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This text is being provided in a rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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NYC Civic Engagement Commission  
 8/24/21  
  
SARAH SAYEED:  Good morning.  This is our first meeting.  I just. 
Thanks to those who may watch the live stream.  Or a video recording.  We have an attendance sheet going around.  I'm going to ask the commissioners to go around and quickly introduce themselves starting to my right.    
EVE BARON:  Good morning.  Is that working?  Good morning.  I'm Eve Baron, appointed by the Brooklyn Borough President.  
MARK DILLER:  Good morning.  I'm Mark Diller.  
DONNA GILL:  Good morning.  I'm Donna Gill, one of the Mayor's appointees.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  
SARAH SAYEED:  Mark you want to try again.  
MARK DILLER:  I'm an appointee of the Manhattan Borough President.  
>> This is Anastasia.  We're just saying our names?  
SARAH SAYEED:  If you could say your appointment.  
ANASTASIA SOMOZA:  I'm one of Corey Johnson's appointees to the Civic Engagement Commission.  
AMY BREEDLOVE:  Mayor's appointment.  
>> Good morning, everyone.  I'm a mayoral appointment.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Anyone else on the phone right now?  For the record my name is Sarah Sayeed.  I'm Executive Director of the Civic Engagement Commission.  I just want to note that today we do not have a quorum in person.  So this cannot be considered an official meeting under the open meeting law.  We do have commissioners who are dialling in and also for public awareness.  Does not count towards meeting quorum.  And we certainly hope the open meeting law will be updated in order to ensure maximum participation and transparency going forward.  
We are also live streaming, again under the open meeting law.  However, because this is not a quorum we're technically not required to live stream but we're going to go ahead and share our meeting with the public.  
I just want to note also that we do have in every meeting the last half hour reserved for public comment.  If there are members of the public here, I think there are, and if you already have not signed up for public comment, we ask you to do that by 12 p.m.  And the way we usually do this is we call those who have signed up before today to comment first, and then we call on people in the order they signed up in person.  
Because we do not have a quorum, we cannot vote.  So I am going to go ahead on the agenda and see where we are later if we do have a quorum later in the meeting.  
We're just going to begin with our update.  As usual, the program we've been doing.  The deck is behind me.  If I turn around, we're going to begin with the poll site language assistance program.  As you all know, we served in a primary this past June and served two days of early voting, 25 sites per day.  In the last weekend of early voting.  We also had religious accommodations for the community in deference to Shabbat.  Rather than serving on Saturday as we did for other languages we served that community on Friday and Sunday.  And then on Election Day we had 52 sites.  We also were engaged in promoting rank choice voter education through translated ads and also on our participate platform.  And one of the great things we learned about is before May 24, before the ads started, the platform had about 300 visits per week and once the ad started running it jumped up to 2950 visits in the last week of May and the first week of June it had over 11,000 visits.  
A lot of those visits were to the voting center that was established on the participate platform.  It included early voting, know your rights, and rank choice voting PSAs.  That our team helped to pull together and get up on that platform in a very, very tight time line.  
One of the great developments that I also want to share is that we will be able to scale up our operations for November.  And serve more poll sites to add another 50 poll sites.  And luckily we also just got good news recently that we got approval for additional staff to support the scaled up operations.  So we have another line ‑‑ a second line of support for the poll site program and also to outreach lines to support the commission overall.  We do have hand in hand with this ‑‑ go to the next slide ‑‑ I just also wanted to note that given where we are in the administration, a lot of people are moving around so we also have ads.  ‑‑ who used to run the poll site program is no longer with us.  Danielle ‑‑ also no longer with us.  CEC is going to be in the process of hiring staff that we lost as well as hiring on the new lines.  We definitely want to on board people as soon as possible before the election programs as well.  
That is our update on poll site work.  And I was hoping that we'd have some numbers in here.  But I guess we could fill them in.  We had held trainings in the past couple of weeks.  One was on teachers and committees and how committees function.  We also did a training on how to run efficient meetings.  I will update these numbers and get them to you later.  And then we also ‑‑ I'm very interested in how we as a commission can put community boards more on the public's radar.  How we can make them more aware of what's happening, the community boards, because we do have ‑‑ the CEC has been given the mandate to work on community board budgeting and that is one important way people stay in the budget.  There are also other avenues of influence on the city budget.  One of those is community boards.  I think we need to just let people know how they can connect to that pathway of influence as well.  
Right now community boards are preparing in September to meet with agencies to discuss agency priorities, agency constraints, also community priority, borough priority, citywide priority.  These are dialogues that happen every year between community boards and city agencies.  I'm not sure how many people in the public are connected to these conversations or are even aware.  These conversations between community boards and agencies are the basis for budget requests that community boards make.  Those budget requests are submitted through the department of city planning on a portal that's been set up for community boards to do this.  
Boards are required to hold public hearings in October related to their budget submissions.  We want to get people to participate in these conversations.  I just wanted to mention that as well.  

>> I have a question.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  I have a question.  Would it be helpful if our commission meets with the district managers on a borough by borough basis to make them aware of what services the commission would have with them as they go through the budgetary process for the future?  Have you ever done that before by bringing in district managers?  
SARAH SAYEED:  We have met with the district managers in different settings and had different kinds of conversations.  What we did last year in terms of agency Constitution that we attended and listened in on the kinds of conversations that were happening with agencies and community boards.  We'll do that again.  We haven't ‑‑ I guess if you could explain a little more what you're hoping we could cover in terms of the budget.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  I'm looking at a larger picture over the years where the district managers as we all know by charter relate more to the Borough President than to the Mayor in day to day, payroll and everything else.  I'm just wondering is there a role we can play guiding district managers in their operations to their interactions.  
>> 
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  I'm saying to engage district managers more with the Mayor's umbrella and with this office to support them and their activities in their districts.  
SARAH SAYEED:  That's an interesting idea.  Does anyone have ‑‑ 
MARK DILLER:  We need to be a little careful about the demands on their time.  Because there's already a robust process, at least in Manhattan, there's a robust process by which the budget consultations they place on the office of management and budget in coordination with the department of city planning which is the portal that they come up with these consultations.  But the planning work starts happening in the late spring for the consultations and is generally done by midJuly or end of July because the district managers and a variety of board members as welcome up with a series of questions for each participating agency and submit them weeks in advance with the hope the agencies will then prepare answers and either have them in writing, and with data in advance of or at these consultations.  The consultations are an opportunity to ask follow up questions and so forth.  If you wanted to have input into or be available to the district managers in a meaningful way for the budget consultation process you'd need to start in the early to midspring when the district managers and other interested folks are putting their heads together as to what the questions should be.  For example, in Manhattan this year a lot of the work that's being done by district managers has to do with what have we learned from COVID, what got put on the shelf because of COVID, and where are the priorities about emerging from and recovering from?  
