"New York City is the number one purchaser of food after the Department of Defense. We need to buy locally from the State of New York and the farmers," says Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer at Sunday's State of the Borough discussion at Columbia University.
According to Brewer, the apple sauce served in NYC Public Schools is bought in the Republic of China. Political leader Ruth Messinger says the City of New York needs to be pushed to purchase locally and to educate people. "They ought to know in the school, this is where it's bought and if you compost this, this is how much money you save the City of New York and this is in fact how you help local gardens. It's a learning process."
Brewer said folks in the City are not great recyclers, not great composters. We could do better according to Gigi Li, Chair of Community Board 3 on the Lower East Side. "We need to think ahead. This is New York City. We can make composting cool. A lot of parents and families learn about composting because this is what their children are taught in school." Li says starting young and bringing habits into the home have been very successful.
At Brewer's State of the Borough, as well as elsewhere around the city, community policing came into focus. Jaime Estades is president of the Latino Leadership Institute.
"One thing that can improve the relationship between the community and police is to stop the broken windows policy. That is critical. Right now people are being arrested for minor things like smoking in front of a store, in front of a bodega and that has repercussions in the community when they see these things happen." Estades says we need to diversify the police department. He says he likes the idea of midnight basketball which Brewer said is coming back. "It comes back to policy," according to Estades. "If the police department is required to stop people on the streets for minor things, it creates tension between the community and the police."
A similar discussion took place on Saturday at 32BJ SEIU on How to Change the NYPD. Juan Lopez of Make the Road New York said, "Police brutality is violence, but so is lack of good jobs, the lack of affordable housing and health care." Today in Albany undocumented DREAMers from @MaketheRoadNY and allies including state senators and assembly members are launching a major lobbying push for the #DREAMAct to be passed as part of the final state budget.
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