Paul Newell

CORRECTION: Private vehicles will not be banned in lower Manhattan tonight.  Bridges will be closed if wind speeds exceed 50 MPH, but the city has determined that streets will be open.

That said, the city is still strongly discouraging private car use except for evacuation or other emergencies.

I apologize for any confusion.

• Con Edison may shut down all power south of Fulton Street and East of Broadway tomorrow (Sunday).  If you are in an evacuation zone, please leave immediately. See Map of Evacuation zones here: http://project.wnyc.org/news-maps/hurricane-zones/hurricane-zones.html.  Con Ed will make an announcement between 2-10AM Sunday morning.  Prepare for the worst.

• Mandatory evacuation orders have been extended to NYCHA Smith Houses in the Lower East Side.

• All public transportation has been shut down.

• The storm has made landfall in North Carolina and has caused significant damage.  It is expected to arrive in our area by midnight tonight.

• Many people have asked about pets.  As a cat owner, I understand their concern.  NYC shelters are taking pets this weekend.  For more info on pet care during an evacuation, see http://home2.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/get_prepared/preparedness_pets.shtml.

• Keep track of developments online or via radio and television.  The city is updating http://www.nyc.gov/severeweather regularly.  You can sign up for text alerts by going to https://a858-nycnotify.nyc.gov/NotifyNYC/Home.aspx.  Or follow https://twitter.com/NotifyNYC

If you are not in an evacuation zone, here are a couple of ways to help:

1)      Contact elderly or mobility-impaired neighbors, family and friends.  Make sure they have a plan for evacuation.

2)      The Mayor’s Office is looking for volunteers to staff the evacuation/hurricane centers at Seward Park HS (Grand St. & Ludlow St) and Baruch College (E. 24th St. & Lexington). They are asking for any willing volunteers that live in these areas to please help out if they can. Any hours today would be greatly appreciated. Overnight staffers are particularly important. Anyone interested in helping during this difficult time, please contact Leland M. Dyer at 347-844-3309 or via email at LDYER@CITYHALL.NYC.GOV.

3)      The city needs volunteers (preferably in four hour shifts) from now through Monday. They would be especially grateful to those willing to volunteer for the Sunday shifts. The 311 facility is located on Maiden Lane and Williams street in Lower Manhattan and the 311 staff will provide training. If you can volunteer, please email Christie Huus at chuus@cityhall.nyc.gov.  You can also fill out the city’s volunteer form at http://bit.ly/nycvolunteer.

Again, I know many New Yorkers think this is overblown.  I hope they are right.  But all the relevant authorities are in agreement that we face a serious possibility of major damage.  Please take this storm seriously.

My apartment is not in an evacuation zone, so I’ll be volunteering at Seward Park High School tonight.

Please be safe,

Paul

New York City has issued a mandatory evacuation order for all residents of hurricane Zone A – including all of Battery Park City, most of the Financial District, the Seaport area and parts of the Lower East Side and Tribeca closest to the river.  NYU Downtown Hospital will be evacuating fully.

New Yorkers often feel like we can handle anything that comes our way.  But please take this hurricane seriously.  As if you needed more proof of the gravity of the situation, The NYC Subway will be closed beginning 12 noon tomorrow (Saturday).

Our closest evacuation center is Seward Park High School, 350 Grand Street, between Ludlow and Essex Streets, but it is preferable to find other accommodations.  Please contact friends and family who live in higher ground today, and make arrangements in the event of evacuation.

What else can we do right now?

1) If you live in Zone A, please prepare to leave now.  The Subway and all NYC Transit will be closed from noon on Saturday

2)      Contact elderly or mobility-impaired neighbors, family and friends.  Make sure they have a plan for evacuation.

3)      Keep track of developments online or via radio and television.  The city is updating http://www.nyc.gov/severeweather regularly.  You can sign up for text alerts by going to https://a858-nycnotify.nyc.gov/NotifyNYC/Home.aspx.

4)      Make a go bag with medicine, keys, emergency supplies, important documents and a few essential personal items, non-perishable food, water, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio, extra flashlights and batteries in a waterproof portable container.

5)      Charge your cell phones and other important electronics.

Please be safe, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Best,

Paul

“Three dead city residents from the same East Village housing complex rose from the grave last month to sign petitions in a hotly contested race for party positions. – New York Post July 31, 2011

For two years now, I have been proud to be Lower Manhattan’s independent Democratic voice as District Leader.  When I ran for this unpaid office in 2009, I promised supporters that I would never be afraid to stand up for New Yorkers.

I believe I have kept that promise.  From big real estate interests like the Rudin Organization to big political bosses, I have called out the powerful when our communities needed a voice.  District Leaders have very little power, and that voice is one of them.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone is thrilled.  The allies of the status quo are backing a corporate lawyer from a “white-shoe” law firm running against me on behalf of the political bosses.  Trouble is, they don’t have any grassroots support in Lower Manhattan.  So they reached way back into their Tammany Hall playbook. 

They had dead people sign their ballot access petitions. Our supporters – all neighborhood activists – spotted the scam right away.

The details of this scandal aside, it highlights how committed the machine is to silencing independent voices.  Please consider donating $25, $50 or $100 right now to help fight corrupt politics in New York.

The machine candidates have all the armies of Albany and Wall Street behind them.  I’ve got you.  When I’m campaigning in the East Village, the Lower East Side, the Financial District or Battery Park City, I know that downtowners support our message of honest, progressive government (at least the living ones, anyway).

If we are going to build real, progressive change in New York, we need a political system that listens to New Yorkers, not big donors behind closed doors. Please make a contribution today to help keep independent voices in NYC politics.

Thank you for your support.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted as the campaign develops.

