Transcript: Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Proposed by Mayor de Blasio to Provide Tax Relief for Homeowners With Properties Damaged by Superstorm Sandy

May 29, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well it is a good news day for a lot of reasons – most especially for the thousands of people who will benefit, who have been waiting for this help – but it’s a good news day because leaders across the spectrum are focused, doing their jobs, working together. I want to thank Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who’s been a fantastic partner in all we do. We’ve had a lot thrown at us in just a few months but we always find a way to get something done together – and that’s all that the public can ask of people in government. So let’s thank the speaker for all she does for all of us.

[Applause]

The members of the Council here today - thank you for what you are doing today. Vinnie, thank you for your leadership. Debbie, Steve, Julissa, thank you everyone for so quickly acting on the interests of homeowners and people who have been suffering and who are literally going to be in a case of double jeopardy. They finally fought their way back from every devastation, every dislocation they experienced, only to find that it was going to cost them something new. Because you guys got the ball rolling and you are finishing the job today, it’s going to provide that relief they deserve. Jimmy Oddo has been a partner in everything we’re doing and has been – I’ve got to say, I hope the residents of Staten Island know this – literally we do not have a conversation where he doesn’t say we need to do more for folks who have been victims of Sandy. We need to take the next step. Here’s another thing that needs to be done. You have been vigilant, you have been focused, and I think it’s made a huge difference and it’s helped us to do our job better.

[Applause]

I know from my script that I introduce the Governor. So I’m going to –

[Laughter]

I’m going to say things about the governor at the point at which I introduce him. But I also want to note, I have very great pride in the members of my administration. First, I want to thank our new Parks Commissioner Mitch Silver. Thank you for inviting us to your lovely park.

[Applause]

Mitch also has the single best office in all of government in the arsenal in Central Park. So try and get him to invite you to a meeting because it’s absolutely beautiful. And Amy Peterson – where are you Amy? Amy Peterson, take a bow.

[Applause]

Amy, Director of our Housing Recovery Office. Amy Peterson and Bill Goldstein and Dan Zarrilli have been out at the frontline. I’ll tell you what I hear constantly from elected officials and community leaders. They appreciate that this new team that is working every day to help victims of Sandy and to work on resiliency is out in the communities, constantly talking to people, listening to try and understand what we can do better. And Amy, you have been really stellar in going out and helping people at the front. We want to thank you for that.

[Applause]

So I remember very, very, vividly the days immediately after Sandy hit. And I spent some of that time with my colleagues here from Staten Island. And, we talked to people who had lost everything. And that day it was very hard to imagine the road back. But I’ll tell you one thing – none of us would have imagined so many of these delays and so many dreams deferred. And it has never been acceptable to ask people who have suffered so much to wait.

And so when I came into office, I started working exactly with the same people I walked those streets before, and we said we can do this differently, we can do this better. We all knew it could be better. Sometimes you say that in life and it’s a speculation. This time, we knew there was a better way to help people. This is an example of it. Thousands of people are going to benefit because everyone put their heads together and figured out it wasn’t right for them to be hit by an additional tax because they finally got back on their feet. And we weren’t going to allow that kind of unfairness to happen.

By the way, not only is it an example of bipartisanship, and everyone doing their job and doing it fast and effectively, now because everyone did that, because the Council finished the job today, we’ll be able to reflect this change in the July property tax bill. So it’s right on time –

[Applause]

So it’ll start to help people right now.

The governor was focused from the beginning on getting this done and getting this done quickly. We knew that – from every experience all of us have had with Albany – that even common sense thing can sometimes get bogged down. What the governor said from the beginning – I remember the first conversation we had about it – he said we’re going to make this a priority and it’s got to move. And we went to – we were in Albany together – it was just 27 days ago, governor – 27 days ago – and you said, ‘I hear you, you need it for the July property tax bills – we’re going to make that happen.’ And that is an example of the way government is supposed to be.

And so I want to juxtapose this progress with everything that went on with the first year plus after the storm and I want this to be an example to people of the direction we’re now going in. Because all the different parts of government are now on the same page – that we have do things differently. And everyone agrees that we can’t ask the homeowners who have suffered – so many people dislocated – to keep waiting. So now, since January 1, I’m proud to say, that we have sent out 174 reimbursement checks to homeowners who have been waiting way too long.

[Applause]

Compared to zero on January 1, 174 have gone out now. Compared to zero on January 1, there’s now 36 construction starts for homes that people will be able to live in soon.

[Applause]

And hundreds of more homes are in the design process. And we are going to keep our commitment that there will be 500 construction starts.

[Boat horn]

He’s saluting us. Thank you.

