Everything You Need to Know About New York's Ballot Proposals

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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It's Tuesday, November 1st. Happy November. It's exactly one week now before election day, or what we have begun to call here, final election day since you can vote today in New York and New Jersey. Early voting continues through Sunday, then they take Monday off, and then is final election day. Don't forget, no early voting in Connecticut, though, adding it for the future is on the ballot in Connecticut this year.

We're going to start today by explaining the four ballot measures that voters are deciding on in New York. Remember to look on the back of your paper ballot in New York to find the ballot questions. Remember, every New Yorker fills in a paper ballot, whether in person or absentee, and that ballot goes into a ballot reading machine, but you start with the paper ballot and it has the candidates on the front. These four proposals on the back. There's one that's statewide and three that are only for voters in New York City. The statewide one is a $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act. Here's Governor Hochul on this program in August after she was asked about her climate policies by a caller named Eric.

Governor Hochul: I'm going to ask Eric and others and all your listeners, Brian, if you can help us do something that it's going to be profoundly important for the protection of our environment and building resiliency, and that is support for our $4.2 billion Bond Act, which is on the ballot this November. It's our Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act. When we get that money, coupled with our $500 million we're putting an offshore wind and the first electrified school bus system and our money for the Environmental Protection Fund. No one can touch our record on the environment. I'll just say that to Eric. Don't worry about my commitment.

Brian: Governor Hochul here in August promoting the Environmental Bond Act that's on the ballot statewide. The full title of it is the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022. The three other questions are for New York City voters. Only one would add a statement of values to the city charter, which would state that New York aspires toward just an equitable city for all. The next would establish a racial equity office plan and commission. Will explain.

The final one would require the city to issue an annual report on what had caused the true cost of living in New York City. Think half your calls to this show are about that. That would include data on housing, food, childcare, transportation, and what the measure calls other necessary costs. With us now to explain these ballot measures in more detail and to take your questions are WNYC and Gothamist Albany reporter Jon Campbell on the Environmental Bond Act. WNYC and Gothamist race and justice reporter Arya Sundaram on the New York City measures. Jon, welcome back, and Arya, welcome to the program. Welcome to WNYC and Gothamist too.

Arya: Hi there, Brian.

Jon: Hi Brian.

Brian: Listeners, we can take your questions about any of these four ballot measures. 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can also make your case four or against, but we will give top priority to questions as our goal here is to explain these to everyone as clearly as possible. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692, or you can tweet your question or your comment @BrianLehrer. Let's start with the Environmental Bond Act that's on the ballot statewide in New York.

Arya, be a little patient as we go through this with Jon, and I'm going to read the full language of the proposal right now. It's one paragraph. It says, "Proposal number one and amendment, Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022." Then the paragraph begins. "To address and combat the impact of climate change and damage to the environment, the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022 authorizes the sale of state bonds up to $4.2 billion to fund environmental protection, natural restoration, resiliency, and clean energy projects shall the Environmental Bond Act of 2022 be approved."

That's the whole thing. Jon Campbell, can you explain first why this is a question for voters and not just a question for the state legislature in its annual budget? For some context here, New York State's annual budget is more than $200 billion a year. $4 billion spread over the number of years it would take to build these environmental projects and spend that money, isn't that much for lawmakers to consider in their annual budget. They spend a lot more on other things. Why is this a ballot measure for the voters in the first place?

Jon: This is a ballot measure because the state is borrowing money. Anytime a state agency wants to issue bonds, a bond act like this, they have to get permission from the voters. Now, there's all sorts of ways that they get around that. There are state authorities, they can do it rather than state agencies, but these are state agencies that are going to be looking to spend money on environmental projects. They're going out into the bond market and borrowing money to do this. That is why it requires a statewide ballot proposal.

We've seen these in the past. The most recent one was in 1996 when voters approved a $1.75 billion bond act that we saw be used for all sorts of different environmental projects over the years. Now, this is a much bigger one. This is $4.2 billion. It would have money reserved for climate change mitigation, flood risk reduction, conserving open space, and then a big chunk for water quality improvement projects. That is why they have to go to voters because they're going into the bond market and they want to borrow money to fund these capital improvements.