While those meetings are coming up in the next couple of weeks, the work for it has already largely been set.  If we were to be a resource to them in that process, I think we'd look to next year's system rather than trying to jump in.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  I didn't mean to jump on the process.  The calendar.  What I'm saying is to enhance the mandate that this board has to look towards the future, which could be next spring with the new Mayor coming, and reverse, to make them more engaging with us in the overall process besides budgeting.  There are many other things we can help facilitate for the district managers to be able to interact with city agencies outside of what they would normally do.  I'm looking at a longer term, not a most immediate one tomorrow.  But the commission to be more involved with district managers as they engage in positions, whether community planning, budgeting or anything else that goes on in the community.  Because when the Mayor goes out into the neighborhood he's the one that gets beaten up on anything from a pot hole to an issue to a major real estate development.  Maybe we could play a role because that's part of our charter to be involved with the community boards aside from just guiding them on a budgetary process.  Maybe there are larger issues we could be of help by having a discussion this coming year, the remainder of this year, to look towards the future.  
DONNA GILL:  I see both sides.  Being on community boards, Mark was correct.  He's done all this process in the spring.  However, Michael, I understand what you're saying.  We need to make a connection to the district managers and the community boards to let them know that we are a resource to assist them.  I think you're talking about the same thing but the process of budgeting is already done more or less but the information and the introductions of us to the community is what is needed.  I'm thinking that's Michael ‑‑ 
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Correct. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I think that makes a lot of sense.  From a Civic Engagement Commission and our point of view, I think we have two charges here.  One charge is to the district managers, and community board members to help them be able to do their work better.  So if there are opportunities for us to strengthen the capacity of community board members to participate in the conversation.  I don't know what those are.  I don't know if that involves training ‑‑ I'm not sure.  I know the district managers have a lot of ‑‑ I'm not sure how much board members are understanding those conversations.  Maybe you can ‑‑ also big picture I think the whole purpose of why we're trying to strengthen community boards is because we want to have the public participate more in boards.  And become more aware.  I think ‑‑ my purpose in raising this is also just to say that we need to educate the public about what is even happening.  So I think we should ‑‑ we definitely ‑‑ what are the ways that we can work with district managers and boards in this conversation?  We can start ‑‑ 
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  I think it also helps us in our message that we are available and explaining to the public as well as the DMs who we are and what we can do.  It goes both ways.  Listening to them and them listening to us in what we can support them with.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Yes.  Thank you for that.  I'm going to keep moving.  We're going to go into participatory budgeting next.  I'm going to ask Daniel la Eras, the adviser for participatory budgeting to walk us through the slides and let us know what is happening.  $100,000 during the pandemic.  You have the floor.  
DANIELLA ERAS:  Thank you.  Good morning, everyone.  I don't know which way ‑‑ my name is Daniella Eras, advisor at the Civic Engagement Commission.  As you all know we worked on New York City's first youth led participatory budgeting process last year.  And we actually culminated the initiative earlier this month.  The last update that we provided to the commissioners was the results of the initiative.  Over 3400 New York City youth participated in the initiative.  Participated and voted and collectively casted over 8,000 votes to select five projects that received a total of $100,000 in funding from the Civic Engagement Commission.  
I'm here to discuss what happened after the vote, and how the projects were implemented, and the results of the project implementation.  
After we selected the winning organizations that received the funding, the community‑based organizations met monthly with us to discuss progress and to hear feedback from them on how the implementation was going and if there were any issues that we could help the organizations carried out their planned activities from March 2021 until August first of this year.  One of the requirements we put was if organizations wanted funding for the project they needed to be ready to move forward with the implementation and wrap up by June 30.  June 30, July 1.  After the vote we also helped two youth led focus groups to discuss what went well, what did youth like about the process, what could we do better for future similar processes?  
The concluding meeting of the initiative was held earlier this month.  And final report will be also ready by August 30th.  That will just be a summary of what happened start to finish.  As a reminder, youth were involved in every stage in the process from designing the program, designing how the process would look like, doing the facilitation of the ‑‑ traditional we know as neighborhood assembly.  They became virtual assemblies because all the activities were online.  And after collecting reports from all the winning organizations, we found out that these five projects served over and engaged over 125 youth from all five boroughs in the city.  Over 125 youth benefited from the projects that were directly funded.  
I'm going to talk a little bit about what the projects were, and what they were able to accomplish.  The project that won first place, the green space project, which the sponsoring organization was in Brooklyn.  Wivo is actually an organization fully dedicated to engaging youth in advocacy and civic engagement.  This was one of many projects that were actually proposed by youth and submitted in the process.  Their vision for this project was to create a roof top garden in a high school, in an under served community in Brooklyn.  One of the most interesting things we learned in this project was that the Executive Director told us that youth were actually ‑‑ instead of focusing on the lessons of urban gardening and urban planning they also learned advocacy and how to ‑‑ how things get done in New York City government.  One of the biggest roadblocks was actually convincing the officials to let them carry out this project.  So it was a great experience in stakeholder mapping and a lot of things that we do here in the Civic Engagement Commission.  
They have identified a high school and they're in the process of making the plan for the next school year.  The next project that won was recycling and climate change project.  This was from an organization actually that never received city funding before.  It's a really small nonprofit in the Bronx that has three staff members and they're all on a volunteer basis.  This was great.  This was a great initiative that we were able to create equity among how CBOs are funded.  This program was free summer youth program for youth in the Bronx and that's a picture from one of the events.  They had workshops on recycling, gardening, and learning about urban agriculture.  The next project that won third place, young musicians in training.  It's an actual nonprofit that provides free to low cost music lessons to youth in Brooklyn.  When the pandemic happened last ‑‑ earlier last year, everybody ‑‑ youth and the nonprofit were in stand still not knowing how to proceed with their activities.  For their planned activities for the year.  So they actually ‑‑ encountering this process with the CEC they came together and developed a proposal that would help them carry out the activities virtually.  So they actually had music lessons virtually.  They were able to record their lessons and they're going to make those lessons available on their website for free.  That was a great crew to work with as well.  
