commercial Property. Right now, there are over 13,000 vacant lots adjacent to residential buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx that are being taxed at residential rates (i.e., they are assessed at a mere 2% of market value). This encourages owners to allow their lots to sit empty, instead of developing them into much-needed affordable housing for New Yorkers. The city should tax lots that are more than 2,500 square feet at the commercial rate, assessing them at 45% of market value. Not only would this encourage development of more housing for middle income families, but it would also generate over $200 million in revenue a year when fully phased in.

Pass an Oligarch Tax. A $40 million condo? Yep. Its not that uncommon nowadays as the worlds absurdly rich park their money in New York real estate. But what is also absurd is that foreign oligarchs actually pay the same city tax rate when they buy those apartments as someone pays when they buy a one-family home in Laurelton. We should make the transfer tax progressive. Currently, there is 1% transfer tax levied on properties less than $500,000 and a 1.425% tax on properties that cost $500,000 or more. We need a four-tiered tax structure that eliminates all transfer taxes on properties under $500,000 and implements a top rate of 5% on sales of properties over $10 million. There should also be an 8.875% tax if the buyer is not using a property as a primary residence.

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Form a Real Estate Tax Reform Commission. Nobody is happy with the byzantine New York City real estate tax structure. Residents of 13 family homes have seen their taxes rise by 169% since 2002, despite seeing almost no movement in their real incomes. Co-op owners on Park Avenue often pay less in real estate taxes than renters in Washington Heights and office space owners face millions in legal costs trying to figure out their opaque tax assessment. All of this is the result of a long-unexamined hodgepodge of legal precedents, state laws, and institutional inertia. New York needs a property tax commission that ensures we have a system that is clear, fair, and transparent.

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HOUSING
Finding an affordable place to live has become a major roadblock in attracting people to build a life in New York City. Today, the average rent for a Manhattan apartment is over $3,800 a month. Pair that with the 76,500 apartments that have been deregulated in the last decade and you understand why almost a third of city renters pay half of their income in rent. All of the easy things have been done, but we must confront this challenge head-on. Our property tax system unfairly favors big developers over middleclass residents, while incentives for building new affordable housing are too weak. As a result, low-tomoderate income families are being priced out by the rush to convert rent-stabilized properties to marketrate ones. To reverse our declining affordable housing stock, we must expand the number of units of affordable housing by developing underused city, state, or federal properties. We can also expand zoning that creates jobs and housing, tackle property tax reform, and offer breaks on utility charges for developers who construct environmentally-friendly properties. In order to preserve our middle class and those struggling to make it, we must tackle our affordable housing crisis.

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Expand Zoning that Mixes Jobs and Housing. Too often, the city makes the false choice between incentivizing residential or commercial uses of scarce New York real estate. Often the same areas that are challenged by a lack of affordable housing also have a shortage of jobs and commercial anchors, like supermarkets. Expanding the use of this zone would spur both job creation and investment in affordable housing.

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Create a Public/Private Marshall Plan to Restore Public Housing. NYCHA houses some New Yorks least fortunate residents in housing that has been all but abandoned by our partners at the state and federal levels. Unlike other cities that have torn down their housing stock, New York has always tried to invest in its. Now, facing $14 billion in unfunded liability for repairs, it is time to pair the world-class property managers from New Yorks private sector with the thousands of skilled workers in the NYCHA workforce and the construction trades to create a triage and repair system that can truly serve the needs of NYCHA 400,000 residents.

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Create a Mitchell Lama for the 21st Century. The Mitchell Lama affordable housing formula that created so many middle-class co-ops in past decades permitted developers to make a limited but guaranteed profit for 30 years while keeping residents in quality housing. The same formula could be used to create a new stock to combat todays shortage of middle-class rentals. Using a combination of tax breaks and incentives, the city should make the same deal with developers: build workforce housing with a mix of units for different incomes and the city will ensure a modest but consistent long-term profit.

Increase Housing Access for Those Living with HIV/AIDS. Challenges faced by New Yorkers of all stripes are often amplified for those living with HIV/AIDS because of stigma or health concerns. Chief among these challenges is access to quality, affordable housing. New York Citys HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) is among the best in the country in terms of creating access to housing, but it can do more. Instead of slashing broker fees to agents who help place HASA clients, the city should create incentive programs for helpful agents so costs dont get passed along to those least able to pay. HASA also needs to re-examine its eligibility requirements to ensure those who are most in need are taken care of.

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HUNGER
In New York City, there is an enormous amount of need right under our nose. There are 1.8 million New Yorkers on food stamps and 900,000 of them are children. We have more homeless people than since the Great Depression and too many are children. In my first policy book, I proposed a number of ways to fight hunger, but our goals can be more far-reaching. We have the resources at our disposal to endhunger, but the programs frequently run up against a powerful obstacle stigma. That is why targeting hunger in school buildings is so effective. Eliminating hunger in New York City is an achievable goal if we adopt an active posture and good ideas. that all of its students have access to breakfast. To reduce stigma and to replicate the inviting optics of the hot dog cart, we set up grab-and-go hallway food stands from which kids can take breakfasts to their first class and eat alongside their peers as well as be able to snack on fruit throughout the day.

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Put Grab-and-Go Hallway Food Stands in Schools. Hungry kids cant learn, so hunger abatement is actually a good education policy. With higher academic performance, better attendance, and better health outcomes all being demonstrably linked to children eating healthy food, New York City should ensure

Serve Universal Healthy School Lunches. 78% percent of city kids rely on free and reducedprice school lunches as one of their main sources of nutrition. Like school breakfasts, free lunches should be universal. Theres no reason any child should go without a healthy lunch. New York has taken significant steps in making school meals more nutritious by adding salad bars and baked French fries in certain schools. Working with the US Department of Agriculture, which pays for school lunches, the Department of Education should ensure that every New York City student has access to a healthy, balanced lunch that uses as many fresh and local ingredients as possible.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Credit for these ideas is due to a variety of sources. Some are brand new, some Ive been advocating for years, and some are borrowed from great minds at think tanks around New York City. Id like to thank my Policy and Research team who spent long hours fleshing out these ideas and Alan Barnett Design for making it all look good. Id also like to acknowledge additional sources including: the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School at New York University, the New York City Bar Association, the Independent Budget Office, the Manhattan Institute, the New York Industrial Retention Network/Industrial & Technology Assistance Corporation, and the NY-Tech Meetup. This document, which was paid for by Weiner for Mayor, may be reproduced. For more information or to submit your own ideas, contact me at anthonyweiner@anthonyweiner.com. Anthony Weiner

Although all New Yorkers know what the cover images are, the company that provided them wouldnt let us use them without the following lame explanations. Cover images (from left to right): The Bronx: The Keith W. Johnson Zoo Center at the Bronx Zoo was formerly known as the Elephant House. It opened on November 20, 1908 and was designed to resemble the royal menageries built by European aristocracy during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (Shutterstock.com) Queens: Citi Field is a stadium located in Flushing MeadowsCorona Park in the New York City borough of Queens. Completed in 2009, it is the home baseball park of Major League Baseballs New York Mets. (David W. Leindecker/Shutterstock.com) Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Bridge is a bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. (Shutterstock.com) Staten Island: The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry service operated by the New York City Department of Transportation that runs between the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island. The ferry departs Manhattan from Whitehall Terminal, South Ferry, at the southernmost tip of Manhattan. On Staten Island, the ferry arrives and departs from St. George Ferry Terminal. (Northfoto/Shutterstock.com) Manhattan: The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan. Upon completion in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city. (Andrey Bayda/Shutterstock.com)

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