Brian: If they're borrowing the $4 billion through the sale of bonds, do they say what the ultimate cost is, including the interest payments? If we borrow money for a mortgage to buy a house or any other borrowing, we know the ultimate cost to us is to pay back the full loan plus the interest on that loan. What does a $4.2 billion bond act actually cost the taxpayers in total over time, if they say?

Jon: That's not entirely clear. It'll be paid back over decades, literal decades. That is actually why the opposition that you're seeing and there's not a ton of organized opposition out there. There's really hardly any at all, but you are seeing conservative lawmakers, the state conservative party raising that very concern that this is a tough time to borrow money, inflation, all of that rising interest rates, and they are raising fiscal conservatism concerns about this proposal. That's where you're seeing some opposition, although it is not near the organized opposition, we saw too many ballot propositions last year.

Brian: Your report that $1.5 billion or more than a third of the borrowed money would be for climate change mitigation projects and the biggest chunks within that would be for zero-emission school buses and green building projects. What kind of building projects, first of all, would be climate oriented, if you know?

Jon: There aren't any specific projects laid out in this bill. There would be an application process essentially and this money would be made available through the Department of Environmental Conservation, through the New York State Energy Research Development Authority. Various different state entities to fund things to improve the climate emissions or to reduce the climate emissions of new building projects, of existing buildings, making things more resilient.

The one exception there is that $500 million flagged specifically for zero-emission school buses. That was something that was entered into this bond act proposal earlier this year, and that is really the one area where there is a very specific plan or I should say, purpose for that money, and that is to buy zero-emission school buses for school districts across the state.

Brian: As I read through the details of this proposal that half a billion for zero-admission school buses is the single biggest item, even the single biggest subcategory in the whole bond act. Is that for the sake of school buses not polluting in and of themselves, or also is something that pushes the whole zero-emission vehicles infrastructure in the state, because that's a lot of buses all over the place?

Jon: It's both really. The state has these very ambitious climate change goals by 2030 and 2050, including in that is they want to do a wholesale shift toward electric vehicles. Governor Hochul signed a bill into law that will require that shift to happen, I believe by 2035, that the sale of new passenger vehicles would have to be zero emissions by 2035. There's some pushes to move that up, there's some pushes to move that back but if you're going to make that change, you have to put some focus on the larger-scale vehicles, including school buses. Yes, that is intended to spur that, and it's also intended to help with the state's climate change goals.

Brian: I am shocked to see that we have zero callers so far on these ballot proposal questions. Maybe there's something wrong with our phones because I would imagine, listeners that many of you have questions about the New York State Environmental Bond Act, proposal on the ballot, or the three racial justice questions on the New York City ballot, 212-433 WNYC, or maybe Jon and Arya, this is just the first people are hearing of it, except people who are really close followers of politics in the news, and they're just starting to digest it.

Arya, maybe your sense, if you have a sense if you've been going around town, is that you go up to people and you ask them, "How are you voting on these racial justice ballot questions?" and they say. "The what?" Is it like that?

Arya: Mayor Eric Adams has allocated $5 million to make sure that people know about these ballot initiatives. I've talked to some people, some people who are in the know, who are engaged in politics and now about these ballot proposals but you're right, some people don't have a clue about what's going to be on these ballot proposals and the first time they see it as when they step into the actual ballot box.

Brian: Of course, now that I said that, all our lines are ringing, 212-433 WNYC. Sometimes people just need permission. 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Actually, Jon here's a follow-up to you that somebody tweeted on one of your answers about, well, this listener wants to know, even more explicitly why the state is borrowing the money for these environmental projects and not budgeting it through the legislature. If it's $4 billion spread out over many years. Each year, the legislature spends $200 billion on the annual state budget, why can't a little piece of this $4 billion just be put in the budget every year to accomplish these environmental projects?

Jon: The answer to that, if you talk to people who are fiscal experts, they will tell you there are good reasons to borrow money as a government, and there are bad reasons to borrow money. I'm getting a little bit out of my depth here because I am not a fiscal expert, but in general, they will say capital projects, infrastructure projects are good thing to borrow money for because there's a return on that investment. If you spend money improving a park, then more people will travel to that park and more people pay money to park there and they spend tax money in the neighboring restaurants and bars, things like that.