The next project was from south Asian youth action.  This project was a peer mentoring internship/fellowship.  The organization paired college students with high school students and prepped them for the SATs.  They helped them with homework after school hours.  And anything really needed for the application process.  Which was particularly important for them due to the pandemic and creating the impact in education for youth.  
The next project ‑‑ the last project that won is the girls circle from the girls mentor girls Inc. in the Bronx.  This is another organization, really small nonprofit that only has I think two full time staff, and has never received city funding before.  They were able to create virtual circle, virtual workshops for young girls to address issues of mental health, and other set backs that they're facing because of the current situation.  The final project that they put together was actually a multimedia wellness book that's going to serve as a tool box for teens and young adults.  
It will be also available on the website.  This is ‑‑ that's a culmination of the work they did for a couple of months.  That's a summary of the amazing work these organizations and their youth members were able to accomplish in such a short time.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Thanks so much, Daniella.  Anyone have any questions?  
EVE BARON:  That's amazing.  How did you do outreach?  How did you reach out to the groups?  
DANIELLA ERAS:  We partner with New York leadership for this initiative.  We relied on their outreach as well as our agency partners' outreach to be the first gathering, the first planning, design of the process.  The more that we met, the more organizations started pulling in their networks and their other organizations that they also do work with.  So that's how we were expanding.  In terms of how we did outreach to get proposals from organizations, we did the same thing but we also relied a lot on the department of youth and community development, DYCD, because they have a long list of providers they work with.  Especially the youth providers.  That's how we got the bulk of project proposals on our website.  
And actually we did surveys afterwards and we found out that a lot of organizations heard it from word of mouth.  Other CBOs have sometimes newsletters and do eBlasts.  A lot of them put that information in their communications.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Did you reach out to Staten Island or Queens?  I'm not sure if those two were mentioned.  
DANIELLA ERAS:  We did.  We received a total of 49 project proposals and they were all from all five boroughs.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Out of the five ‑‑ 
DANIELLA ERAS:  The five that won were the projects that received the most votes.  We really wanted ideally to have representation in all boroughs but the projects that received the most votes ended up winning the funding.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Did we engage in community boards?  
DANIELLA ERAS:  Yes.  We sent information to community boards.  We also offered to go to their ‑‑ if the community board had a youth and education subcommittee we offered to go and present about the initiatives.  Yes.  Andy took the lead on that on really getting the word out for community boards.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you, Daniella.  We're also going to have ‑‑ wanted to talk about the people's festival.  We have talked to you all about how we are supporting the task force for racial inclusion and equity.  And working in neighborhoods to support coalition building.  In the 33 neighborhoods identified by the city as where there are equity gaps in terms of COVID infection, and treatment, and vaccine.  We now have 29 organizations that have assumed responsibility to lead their neighborhood coalition.  The Civic Engagement Commission, young men's initiative is working with an MWBE called philanthropic consulting to administer with the coalition.  We're still looking for CBO partners in poor neighborhoods.  And so far what we've done is held three meetings with these organizations.  They received training early on in rank choice voting, vaccine outreach and they've been doing those kinds of activities.  They also received training on our platform on the participate platform.  
And they've been doing amazing work on the ground and we're now beginning the process of going through a needs and priorities setting process with their coalitions and that will then be parlayed into a participatory budgeting process that has been given $40,000 per neighborhood.  To spend that money to support other neighborhoods and recovery.  That's exciting.  We'll continue to keep you updated on that.  
Next I want to give the floor to our artist in residence and he's going to tell you a little bit about the people's festival.  He wanted to share some work that's been going on in that space.  

>> Hi.  Good afternoon.  I have the great privilege of being the artist in residence for the Civic Engagement Commission.  As you all know over the past year a huge part of my work has been to understand the dynamics and the work of the agency to begin to create a story telling tradition.  How do we let the City of New York know that we're here and we're here to collaborate and partner?  Part of the way I approach that work is by creating narratives that are sticky and sweet.  I always think about how is it that we can bring beauty and joy into government, into democracy to make it sustainable, truly?  By showing up and caring for each other and building sustainable models that transform.  I think about the work we've been doing over the past six months.  We took a bus from Rikers and now it's been transformed into the people's bus.  The people's bus is at the heart of the festival.  
But the hope is that we actually began on Friday, August 20th, in downtown Brooklyn and we had a really beautiful success.  Next slide.  You'll begin to see a little bit of the process of the different elements that we've been building.  We have the people's fellows, 28 young people that this summer have been collaborating in the decision‑making processes that have led to the people's festival.  I don't have the capacity to play the video created at a dinner and it show cases a song written by these young people who have been collaborating and building towards the festival.  
As we're figuring that out, I will share at a festival we'll be in each borough for one full day.  Originally we're supposed to be starting at 10 a.m. going through to 7 p.m.    Our programs include institutional partners.   
Sorry for the technical difficulties.  This coming Friday we'll be in  Staten Island near the ferry.  On Sunday in Queens in Corona Park.  Following week we'll be in Washington Heights.  On Friday.  And in Fordham plaza in the Bronx on Sunday.   
We are continuing to build the programs.  Things that we learned on Friday, many aspects of the festival is really about people showing up and celebrating resilience.  Next slide and maybe two slides later, not the video but the next one, I will share that one partner who is a group of undocumented women who show up to work out together three times a week have been an essential partner of this program.  They're actually using material for the arts ‑‑ in my studio we built a ceiling we're now calling the people's Sistine Chapel.  It uses more than 8 million beads to create aimage of the sun, sky and clouds but when you see it in the interior of the bus, what you begin to see is this beautiful mosaic that has more than 8 million beads that represents all New Yorkers.  We're aiming to get to 8.8 million to literally translate.  But the idea is the people's bus is a vehicle for transformation and healing.  As we saw last Friday, people showing up, dancing, singing together.  Many of our sister agencies thrive focusing on mental health, democracy NYC focusing on getting folks registered to vote.  If the mandate of our agency is to collaborate with other city agencies, this festival embodies all the relationships we need to be building to be successful in the work we do.  Next slide.  
You can see the ice cream truck ‑‑ another feature of the people's festival.  Literally pairs ice cream flavors youth have created.  An example, stop rum raising the rent.  Creating jingles, writing music.  How do we bring democracy and government and have it be embodied, not just in the minds but in the heart.  Something we care about and show up to participate in.  Because it's exciting.  Some of the photographs really show case.  The woman in the back of the ice cream truck of rights, is lady justice.  Sketched by one of the young people.  Powerful.  We're know using on getting New Yorkers to find out this is happening so they can participate.  It's been beautiful.  There is a video but I think the videos are not working right now.  I highly encourage ‑‑ let's see this.  