[Laughter]

Five hundred construction starts by Labor Day and 500 reimbursement checks in the hands of the people, who have been waiting for a long, long, time. That will show people that every level of government is working for them.

So things are working – and every one of us is going to push each other to keep going farther.

Now, reading appropriately from my script, I want to say that, literally today’s victory – today’s victory would not have been possible, if it weren’t for the governor making it a priority. And I’ve known the governor now almost 20 years. When he focuses, things happen. And he has been very clear that homeowners who have been waiting should not wait any longer – and he’s been with us there every step of the way and people are going to feel the benefit of his leadership. It’s going to make a real positive difference in their lives and that’s what we all came here to do. It’s my honor to introduce the Governor of the State of New York Andrew Cuomo.

[BREAK]

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Any on topic questions on the off chance?

Mayor: Oh be hopeful. On topic.

Question: [inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: Well, both the mayor and I are a little partial to HUD and HUD’s jurisdiction. We think HUD is a great agency, made better during the Clinton administration. Made markedly better, wouldn’t you say?

Mayor: Markedly.

Governor Cuomo: Markedly. Markedly better during the Clinton administration. FEMA at one time was part of HUD, historically. And FEMA was made a separate agency because their job is literally the emergency response. And HUD is the rebuilding agency. It’s a federal appropriation, so it’s a federal agency. And I think HUD does a good job. From a local government point of view, from a state government point of view, do you always object to the bureaucracy of the other governments? Sure you do. And that’s sort of human nature. But I think they did a very good job. I never complain about the bureaucracy of the city, I want you to know.

Mayor: Good.

Governor Cuomo: Never.

Mayor: We don’t have any.

Question: [Inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: You know people who went through this Marcia, just – I mean imagine going through this storm – the pain, the fear, and then it takes months to rebuild, you’re displaced, you’re trying to get assistance. You’re talking to a lot of agencies, you’re filling out a lot of forms. And then once all the construction is done, the government comes and says, ‘Oh by the way, now that you improved your home, we’re going to increase your taxes because you changed your home.’ I mean, it is infuriating. I mean think – it really is infuriating. I haven’t changed my home, I repaired my home because a storm hit my home and now you’re going to penalize me and raise my taxes when I just went through this financially very difficult period? So that’s what would have happened if the mayor didn’t say, ‘This would be unfair. It would be unjust.’ And came to Albany to make the case for the law. As you heard, I think the mayor was exactly right. And it would’ve added insult to injury. And I think this is the exact right outcome.

Mayor: I agree with all of that, and I want to tell you, to make matters even worse, these struggling homeowners had to build back their homes without the kind of help they deserved from the city. And let’s be honest about it, they had everything thrown at them. Their lives were turned upside down. And then they had to struggle, with their own resources, to cobble together a way to build back their home. We all should say thank you that you were strong enough to do that. But instead, the law would’ve forced us to increase their taxes, so double jeopardy. You got hit by a hurricane, now you get hit by a tax increase. Absolutely unacceptable. I give the governor a lot of credit, again, for the speed with which he took on this issue. Because we needed to get the help to people right away. And in the end, this is part of a bigger series of changes we have to make so that the people who suffered can see consistently that the city, the state, the federal government are doing everything in their power, and quickly, to get help to them.

[Inaudible]

Mayor: Absolutely, I’ll make it very simple and quick. Look, we’ve turned the whole Build it Back process on its head in the sense that we had a slow, bureaucratic, ineffective process with the wrong personnel in the wrong places. And with Amy Peterson’s leadership, we now have a lot of personnel on the ground in each of the affected areas, working with homeowners, speeding the process. We had a previous process where there were no goals stated publically. We’ve now said 500 construction starts by Labor Day, 500 reimbursement checks by Labor Day. And that progress is happening very, very visibly. And right now the answer is yes. When we’re talking to a homeowner who went through hell with Sandy, our answer is yes, we’re going to get something done for you. Whereas in the past, the answer was wait and wait and wait. We don’t accept that anymore.

[Applause]

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: You mean a time frame? I’ll just jump in and say this is for – as with everything with taxation – this is for the next year and then we’re going to look again and see where we go from there. But right now the most important thing is to get relief in the hands of folks who would have been subject to this double jeopardy otherwise.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I’ll look to my folks on the history. I think this is the first time it’s changing, so obviously they – look I – first of all it’s now been just over a year and a half. So for most people they only were able to rebuild pretty recently. So the real numbers are starting to happen now. But until this change was made by the state, yeah, anyone who was in that situation who would have been fully rebuilt would have been hit with a higher number. But the real progress most people have experienced has only been recently, and so we’re getting them thankfully just in time with the new tax bills.