Not to mention other kinds of infrastructure things like say, wastewater treatment facilities, things of that nature, could be less sexy infrastructure here. There is a return on that investment, in part because if you don't improve those things then you're increasing your costs later down the road. In general, fiscal people will tell you that there is a benefit to borrowing to pay for capital infrastructure improvements because there can be a return on that investment. [crosstalk] That's the very elementary explanation.

Brian: There is an analogy to personal finance there too. We borrow typically for the big expenses of buying a home or buying a car, which are life infrastructure, and the other things come out of your salary, or whatever your income stream is, week by week, month by month. That's somewhat of a corollary. The difference, in this case, is it is still a relatively small expenditure relative to the state's total revenue but because it's infrastructure, because it's capital projects, they tend to be borrowing projects. Take a phone call from Gary in Summit. Gary, you're on WNYC. If I succeed in clicking you on, there we go. Hi, Gary.

Gary: Yes. Hey, Brian, nice to connect with you. I'm wondering if any part of the bill is supporting solar 2.0, where electric vehicles will support a total transition to the utility grid being 100% renewable.

Brian: Jon, does it get that specific or go that far?

Jon: It doesn't get that specific, but there are basically these different buckets of money that have to go toward different issues. There's up to $1.5 billion for climate change mitigation. Then within that, there are these sub-buckets that would go toward that kind of thing. Climate adaption and mitigation projects, air and water pollution projects, and disadvantaged communities, you could make an argument that say, replacing natural gas-fired power plants in a disadvantaged community with solar, wind, whatever.

You can make a case that that would fall into that bucket. They're broad buckets, but they do have some level of specificity in terms of, the issue that the money is supposed to tackle. You can make an argument that would apply to any number of these buckets.

Brian: Aaron in Brooklyn has a question about the zero-emission school buses in this Environmental Bond Act. Aaron, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Aaron: Okay, good morning. I want to ask about the school buses. They operate half a year, three hours or a little more a year-

Brian: Or 10 months. [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Aaron: -and you want to waste money on that. Hochul has allegations about corruption, and they want to spend money that school buses operate just half a year for three hours, not more a day.

Brian: Is your objection Aaron that you don't trust Hochul to not have some corrupt pay-to-play contract to develop the zero-emission buses, or is your complaint that it's not worth the money for buses that only run a few hours a day or is it both things?

Aaron: It's both of them because she got allegations about vaccine corruption and the stadium in Buffalo, and now she's going to have a bucket full of money to waste.

Brian: Aaron, thank you very much. Of course, as he says those are allegations there's no corruption that's been proven. Some people are raising those questions. What do you want to say to him? Jon, we're starting to answer there, especially about the use of school buses.

Jon: Yes, the goal is to electrify the state's school bus fleet by 2035. That's all in hopes of reducing climate emissions and reaching the state's climate goals, a big part of that is vehicles. This is an area where the state is trying to reduce its emissions, its vehicle emissions. This is one way they're going about it one of many ways they're planning on going about it. In terms of the corruption allegations, there have been paid-to-play allegations regarding Kathy Hochul, in part because she's raised a lot of campaign money. That's something that we'll be watching as the school bus push gets closer to reality.

Brian: All right, we're going to take more questions for Jon about the Environmental Bond Act from the now many calls that are coming in more than we have lined. We're going to pivot right after this break to Arya, also from our newsroom, and talk about the three racial justice ballot measures on the ballot in New York City and go into those in some detail and take your questions on the phone about those. Stay with us as we continue to explore the ballot questions on the ballot in New York City and statewide in New York. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we talk about the ballot questions for New Yorkers to vote on this election season. Again, a reminder, the candidates appear on one side of your ballot, generally considered the front because there's the heading on it. The candidates appear on one side of your ballot. The questions appear on the other side of your ballot. Don't forget to turn it over.

Now, we'll turn to the three ballot measures that only New York City residents are voting on. Again, they are on the back of this paper ballot that they will hand you when you're going to vote or that you got in the mail to vote absentee, same ballot. Again, here to explain these are WNYC's Arya Sundaram from our news teams race and justice unit. Listeners, since she's pretty new here, I'll just add that we're really glad to have Arya in our news department now after her previous work in journalism, most recently at the New York Times where she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for an investigative series on fatal police traffic stops. Arya, I'm excited that you're here. Again, welcome.