(Video playing). 

(Applause).
It's been really beautiful.  Part of this work is to pilot how we show up in public space, transform public space.  All of these in my mind are experiments in civic engagement.  What does civic engagement mean to you?  So much of what we're trying to do is bring these stories and narratives to parks, public spaces, plazas and say what does this mean, how do we change it?  How would you do it?  My hope is the people's festival is the beginning of a long‑term program that celebrates the resilience of all New Yorkers in this moment but forever more.  How do we imagine the possibilities of what government looks like and feels like when we're celebrating.  Thank you.  I don't know if you have questions?  I'll play this video as well.  Hopefully it will work.  
SARAH SAYEED:  What's great about the song is I think young people put it together in like an hour.  Right?  
>> Yeah.  They wrote the lyrics, built the beat and I had them film it right then and there because I thought it was really powerful.  

>> Any questions?  
SARAH SAYEED:  He's been a tremendous source of creativity and fun, and joy for the agency.  He's done an incredible amount of work on the festival and so has the entire team.  Again, as you know we are a small team.  And the addition of the youth fellows has been incredible.  Also for the TRIE coalition space we're working with youth fellows as well.  We had the fortune of having a couple of interns this summer.  We've been able to do so much more with all these folks to support our work.  Thank you so much.  
I'm going to quickly let you know also ‑‑ I know some of the commissioners in the past have raised questions or suggestions about us working with New York City faith community.  Over the summer we held a successful event called your base, your voice, your city.  It was an event meant to connect to faith communities and religious leaders.  We held this event July 22 and over 60 religious leaders attended that event.  We talked about how faith communities have had an incredibly positive impact on shaping policies and programs for this administration.  Everything from the declaration of a public school holiday, creation of the Mayor's clergy council, the holiday curriculum guides developed by the department of education on diwali, the new year, New York City created lessons plans for teachers to implement in sikhism, community partnerships was another entity within city government, also NYPD made changes to the uniform policy to allow for turbans and longer beard lengths.  There have been a bunch of things that have happened in the city, the results of the faith community becoming more engaged.  We wanted to highlight those.  We also did break out groups with these faith leaders to better understand how they interface with some work we're doing with community boards and participatory budgeting and language access.  
Before we go to the next part of the meeting with the redistricting commission I wanted to note we'll be sending a draft of the annual report due in September.  We will be sending it to you in the next week or so, around September third and we'll look for your feedback to get the edits.  The report will need to be voted on before it gets submitted.  The next meeting will be in person and we need a quorum so we can vote on the report and submit it on time to the Mayor and council.   
We will stay in touch about that.  Next part of the ‑‑ we're going to turn to a presentation by the redistricting commission, a bipartisan commission responsible for drawing our state's district lines based on the 2020 census and the redistricting commission is committed to public input.  Today we have with us a couple of colleagues from the commission.  We'll hear a presentation from Karen Blatt, Isis McIntosh Green.  Karen Blatt is the codirector of the redistricting commission and spent her career working in government.  Isis McIntosh Green is also ‑‑ has also been in politics and public service for much of her career.  She's the deputy coExecutive Director of the commission.  
I'd like to invite them both to join us.  And do a presentation.  You can use the mics there.  

KAREN BLATT:  Hi.  I've never done this with the mask on.  First time for everything.  Thank you, Dr. Sayeed.  Thank you to the entire CEC.  Can you hear me okay?  Is that better?  We're very excited to be talking to you today about the independent redistricting commission.  The commission was designed to bring more transparency to the redistricting process.  This was a departure from how it was done in the past.  It's important to understand that this process doesn't work without your help.  
And we need input from the public about your communities of interest.  Where do you live?  Where do you send your children to school?  Where do you worship?  All of this information is important to our commissioners.  And they recently completed a virtual listening tour focused on regions throughout the state.  There were ten in total and all the recordings of the meetings are on our website, on our public YouTube channel.  We also received a lot of submissions that were written from the public, and we're going to format them and put them on our website as well for the public to see.  
We've had some ‑‑ 
SARAH SAYEED:  Sorry.  We have a couple of commissioners on the phone.  If you could talk a tiny bit louder.  I'm not sure if we can raise the volume on the mics?  
KAREN BLATT:  So we just completed our listening tour.  We're going to digest all of the information that we received from the public, and draft lines.  We had some difficulties because of COVID.  Most notably the data was received very late.  We were supposed to receive it in April but instead it just arrived August 12th.  So we have one month to draft lines and release them to the public.  
We're working with a very truncated time line.  And once we release these draft lines we're going to kick off an in person tour throughout the state.  There are going to be 14 meetings in total.  And we hope to solicit input from the public.  We hope to get your help with that as well.  
We have two offices that we're setting up.  One is up in Albany, and one is here at 250 Broadway.  We've had some delays with construction.  But they should ‑‑ the Albany office is up and running.  The city office will be ready within a couple of weeks.  And I have my wonderful staff here.  My deputy, Isis McIntosh Green, Director of public engagement, Ahsia Badi, and Miranda, and our data manager Jonathan who could not be with us today in person.  With that I'm going to turn it over to Isis who will give you a better idea of our time line, and help you understand the process better.  And then we'll have some Q&A.  

ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  Hi.  Good morning, everyone.  It's still morning?  Just turned afternoon.  My name is Isis McIntosh Green and I'm going to share a slide with you today.  One moment.  
I'll get started and as slides come up we'll go through them that way.  Of course you know the IRC, independent redistricting commission came about actually quite similar to the CEC.  Voter approved method voted on back in 2014.  Now that we finally were able to get the resources necessary to move forward with this process, proud to say that we are up fully staffed, and hopefully we'll be moving into our office here in the New York City actually not too far from here at 250 Broadway very soon.  
I'll come back to the commissioners.  But of course it's a ten commissioner commissionership where we have four Democrats, four Republicans and both Houses got the opportunity to be able to appoint someone who is not a member of either of those parties.  As we go into the redistricting process, the biggest thing that we're trying to communicate is what redistricting anyway?  So many sources went into the census.  During the pandemic a lot of you and of course a lot of organizations you had worked with partnered with food pantries, elected officials, and we were able to get the word out about the census.  However the redistricting process is quite different.  While we wish that while that information was going out that people also understood the reason why you're doing this is because of the redistricting process is the next step.  A lot of people haven't heard of redistricting.  A lot of people do understand that they may have used to belong to a different district and lines were drawn and redrawn and really was without community input.  
