This is the second comment I've seen suggesting that hate speech and slurs on your home or workplace don't count if they're written in chalk. That's a new one.

Oh wow, they did spell his name wrong throughout! Good catch. It is in fact Erik Bottcher. He documented the whole event on his Twitter account

Correct. There is lax oversight, almost no real audits and the only qualification is 50% stake held by people who qualify in the category, with zero care for how diverse the actual company is. People will find wives or figurehead "owners" to put on paperwork to snag contracts, to the detriment of actual minority and women owned businesses.

First of all, speeches aren't policy. It's just him bloviating. That's not serious.

Secondly, of course slashing regulations is part of this. That's what he means by red tape. In effect that always means having less eyes and oversight on projects to speed them along. That has always and will always lead to cutting corners again and again until everything falls apart. Deregulation is a farce. It's just more work in the long run.

This comment will be funny in a year or two when Adams' bloviating leads to absolutely nothing. As someone pretty well attuned to what moves city government, the speeches from the Mayor are by far the least effective in making any valuable change. It's funny that people think this is serious.

If If anyone wants to know why right wing nut jobs have been targeting Drag Queens and LGBTQ+ folks, just know this specific movement you're now seeing in NYC and the exact language they use ("groomer" being the most popular) was born directly from the Proud Boys and Qanon..

The movement in NYC specifically really took hold among conspiracy theories who met at anti-vax protests who call themselves "Guardians of Divinity."

This is a hate group, not a normal confluence of "concerned" parents. And we've seen this people in our NYC subs using the exact same lingo. It's not a coincidence.

Edit: Erik Bottcher posted video of this hate group attacking his neighbor on the street as they were covering the street with anti-gay hate speech

You say this as if it's rare and strange for a religious leader to be flamboyant and larger than life to attract people searching for meaning. The prosperity gospel in particular is incredibly popular in this country. People are attracted to him because they think God will make them rich.

If you believe Adams has a righteous plan I have a bridge to sell you. Cutting government services and employees and then calling it "cutting red tape" is just banking on short term benefits at the expense of future quality and safety.

Community engagement is a farce. It's never actual community engagement. It's gathering the very loud voices of 5-10 very loud and angry people and maybe a selection of hand picked organizations who will speak in your favor. Then we let them yell and moan over the voices of trained and educated professionals in their field. And then the process is dragged out so long that the budget gets cut and anything valuable in the original plan is scrapped. There...has to be a better way.

The M/WBE program is a freaking scam. This kind of thing happens all the time and it's way too easy. Nobody audits these programs! There's no point in doing this if the government agencies administering the program can't even verify which businesses are real.

This is fantastic news. I called this this second that story dropped about him allegedly having $1 million in jewelry stolen from him and his wife on a church Livestream.

>Whitehead is well known to have a long-standing and close relationship with Mayor Eric Adams, who the bishop has publicly described as a "mentor, brother and friend."

And nobody is surprised by this friendship. Throw him on the pile of corrupt or bigoted pastors that Adams considers his friend.

The kicker is that people who forego medical treatment or can't afford it end up costing us all more in the end. It's far better to offer affordable and accessible medical treatment and prevention for people than nickel and dime them this way. All to save a few bucks in the short term.

The unions trying to paint this is a necessity and a win is fucking pathetic. Whatever we think of the pension system, these people were promised this and they are on a fixed income. New out of pocket costs for medical procedures (which happen more often at old age) and making it harder to find doctors is outright cruel. Medicare Advantage is a fucking scam.

No, I don't think it's fine. I think the city needs desperately to hire quality talent to make city tech better. But I'm also a realist and know they won't because they refuse to pay good salaries and offer hybrid work.

What part are you having trouble with?

1. Not everything can be automated

2. The city won't spend budget to upgrade equipment

3. The city can't recruit quality IT professionals to manage improvements because they refuse to raise pay and offer hybrid schedules

Not everything can be automated and a lot should still be quality control checked by human beings. It's really not that simple.

Besides, the city and Adams have expressed zero interest in beefing up technology agencies in the city which would at the bare minimum require them to attract talented workers with flex schedules and better pay, both of which they're unwilling to do.

I love when they hire outside consultants to do a quick and shitty job based on their limited understanding and then everyone is stuck with useless data and a garbage project. Happens every time.

This is correct. Private contractors with absolutely no oversight or auditing in now they're using funds. No accountability with conflict of interest issues. This is on purpose and the result will be more expensive and even less responsive city services.

If that's true, those cops in surrounding counties are overpaid and their local governments should do some serious investigation.

If allowing more people to use public transit will make public transit worse, we're doing it wrong. The point is for people to use it to get from point A to point B. We don't need to self sort the classes to the front and back of the bus to keep it "civilized."

If Eric Adams wants to change city culture and innovate he needs to start attracting young and dynamic workers. Hybrid and pay bumps are the way to do it. Period. He doesn't even need to beef up staffing numbers to what they were before, he just needs to make it more appealing to work for the city.

He can only sell out city services to private consultants and lobbyists for so long before everything falls apart.

Cops get a double salary pay bump in just 5 years and easily make 6 figures not long after that (earlier if they choose to milk OT). They are paid better and have better benefits than almost any other city worker. We pay them well and still scrape the bottom of the barrel and refuse to raise our standards or hold them accountable. The Old Boys Club of the NYPD is why they are the way they are, not pay.

Our libraries are about to run out of funding to keep normal hours and we are spending hundreds of millions annually just on settlements from NYPD misconduct, not even mentioning the lives they ruin. Why do we live this way.

That little orange cluster in Bay Ridge is where all the McMansions are located. Lawns, multiple SUVs per household, massive houses with two few people in them. Truly the worst.

I have to believe they were actually in barrels, because that's such an odd way to describe a storage method.