Arya: Thanks, Brian.

Brian: Arya has an article on Gothamist called What We Know About New York City's Ballot Questions on Racial Justice. Again, listeners, these three New York City ballot measures, in brief, one would add a statement of values to the city charter, which would state that New York aspires toward a just and equitable city for all. The next would establish a racial equity office plan and commission, the final one would require the city to issue an annual report on what had caused the true cost of living in New York City.

That would include data on housing, food, childcare, transportation, and what the measure calls other necessary costs. These questions were developed by the New York City Racial Justice Commission, which was appointed by Mayor de Blasio. Here's the chair of the commission, Jennifer Jones Austin as heard on Morning Edition today, promoting a yes vote for all three questions.

Jennifer: We've been taught, let's just put forth another program. Let's just put forth another policy, and the commission realized, no, we've got to change the foundations so that we can think, reimagine something greater than what is.

Brian: Jennifer Jones Austin, the Chair of New York City's Racial Justice Commission as heard on morning edition today, promoting a yes vote for all three New York City ballot questions. Arya, I'm going to read the full text of these one at a time and ask you to explain what they're getting at. First listeners, what's called proposal number two, add a statement of values to guide government. It says, this proposal would amend the New York City charter to add a preamble, which would be an introductory statement of values and vision aspiring toward a just and equitable city for all New Yorkers, and include in the preamble a statement that the city must strive to remedy past and continuing harms and to reconstruct, revise, and reimagine our foundations, structures, institutions, and laws to promote justice inequity for all New Yorkers.

It says, the preamble is intended to guide city government in fulfilling its duties, shall this proposal be adopted. Arya, that's like a preamble to the constitution, a preamble to the city charter, which is like the city's constitution. Does it change anything with respect to policy, or is it just a value statement like it says?

Arya: That's a good question and something that actually came up a lot when I have gone to various meetings where the Racial Justice Commission has been proposing and having outreach about this particular set of ballot proposals. There is an accountability measure in this in the sense that agencies and officials that are providing oversight capacity of the government actually have to consider these values when overseeing, when auditing city agencies. That's like the city comptroller, the public advocate, various city community boards, all have to consider these statements of values. Is New York City striving towards affordable housing, education, these really sweeping and pretty bold goals?

Brian: Which could leave a court in the position of deciding how much and what kind of funding of housing, how much and what kind of funding of education equals striving toward these goals of equity as stated in the city charter, it could open up that legal kind of worms, I guess.

Arya: Theoretically, but actually in the statement, in the text that will be in the city charter if this thing really goes through will be a mechanism to make sure there isn't what's called a legal right of action so that people can't sue because they're not getting X, Y, or Z thing in the preamble. It's supposed to be a statement of vision, a statement to guide city officials when doing their work really to-- because there isn't a preamble there right now. There isn't this statement of values saying why we're trying to do what we're trying to do as a city.

Brian: Now I'll read the next ballot question. This is also one paragraph, there all formatted as one paragraph. This is the longest of them. Proposal number three, a question, establish a racial equity office plan and commission. It says this proposal would amend the city charter to require citywide and agency-specific racial equity plans every two years. The plans would include intended strategies and goals to improve racial equity and to reduce or eliminate racial disparities, establish an Office of Racial Equity, and appoint a chief equity officer to advance racial equity and coordinate the city's racial equity planning process.

The office would support city agencies in improving access to city services and programs for those people and communities who have been negatively affected by previous policies or actions and collect and report data related to equity, and establish a commission on racial equity appointed by city-elected officials. In making appointments to this commission, elected officials would be required to consider appointees who are representative of, or have experience advocating for a diverse range of communities.

The commission would identify and propose priorities to inform the racial equity planning process and review agency and citywide racial equity plans, shall this proposal be adopted. Arya, you report that if approved, that would require every city agency to craft a racial equity plan every two years. Many city agencies in blue New York already consider that central to their mission. I'm sure the school's chancellor would say that, the buildings department people, lots of others. Have they communicated a sense to the people who wrote this of what specifically that would require?

Arya: Absolutely. They published this massive report at the end of December last year, really outlining what this Office of Racial Equity, this commission on racial equity would really be doing. Each of these reports that each city agency has to craft would include these data indicators that measure outcomes, that are supposed to be relevant to their jurisdiction. For example, that might be-- for Department of Health, that would be like incidents of childhood asthma rates. They have to report by neighborhood level, but they decide their own specific outcome indicators.