So what happened is a lot of communities unfortunately ‑‑ I'm from the area of central Brooklyn, Brownsville.  What ended up happening is some communities got split up where you have NYCHA development that will actually have two different congressional representatives representing them.  A community like Brownsville has four different Senatorial districts cut through there.  The importance of this process was to ensure people finally got the opportunity to say let me communicate what my communities of interest are.  Let me be able to say why certain economic zones should actually be in the area; why certain business improvement districts shouldn't be split up.  The challenges they face by having to unify a community to go sometimes up to 7 different representatives on just one level of government.  So our hope of what we were able to accomplish over the course of the summer through the thankfully through the help of a lot of the public engagement team which is here with us today, the commissioners said although in the Constitution amendment that was passed technically they only needed to have one round of hearings but those hearings would not have to take place until after they actually drew lines.  The commissioners got together and said it would be important for them to hear from the community before any lines were drawn, before any lines or consultants were hired.  This was really the premise that brought us to where we are today.  Next slide, I'll show the time line.  
Essentially now where we are, basically summer 2021.  Now that the listening tours have happened we have been able to compile all of that data.  Now we're moving forward into our fall.  So by mandate we have to have our initial draft and the maps released by September 15th.  And so what would happen then is we have 30 days to be able to announce to the State of New York where and what the hearing dates are and when the hearings will take place.  A lot of areas we're looking at, like Karen said, are 14 different cities throughout the State of New York.  12 of those cities are Constitutionally mandated but once again commissioners thought it would be important to add two additional cities, in the area of southern tier, likely Binghamton, when we get into western New York, and of course last but not least north country.  I'll be able to go through all the cities once I get towards the end of the slides.  
Just to show you right now there's also a ballot proposal that many of you may already be discussing.  What we're trying to once again raise awareness about is while there are going to be five statewide ballot measures, one of those ballot measures is related to the redistricting commission.  
Next slide.  Thank you.  Here I promised that I would share of course our commissioners.  Our chair is David ‑‑ vice chair Jack Martin, Eugene Banger, Ross Brady, John Conway III, Elaine Frazier, Charles Nesbit, Willis ‑‑ they were appointed by the majority leader and the Senate and the assembly and now as we move forward it's important that they are getting as much public engagement as possible which is why we're here today.  Next slide.  
Really when I talked about how we're trying to get the word out, we already have a number of organizations that are communicating what redistricting looks like and why is it that we once again lost another congressional district.  
Ever since 1952 we've actually been losing congressional districts.  Back in 1952 was actually the last time that we had 45 congressional members.  I'll show you on my next slide kind of where those congressional districts are being reapportioned across the country.  As you see, a lot of the movement has been to the west as well as to the south.  
New York was actually thought by a number of thought leaders and folks who have been in this process for much longer than me, probably much longer than I've been alive, that New York this time was actually slated to lose two congressional seats.  While we feel we were 89 people short of being able to preserve our 27 congressional members, right now the rest of the country is saying what was New York doing and how were they so effective to make sure they didn't lose two seats?  
As we see a lot of trends coming out of the northeast, it's important that now as we move to the redistricting process that we adjust for our growth and population size.  Next slide.  Let's start off with the ballot measures.  This is the proposal I was talking about.  On the left side we have the exact language that is going to be on the ballot.  
This one is ‑‑ this proposed Constitutional amendment would freeze the number of state Senators at 63, amend the process for the counting of state's population.  To lead certain provisions that violate the United States Constitution, repeal and amend certain requirements of the ‑‑ amend the manner for district lines for congressional and state district offices.  Shall the proposal be approved?  In laymen's terms we've broken down an explanation of yes or no voting will do.  Of course we already have 63.  By law it was actually 50.  The House, the assembly and the Senate have actually been voting in past years to adjust the number of Senators based on the population.  So this would actually lock it at 63.  As we've seen over just the past ten years, I'll show you as we move forward with other slides that New York State actually had a population increase of over four percent.  Now that's approximately about 863,000 people.  We are adjusting for that.  
Affirming that the total population will be the basis for the district.  Reassignment of prison population that has been a national conversation on how to actually do that.  A lot of times here in New York State we've done that in the past but this would actually codify it.  Redistricting time line which is what I went over with you before.  However what this is going to do is adjust for the change in primary season.  Essentially what happens is of course we had elections back in September.  The way the redistricting time line would allow for people to be able to still run and have enough time to file paperwork, et cetera.  However once we move that back to June, to match up with the congressional elections, now we have a period where the actual legislature does not have to sign off on the maps until the middle of January.  Which if you ‑‑ you guys are probably well versed within the campaign process, about two to three weeks before you actually have to start.  Last thing is eliminate the block on boarder rule which would require map makers to draw certain blocks into adjacent districts.  A number of folk part of the process actually point to that as a reason why a number of Senatorial districts across New York State are drawn so funny or weird and seems to gerrymander if you will.  
Right now our population is officially over 20 million people.  We're now at 20,201,249.  39 of our 62 counties actually lost populations and a County had the largest population loss basically by 9.3 percent.  23 of our counties actually saw growth.  One is your sister County right across the bridge which actually saw the largest growth in the State of New York by 9.2 percent.  As we see a lot of the urban centers and a lot of the down state counties picked up that population.  Next slide.  
This is more in detail on which counties lost population.  This is based on the August 12US census data that came out.  Thankfully we got it a week early.  You're able to see the counties with the greatest loss.  Of course being in New York City kings and Queens County are two of the largest growth centers throughout the State of New York.  
Do we have any questions up to this point about the data that I'm showing?  Or anything?  
>> Have you figured out the population count per congressional state assembly and Senate yet?  You have to draw the lines based on the population count, you have to come to a number.  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  That's correct.  Thank you so much for bringing that up.  I'm not sure if it's on the next slide.  However I know in the congressional district that number is 776,971 people.  That's actually up from approximately 716,000.  Which was the number that in the 2010 census that we came out with with the 27 congressional districts.  On top of a lot of the movement that is happening within the State of New York, you have some congressional districts that either lost population from that 716,000 number, and we have other congressional districts, few but still other districts that are actually surpassed the 776,971 number that I quoted.  So essentially we have about 60,000 people that have to be added to each congressional district.  Sometimes I know that the golden question that we get when we speak to organizations or to people is whose congressional seat is going to be eliminated?  The answer I like to give is no one congressional seat is going to be eliminated.  Essentially it's going to have to engulf that population.  We'll have to look back at the numbers and how to make sure at the congressional level there's no population deviation?  So we don't have the opportunity to say some areas are going to have a higher percentage and other areas will have lower, like that flexibility that existed within the state legislature.  These are cities that had the largest cities in New York State but also the population change as well.  Next slide.  