Thank you,

Paul

NY Post – Pols in “Dead Heat” July 31, 2011

NearSay – Dead Men Voting! – July 31, 2011

I wanted to let you know about two important informational meetings on health care in Lower Manhattan today.

1) FDNY Presentation on how the closing of St. Vincent’s hospital has impacted EMS/Ambulance operations.

Since the illegal closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital over a year ago, the hole in services has impacted countless New Yorkers.  While much of the mounting evidence has been anecdotal, we have seen quantifiable impacts on the wait times at other New York hospitals like New York Downtown and Beth Israel.  Last fall, Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, Bellevue’s longtime chief of emergency medicine, went on the record to call the loss of St. Vincent’s a “a significant disaster” for emergency care in NYC.

Another important part of this puzzle is the impact on ambulance services.  We know travel times are longer, but exactly how we haven’t heard.

Tonight at 6:00PM, the FDNY will give a presentation to CB2’s Environment, Public Safety & Public Health Committee on precisely this question.  It will be valuable community information, and an opportunity to ask the important questions.

I hope you will join the Coalition for a New Village Hospital there.

Tonight, Wednesday July 20th at 6:30 PM

Little Red School House, Auditorium

196 Bleecker St. (enter on Sixth Avenue)

2) Zadroga Bill Post-9/11 health care forum in Battery Park City

Last year, years of hard work and advocacy by our communities and representatives paid off when the US Congress finally passed the Zadroga Act to provide medical care for responders and residents suffering from post-9/11 health care issues.

No one yet knows how many lower Manhattanites this has impacted.  Many of us have questions about the bill, our healthcare and more.  Tonight, Advocates for Justice is holding a forum for residents and first responders to learn about the bill and see how it may apply to them.
Tonight, Wednesday July 20th at 6:00 PM

Advocates for Justice

Community Forum on the Zadroga Act

Museum of Jewish Heritage

2 Battery Place (MAP)

Battery Park City, NYC
If you can’t make it to the Zadroga meeting tonight, there will be two more in the next few days

Sat, July 23, Noon-1 pm: Lin Sing Association, 49 Mott Street, Chinatown and
Tue, July 26, 4:30-6 pm: Borough Hall, Brooklyn

Apologies for the short notice on these two important meetings.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

While the details are unclear, it seems that Albany’s infamous “Three Men in a Room” have negotiated a bad deal for tenants on rent regulation.

Again, as negotiations have been secret, we don’t know the details.  But according to tenant activists and our friends at the Real Rent Reform campaign,  it appears that the deal negotiated will not include indexing of “destabilization” rates to inflation, nor will it significantly raise the rate at which stabilized units can be deregulated.  For a city losing tens of thousands of affordable housing unites per year, this will be very bad news.

None of this is set in stone yet.  If you are a fellow lower Manhattanite, please call Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver at 518-455-3791 immediately and ask the Speaker to renegotiate a better deal for New Yorkers.

If you don’t live downtown, you can find your Assembly member’s number here: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/.

And while you’re at it, Marriage Equality remains up in the air.  The Three (straight) Men in the Room have so far left that out of their plan.  Please take a second to call your State Senator here:  http://www.friendfactor.org/fs/107506

I’ll try and keep you posted as things develop.

Thanks,
Paul

The next few days in Albany will decide two of the biggest issues facing New Yorkers today. I’m writing to encourage you to take a moment and contact your State Senator at http://www.nysenate.gov/.

Later today, the rent protections that have allowed New York City to retain its diverse, dynamic character will expire. This will leave 2.5 Million New Yorkers at the risk of eviction.  While rent regulation is not a perfect system, it has permitted working and middle class families to stay in the city, when in other cities they have been driven out.  It is essential that these laws not only be extended, but strengthened to prevent landlord harassment and loss of housing.

This afternoon, please join me and the Real Rent Reform Campaign at a midtown Rally to demand stronger rent laws now:

Rally for Real Rent Reform
Today, June 15 at 5pm

At Governor Cuomo’s NYC Office

633 Third Avenue (Between 40th and 41st Streets)

If you can’t make it, please contact your Senator now at http://www.nysenate.gov/contact_form and demand that they strengthen and extend rent protections for New York.

Another vital issue, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is marriage equality. Today, New York State is on the brink of reclaiming our title as a leader in civil rights that we earned at Seneca Falls in 1848, in labor protections in the early 1900s and in a hundred other struggles.  As of this email, our State Senate is one vote short of passing Marriage Equality so that all New Yorkers can marry the ones they love.

Please call your State Senator TODAY and weigh in on the side of justice and love.  You can use Marriage Equality New York’s nifty “Call your Senator” feature.

Thank you,

Paul

You are cordially invited to attend a fundraiser for

PAUL NEWELL FOR DISTRICT LEADER

Friday, June 3rd from 6:00 to 8:30 pm
at the home of
Tara Cronin and Ed Chen
5 Crosby Street, Apt. 5H
Between Howard and Grand Streets
6, N, R, Q, J or Z Trains to Canal Street (Map)

Please join us for drinks, politics, celebration
and a downtown NYC rooftop sunset
to support Paul Newell’s 2011 reelection campaign to represent lower Manhattan’s 64th Assembly District, Part C as Democratic District Leader

Help Paul remain an independent, progressive, reform
voice for lower Manhattan.

Tickets start at just $25 and are available at http://NewellNYC2011.eventbrite.com

Welcome friends to NewellNYC.org.  I’m hoping to use this space as both a community resource and a blog.  I’m not yet sure how frequent the blog postings will be.  That will develop.  But ideally it will be a place for conversation.  Please leave comments with suggestions, criticisms, ideas, resources you’d like to see or anything else.

Thanks, and happy holidays!

-Paul