My sense is that you're totally right that there's this patchwork of equity initiatives and very blue New York, this real beacon of liberalism in the US, but their goal as in the Racial Justice Commission and crafting this office and commission on racial equity is to have what they call shared vocabulary, a shared language between these agencies to really put racial equity at the heart of government decision making.

Brian: Would that one create the opportunity for citizen group lawsuits to push city agencies toward more focus on closing racial disparities, or does the lawsuit lockout that you referred to before apply to them all?

Arya: I would have to dig really deep into the actual text to see what lawsuit lockouts that are prevented by this particular set of measures, but my understanding [cosstalk]

Brian: Lawyers may disagree.

Arya: Sure. You're totally right. There's a big question here of what's going to happen next, what is next in store for all of this? We don't know. Obviously, across the country, there have been cities and states that have tried their own racial equity government agencies but this is a pretty new thing overall in the history of the US. We'll see.

Brian: Finally, the last ballot question, which is really interesting and very relevant to this high inflation period that we're in even though it was crafted before that. This says, "Proposal number four, a question measure the true cost of living." It says, "This proposal would amend the city charter to require the city to create a true cost of living measure to track the actual cost in New York City of meeting essential needs, including housing, food, childcare, transportation, and other necessary costs without considering public, private, or informal assistance in order to inform programmatic and policy decisions. Require the city government to report annually on the true cost of living measure, shall this proposal be adopted." Now, Arya, that might not sound as explicitly about racial justice as the others. How does it connect?

Arya: Sure. You can tell when hearing the commission speak when reading their report, that they're really looking at how racial justice is tied to economic justice as well. In fact, the chair of the commission is the head of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies which works on poverty programming. This measure is really trying to shift the city away from federal and local measures of poverty that are usually used to determine eligibility for public benefits. People have widely criticized scholars, academics, policymakers have criticized these measures as just being too low and really outdated.

Brian: Arya Sundaram is with us from the WNYC news team on the three racial justice ballot questions on the ballot in New York City. Our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell, is with us on the one statewide ballot question, whether or not to borrow $4.2 billion for environmental projects. Let's take some more caller questions on these.

Listeners, if you've been with us long enough, maybe 20 minutes to have heard the caller who complained about the $500 million in the bond act for electrifying school buses, said, "Hey, school buses are only used three hours a day, 10 months school year a year, so why are we going to spend all this money just to convert the bus fleet?"

Well, looks like we have a school bus driver on the line who wants to reply to that caller. Jim in Pearl River, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jim. Thank you very much for calling.

Jim: Hey, good morning everybody. How are you?

Brian: Good. What's you got for us?

Jim: I want to just to clarify that the district I drive in has over 120 buses that drive a minimum six hours a day, and that's just back and forth to school and it doesn't count midday trips, sports trips, class trips, et cetera. Plus there's also summer school. School buses are utilized way more than three hours a day.

Brian: What do they do between 9:00 o'clock when school starts and 3:00 o'clock roughly when school ends?

Jim: As I say, there's a number of midday trips you could transfer students from a strictly educational setting into a vocational, like a BOCES. Kids go to different schools for different needs that are not in their own school's housing. They go out of districts sometimes. Myself, I'm just doing morning and afternoon, drop off and pick up, but bus fleet is running all year long, even during the summer, except for short two weeks before school starts again in September. Maybe not many bus-

Brian: [crosstalk] I hear you.

Jim: Excuse me.

Brian: Do you think if all the buses in your district in Rocklin County were suddenly not to be gasoline-powered, but to be zero emissions, I imagine that means EVs, electric vehicles, would it require a lot of new charging stations to be developed to meet the needs of the buses on a daily basis? Do you have any first impression sense of that?

Jim: Well, I do believe that the infrastructure to do that is not in place and it doesn't come easy or quickly. The bulk of the buses that we run are diesel-powered, and diesel fuel is way more now than gasoline by at least $1.20 in some spots, maybe more. I think that is the coming future. Now, whether we start embracing it now or wait until later I think we should start in baby steps and just get the ball rolling.