This is now we're getting into the public listening tour.  This is the participation rates for each County and each area within New York State that we had these virtual hearings.  A lot of times we were able to find out the biggest drop off in numbers which is confusion about the process.  A number of people believed they had to sign up in order to actually watch the hearing but all hearings are streamed live on our website, user page and Facebook.  And also archived there as well if you want to go back and see it.  Also questions received about transcripts.  Our transcripts will actually be posted within the next week so people have the ability, whether it's through their qualitative analysis based on the transcripts or just to see what was the content of what folk were saying.  A lot of times it's easier to have it written down.  One of the counties with the largest turn out was Queens County, 171 people signed up and 51 speakers.  We had a large percentage in Richmond County.  Most of the population was kings County however Richmond County gave their communities of interest, and folk that did not actually present, some people actually also submitted a written testimony on our website, which is also going live this week.  So you'll be able to decipher where are the communities of interest based on the folk that responded.  
Now I'll get back to the public hearing locations that I promised I'd talk about.  These are the 14 cities where the public hearings will be.  More than likely they will take place during the time of October and November just because once that data is released those maps are released, we have to notify people and give them 30 days in order to come out.  That's really when we need everyone ‑‑ I'll just say, as my mom would say, all hands on deck.  At that point think of the initial map drawing process as just what I said, initial.  I don't think that it's the time to say what is this, this is the problem with the system, these are the problems with line drawing, this didn't work.  This is the time where we need the community to come out and say yes, these communities of interest belong together or no, this community needs to be added in.  We need to come up with another scenario.  How can we make this work?  A lot of the times unfortunately ‑‑ I graduated Binghamton university so I spent my fair share of time in the southern tier area.  A lot of issues we heard not just in that region, but in upstate New York, going to Erie County, people felt the congressional districts were made to favor incumbents and unfortunately split communities right down the middle.  Where a lot of places they shop are completely different places where where they have their livelihoods and places where they have to advocate.  Another community also talked about a district being over 100 miles long.  So having to just try to get the resources to get to a congressional member, or even to get to a state assembly or state Senate member really took a lot of effort.  And as a person who thankfully was able to benefit from the online process, a lot of districts and a lot of communities don't have the resources to keep up with that process.  Now that we're starting to see a shift in funding, broad band access, et cetera, people need in person contact in order to get their issues heard.  That's why all hearings will have an in person as well as a virtual component.  We are taking of course a close look at what's going on with the delta variant and of course since we are a commission chartered by the State of New York we will of course be listening to what the Governor advises in regard to how many people in a room, whether we're going to continue the mask mandate.  If we can do that, if we can allow vaccinations.  All of that is going into this.  The 12 cities on the left are the ones that were mandated by the actual Constitutional amendment.  And then the two on the right are the ones that the commissioners added in.  
I do believe that is the end of the presentation.  If you all have any questions for either myself, Karen, or members of our staff, we just thank you for allowing us to be here with you today.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  If I could, to recap, you said the state Senate can go from 50 to 63 members.  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  Let me clarify.  There are already 63 Senators.  That number we're codifying that it is locked at 63.  For instance we saw an increase of 863,000 people in our state.  Technically the way districts are drawn right now, Senate districts hover somewhere around 300 ‑‑ 
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  No, I'm looking at the number.  The assembly remains the same?  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  It was already codified locked in at 150.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Give a brief idea of the time line without the particulars of when the maps are being drawn, when they're being presented, the hearings, and then the certification of that has to be midJanuary?  Is that correct?  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  Correct. 
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Petitioning is going out a few weeks thereafter for the election in June.  What is going to prevent a delay if people are going to challenge it in court?  And is there enough time to defend it prior to having to go through the petitions in January?  
KAREN BLATT:  Excellent questions.  You clearly know that this is litigious process.  We don't know.  We don't know what delays could result.  We'll have to wait and see.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  But is there any provision to delay ‑‑ say board elections has to delay petitions if the maps are not certified and the district lines are not certified.  So you have a Constitutional date you must get this implemented?  
KAREN BLATT:  I believe it's January 15th that the legislature will vote.  And then if they reject our plans we have another month to come back with a new set of plans.  By February 15th.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  That would delay the petitions and possibly impact the June election.  I'm asking is there any way to move up the calendar to get the information out so you can have a discussion in the communities to avoid that kind of delay?  
KAREN BLATT:  The ballot measure will move it up two weeks to January first.  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  If I can just add that was the reason why the legislature also put that ballot measure was to not only give us more time but so that way in future processes that doesn't happen.  It actually moves up the time line and future redistricting processes to November.  They have to have the maps certified.  They provide it to the legislature in a bill by November first.  If one of the houses actually votes it down then they have until November 15 to come back.  The time line we're working with now is the January one.  Thank you.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Other questions?  
DONNA GILL:  I didn't have a question.  I have a comment.  I saw that Manhattan didn't really turn out Manhattan and The Bronx for the hearings.  But I wanted to know the notice came out very late.  That was a problem.  That may be ‑‑ so when you have the hearings, I think the timing in which you get the information out to the public is very important to have participation in the process.  Because when I got the information, it was already done.  And I felt like okay, I would go to the public hearing because that would be my next time to engage with you guys.  But we also have the maps which may or may not have things that I was concerned with prior to the maps being drawn.  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  Definitely.  We agree with you wholeheartedly.  By the time the commission received the funding to be able to move forward we were already now basically looking at June and July.  What we wanted to do ‑‑ if you go ‑‑ actually ‑‑ actually go back to the last slide.  One thing that the commissioners actually decided to do as well, just with that in mind, was to have a statewide hearing, a catch all if you will.  That was actually the only one that took place on a weekend, Sunday at 3 p.m.  That was also when we had 43 speakers.  92 sign ups.  We know that a lot of the folk were excited.  We have people that were actually about to go into a wedding that did the hearing from their car.  It's definitely an important thing.  I guess that's also the reason why they put into the Constitutional amendment to provide 30 days' notice before the hearings that we're doing in September.  
This was really a learning process for everyone.  Because once again, the only thing that I say that is different between the independent redistricting commission and a lot of other chartered, or voter approved commissions is we really can't have much conversation if any at all with the state legislature.  For instance, I will draw your attention maybe ‑‑ I used to work for a state legislature which ise know this, in regards to census mailings that went out.  On every mailing that went out it was like you had a census sticker, something bringing attention to the census.  However we can't have that communication.  So we're coming up with creative ways.  Coming up with strategic ways.  A number of them have worked with other members, with the census process.  We're really trying to get into the community and have them sign up.  If you go to the first slide, we do have all of our contact information regarding how do we get the public involved in the process.  And the biggest thing we'll say is please sign up on our website.  That's the NYIRC.gov because that is how you'll get the communication on time, when we send it out.  We have had a number of conversations with cities, with town councils, with not state Senators, excuse me, U.S. Senators on how they can help disseminate the information.  But of course people vacation as well.  So what we're trying to do is make sure that you don't have that break down in communication of by the time I get it to your office you have it for a week before you realize you can do something with it.  Once again at the end of this process, the commissioners have decided they will do a catch all.  Of course we want everyone to participate in an in person hearing so that way we can get as much data and quite frankly they can begin to disseminate and compile all this information before they have to once again send it back to the legislature, which I believe, that initial one is in November.  
KAREN BLATT:  I just want to add that we can receive written submissions at any time.  If you email them to submissions@NYIRC.gov, Miranda will receive it.  We can also receive geographic files.  If anyone wants to send us a map of their community, or a plan, we can receive those as well.  We can also convert a PDF map or a hand drawn map into a geographic file.  Our very talented data manager Jonathan will handle that.  
MARK DILLER:  Thanks.  I am one of those folks from Manhattan who did manage to testify.  The way I got the word was from my Congressman's office.  He happened to reach out to me to say why don't you put something in.  That was the only point of contact for me.  Clearly we all need to do better for that.  I'm hoping the PDF maps easily ‑‑ believe me I'm not the guy who knows how to do this, just that it can be done.  There's a version better for Twitter, one for email, one for Instagram, and perhaps other platforms as well.  Those can be provided.  And Miranda and I are colleagues on the same community board so I think we'll be easily in touch on that score.  I am concerned about a couple of things mentioned in the process.  
One is the idea that on average we're going to be adding 60,000 residents to a congressional district.  Yet your slides reveal some of our congressional districts already gained population.  So the notion that equality would add 60,000 to every district would not be bringing equity to the over and under represented communities.  This is not abstract for me.  I am one of those communities where the bulk of my state Senate district is in the Bronx.  And they should have an undiluted state Senator whose only focus is on their issues.  It would probably be very different, probably all the same goals but different challenges between different communities of interest.  The Columbus avenue business improvement district in order to engage its state representatives has to talk to five people.  Three state assembly people and two state Senators.  It's a little loony in our neighborhood.  So this is very important that we get this right, and not divide integral units.  At the same time not deprive integral units of having an unfettered and complete voice in the way in which their challenges need to be met. 
KAREN BLATT:  That's exactly the kind of information we're looking for.  Thank you.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  I've been involved in the process decades ago, drawing the lines.  I commend you for the optimism you have for trying to make this work, particularly what Mark said.  We have a story in our paper on the Brooklyn paper that shows a street in sun set park that will be divided down the middle that is not uncommon in drawing lines.  You mentioned NYCHA, having NYCHA's housing divided between districts, it's unavoidable.  Let's be practical here.  It's going to happen because you just have so few districts and so many people to divide.  I don't know how you're going to create but I would like to have done a coterminality when they drew community boards they were very conscious of keeping neighborhoods together within a geographic boundary, whether it be a park, river, roadway.  I don't know how you will ‑‑ you will never be able to fix that.  You will never be able to limit the divisions of neighborhoods, communities, business districts, whatever it may be.  You have to explain that because that's where you're going to run into the legal challenges that are going to happen when you do this.  It will be unconstitutional from a right to vote to have representation, to have a building divided or a community of certain ethnic populations divided.  And that's where you're going to get into trouble.  Being overly optimistic in some of the presentations today, to be able to explain that.  It can be very difficult.  If you can figure out how to divide and be creative in the maps along those natural boundaries.  It's easier upstate.  It's harder to do it in the urban areas here in New York City.  Unfortunately we've had congressional districts that run three counties down state.  Let alone upstate where you have 100 miles between communities.  I don't know how you're going to avoid that, to make some sense of it, that you're going to avoid the challenges that are to come.  
MARK DILLER:  Can I add something to that?  It's a very good point and brings me to something I think is relative to what we do here as well.  If it is inevitable, and it may well be, and I defer to your experience ‑‑ if it is inevitable that some integrated unit is going to be chipped away at or split in half, that raises the issue of what priority should the commission be putting on who stays together and who has to go into separate parts?  
Because it came up, the notion that we split NYCHA communities in half as opposed to a community like mine, let's face it the upper west side of Manhattan doesn't have a problem getting heard by officials.  In NYCHA communities you want to make sure the folks that work really hard to give voice to those very real concerns are not further diluted.  That's my personal view.  The large are perhaps more policy oriented view is if there is going to be division of what would otherwise be kept together, some core principle of priority ought to be established to guide the work other than incumbents getting to stay in a district.  
MICHAEL NUSSBAUM:  Mark, you're a hundred percent on the mark on this.  The problem is it's politics.  First they're going to save every incumbent they can and it comes down to how many Democrats and Republicans are registered voters as opposed to population in that district.  By having an independent commission, try to do this as opposed to the way it was done before in a closed room by a couple of political leaders, and the assembly wanted to protect theirs and the Senate wants to protect theirs, your task is enormous.  I'm still challenged to figure out how you're going to avoid the legal case that will come before you.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you so much, commissioners.  Thank you to the redistricting commission for having this conversation with us, for the presentation.  I think that we are ‑‑ it's a really exciting ‑‑ from a Civic Engagement Commission point of view to have this be a more public process, to have the public engage in it, and undoubtedly, we ourselves are finding when you have public conversation, there is going to be disagreement.  There is going to be dissent.  There is going to be legal challenges.  I think that's part of how we are in the process of how we're reclaiming democracy and not doing things behind closed doors and it is going to be uphill.  We're grateful for the time you're putting into this and we look forward to seeing what happens with the story.  Thank you so much.  
DONNA GILL:  Are the slides going to be available to us, your presentation?  