Brian: Jim, thank you for your service as a bus driver, and thank you for calling and chiming in on the Environmental Bond Act. Carol in Manhattan has a question about one of the racial justice proposals. Hi, Carol. You're on WNYC.

Carol: Hi, can you hear me okay?

Brian: I sure can.

Carol: Thanks. Here's my question. I just recently read the ballot and I haven't read the pros and cons. I'm really concerned about this every two years, and how they came to every two years. By the time you finish one criterion for two years, you're going to have to start all over again for the next two years. I don't know how they came up with two years. I think two years seems to be extraordinarily too close and it's just going to keep this commission going and going. You're not going to see results in two years, so why didn't they extend it and make it like five years? How are you going to see results to anything that's going on in two years? That's impossible in this city. That's my question.

Brian: Carol, thank you. To refresh everybody's memory about what she's referring to, this is proposal number three on the New York City ballot, establish a racial equity office plan and commission. It starts by saying this proposal would amend the city charter to require citywide and agency-specific racial equity plans every two years. Arya, is there an answer to Carol's question that you've heard anybody give?

Arya: That's a great question. I don't know how exactly they determined every two years, why that would be the best option. What I do know is this, accountability seemed to be top of mind when they were creating these proposals, and wanted to make sure that there was some mechanism to keep government in check. The other thing was a budget scoring process whereby these plans would be created and lockstep with a budget so that there could actually be funding and money allocated to follow through on these bold racial equity goals.

That's my understanding. They really see these city agencies and commissions as long-term parts of the city that will outlast any one administration. Some of these plans won't even go into effect for a year or a few years, but they see them as an ongoing process, it seems.

Brian: Well, voters will decide whether these are the paths there, but something has to change. Look at the history of this city, this country, this world. There's so much racial inequity no matter what's tried. Look at who the essential workers, low paid, and sufferers of the disease itself at the height of Covid were disproportionately and all of the disparities that that implies, and it goes on and on and on and on. Will this help? Voters will decide if they think so, but something has to change.

I want to end with both of you with getting one take on prominent politicians' positions on these issues. We know that Governor Hochul is for the Environmental Bond Act. Jon, Republican candidate Lee Zeldin seems to have not taken a position on it. You and I have both searched up and down for a reference to a Zeldin position. You and another reporter I know from Gotham Gazette and Max have reached out directly to his campaign on our behalf and not gotten a response. What would he be trying to avoid by not taking a position one way or another on the only statewide ballot question?

Jon: Well, for one thing, he is supported by the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party is one of the rare organizations out there that is out there opposed to this measure. That could be it.

Brian: He's running on their line in addition to the Republican line. He could just-

Jon: Indeed he is.

Brian: -say, "Yes, I'm a Republican and big sea conservative, so I'm opposed to this." Why not?

Jon: He could, but it seems to be broadly popular among the electorate. He's trying to appeal to a general election voter base, but what's his position on this? Your guess is as good as mine.

Brian: Arya, you have a quote in your article from Mayor Adams, when asked if he supports the three Racial Justice Commission ballot measures, in which he doesn't really answer the question either. He just says the administration is fully committed to advancing equity. Decode that for us. Does that mean he is opposed to these measures?

Arya: That is the question. This new agency, this Office of Racial Equity would be underneath Mayor Adams. It's unclear how exactly staffing funding will work. Like you said, he really hasn't come forward with a real position on this new set of proposals, if they were to go in place. He pointed to his office, the Mayor's Office of Equity that he created earlier this year, in order to advance equity across racial, gender, other lines, but it's unclear how you'd respond specifically to this new agency.

Brian: You said they would be under him. It's not like he's worried that there would be an independent power source that competes with him. These would all report to him?

Arya: My understanding is that the Office of Racial Equity, the agency itself would be underneath mayor Adams, with the senior official being at the commissioner or deputy mayor level.

Brian: All right, listeners there you have your radio primer on the ballot questions in New York City and the ones statewide on the Environmental Bond Act, Jon Campbell and Arya Sundaram from our news team, thanks a lot.

Jon: Thank you. Flip your ballot.

Arya: Thank you.

Brian: Flip your ballot. These questions are on the back. The candidates are on the front. Brian Lehrer on WNYC, more to come.

 

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