ISIS MCINTOSH GREEN:  I shared it with Francis.  I'll make sure ‑‑ 
SARAH SAYEED:  We'll get it out.  Thanks so much for taking the time, all of you.  In the final part of our meeting, we do have public comment period.  I understand there is someone who has signed up to speak.  That person's name is Tobias Walls.  If you can go to the mic and offer your comment that would be great.  I'm sorry if I said your name incorrectly.  
TOBIAS WALLS:  Good afternoon.  My name is Tobias.  I have a nonprofit organization.  Called no garbage left behind.  I also was a part of complaints that were going to the Brooklyn Borough President office, Eric Adams.  Every time something that happens dealing with debris, or Department of Transportation, or any garbage that's excessive in areas that I go and clean up.  Unfortunately a lot of complaints have been going on, I'll continue to go out and do it, and nobody is assisting me with the tools, the location and stuff.  The main purpose of this ‑‑ excuse me.  My main purpose is that I have self‑funders, nonprofit organization, because I seen excessive garbage in the areas.  Some of you are familiar with curb side garbage and when you get out of cars you stepped into waste and all that stuff.  I noticed a lot of individuals wanted to work.  They're standing by train stations asking for dollars.  I'm self‑funded.  I said let me go to Broadway junction in Bronxville and pick these guys up to help pick up garbage.  I gave them $20 a piece.  A lot of guys live around the area.  They separate themselves to other project areas.  So I kept them in the jurisdiction areas where they lived.  Like in Howard project areas, fort green, they'd clean up areas right inside the projects.  You have the parking lot in NYCHA where they have all garbage in areas under the cars.  We went under there and cleaned it all up.  All the areas in Broadway junction so much garbage over there.  We actually tag it.  We dump in areas where some people come in from other areas, they come and dump their garbage right in the areas where the transportation areas at Broadway junction.  If you go and look you'll see so much garbage.  I go over there and we rent out a rental, a U‑Haul and we used to go pick up the garbage.  Unfortunately my funding wasn't right so much.  I couldn't do it all the time.  I would see some garbage and I would get bags and bag it up.  But the whole concept with this is I wanted to create this like a door dash.  I wanted to do it in different jurisdiction areas.  Like you have Bronxville, east New York, Manhattan, et cetera.  Where individuals can work right there on their block.  They could come out, get trained.  They have tools.  And other equipment.  They can actually clean up right there on the block.  Across the street they have a before and after picture which they have a portal to go and show the activity for that day.  Also separates individuals from areas where even though they work for this company or whatever, they stay in that area.  They won't be working in other areas where think gang activity these days.  We don't want them to be mingling together to hurt one another.  They concentrate and clean up their own neighborhood.  But the main thing is when I did this, a lot of individuals started to have a relationship with one another.  It reversed a behavior type of thing.  Concept of being civilized.  When they started to clean up they started to engage in other activities, working together.  I wanted to make it a program ‑‑ I also saw that it was also stopping the prison prevention ‑‑ brothers wanted to help other brothers or sisters or individuals to actually work and engage together to paint on walls.  We created a board where we wanted to deal with abandoned lots all around New York City where it's not being used.  We want to use it as a safe spot for individuals to do creativity.  When I went over there, I seen a lot of rats and rodents over there.  I said what is the city doing about this?  When I called up the HBDA they told me these particular areas were landmarked already.  These construction and development companies were going to be building something on it in five or ten years.  I said whoa, you have a lot of rats here, and dumping bags of garbage everywhere.  What can I do about it?  They said we're not going to get you to cut the grass over here.  But I kept going, and they would still not relate to me.  I went also to the area of commissioner ‑‑ I think ‑‑ Walker area.  I think she's a commissioner, or assembly woman.  I think she's a Councilwoman.  I also brought that to her attention as well.  I want ‑‑ I'm starting up the program.  My whole main thing is just to ‑‑ to beautify our neighborhood but also to bring entertainment to the neighborhood as well instead of having Brooklyn going out.  We have so much open lots and lands over there.  Rodents and all stuff all over the place.  My whole main concern was trying to change the dynamics of it and also bring the summer youth program back where kids can get money, and clean up in their own area, and moms don't have to worry about them when they could have some type of independence to be ready for future.  Any questions?  
MARK DILLER:  Thanks very much.  There are a couple of organizations that it might be useful for you to be in touch with if you're not already.  One is the Goddard Riverside green keepers.  They actually get grant funding to hire folks to do clean up on streets and what you seem to be suggesting.  Of course the dough fund is the famous one that does that.  There's also a new one that started off being a grass roots organization that cleaned up this whole one block because the idea was that volunteers would promise to keep up one block of their neighborhood.  If you get enough people on every block suddenly you have the neighborhood covered.  It's been branching out to higher folks as well.  Their experience may be helpful to you in terms of how they got the funding they needed to expand the program to a critical mass.  I'll give you my name and my email address and maybe I can help connect you to some of those folks if that would be useful to you.  One chat with them you'll decide for yourself whether it's useful.  
In terms of vacant lots since we're here in the office of the comptroller, the comptroller's office has been among the leaders saying maybe those lots should be turned into affordable housing.  You putting pressure on folks not happy with lots staying vacant may not be the worse thing in the world either.  Thanks very much for what you're doing.  
>> Thank you.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Thank you so much for presenting today.  Stay in touch with Mark.  Also wondering are you connected with community boards?  Are you talking with community boards?  
TOBIAS WALLS:  Yes.  I talked to ‑‑ I don't remember the name but also my concern that also they're not putting in awareness pertaining to the trash and the epidemic that's going on in the neighborhoods with rats and that.  No awareness.  I actually got stickers and put no dumping and no littering around New York.  If I see dumping site where people have bags I've been sticking.  I've been doing that for quite a while.  There's no commercials, no trainings.  I see nothing that says no dumping.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Are you familiar with the clean up core program?  
TOBIAS WALLS:  Yes I am.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Have you alerted them to the locations that you're concerned about?  
TOBIAS WALLS:  No.  I actually took initiative to do it myself.  
SARAH SAYEED:  Okay.  Thank you so much for everything you're doing.  We should stay in touch with you and talk more.  
TOBIAS WALLS: Thank you.  I appreciate it. 
SARAH SAYEED:  I think we are ‑‑ we don't have any other public comment, right?  I think we're at the end of our time together.  We do not need to make a motion to adjourn the meeting since we do not have a quorum.  I appreciate everyone again for being here today.  And we will connect with you for the next meeting we have at the end of September.  Thank you, everyone.