Question: [Inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: All right it’s a good question. We are changing it basically across the state for these types of emergency situations. But we do it on a case by case basis. These are acts of extreme weather. Primarily they’re emergencies. They are nobody’s fault. And we are doing it on a case by case determination. The basic rule is, if your house is improved and your house is worth more money because of the improvements, the tax law is saying you should pay a higher amount of taxes because your house is more valuable, which is true. And these are – these are the exceptions to that rule. But it’s on a case by case basis.  Okay?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I think in the end – first of all, as was referenced earlier with even the folks who have spoken today, we don’t have to agree on everything to still believe that we’re doing a lot of great work together. And in a clear majority of cases, we are on the same page and we want to go in the same direction. So what I’ve said publically – and I’ve said it to my friends at the WFP – is this governor is taking us in the direction that I believe in, and that I think is consistent with a progressive philosophy. And I said it when I nominated the governor at the Democratic convention. Look at the results. I am always more interested in results than verbiage. If you look at the results – if you look at marriage equality, if you look at gun control, if you look at affordable housing – time and time again across the state, the kind of changes that I believe in and that we needed. If you look at government functioning better for people, functioning better for the taxpayer. There’s so many examples in the governor’s time in office of real improvements that not only fit my philosophy, but got real things done for people. I have to also say on the part of New York City, we had a very substantial legislative agenda. We wanted to get pre-K done. We wanted to get HIV/AIDS rent cape done. We wanted to get a homelessness prevention program started again, an issue the governor and I worked on long ago together and continue to work on. We wanted to get speed cameras for our Vision Zero plan. We wanted to get property tax relief for victims of Sandy. And all of those things happened. So from my perspective, New York City and the progressive agenda that we’re pursuing are being very well served right now and supported by this governor. So that’s the argument I’ve made. And I think that’s a pretty substantial argument and I hope the WFP agrees.

Question: [inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: Well, the terms of our argument – you have to remember, I accepted the endorsement of the Working Families Party four years ago. They endorsed the platform that I was running on four years ago, right? So there were no surprises here. The – also there’s no – as the mayor said – there’s no doubt that – it’s very rare that any political party agrees with every position that an elected official holds. If that’s true, and there was total agreement, somebody’s not thinking enough.

Number two, as Governor, it’s not just what you believe is what you can do. There’s something called the legislature. It’s two houses – it’s the assembly and the senate. And they have their own opinion of what should be done. So the actual product often winds up very different as a compromise, especially when you have Democrats in one house, Republicans in the other.

So the Working Families Party will make their own decision, determination. I’m very proud of the record that I have. I think we have progressive accomplishments in this state that resonated across the nation. And I believe that’s undeniable.

Question: [inaudible]

Cuomo: Maybe. Maybe. The – I’ve been very clear, because I wanted – I worked with this legislature, most of them for four years, all of them for two years. We’ve had, by and large, a very successful record on behalf of the state. I said over a month ago – because I wanted – the political season was coming and I wanted everyone to know where I was coming from – that when it comes to the state senate, the state senate is governed by something called a coalition. It’s a Democratic-Republican coalition. And the point of the coalition was that, A, they would restore functionality to the senate – and the senate has functioned well – four on-time budgets we’ve had passed. That hadn’t happened in 40 years. So the senate functioned well, but the coalition also said we would get “progressive” things done. About a month ago I said the progressive items that we needed to tackle this year was the DREAM Act, was what’s called the Women’s Equality Agenda – ten point agenda which includes protecting a woman’s right to choose, and public financing. A few weeks ago, it became clear that they were not in a position to pass the DREAM Act or protect a woman’s right to choose. So it basically came down to passing public finance. And I said, clearly, if public finance is not passed by the end of the session, I will consider the coalition a failure. And then we’ll enter a period of time, a political season, where everyone makes their case to the people. And I intended to go to the people and tell them what I thought, which was the coalition failed to deliver on important progressive items. And if public finance is not passed by the end of the session, which is late June, I would consider it a failure. And I would give my opinion to the people of the state.

Question: [inaudible] WFP [inaudible]

Cuomo: Well, I think the – they have a platform. I support the majority of items in their platform, surely. But it’s about support for their positions.

Question: [inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: Well, Erica, we had had very positive conversations on public financing. And if you asked that question two weeks ago, I would have said I was optimistic that public financing would pass. The conservative party has then put out very harsh statements saying that they don’t want public finance to pass. I think that has chastened the State Senate and the Republicans in the senate.

I find it highly ironic, by the way, that you had a Republican convention that overwhelmingly supports a comptroller candidate who is accepting public finance – supported by Republicans, supported by moderate Republicans, supported by conservatives. And they all support this comptroller candidate – the whole ticket supports the comptroller candidate. The comptroller is accepting public finance under a public finance demonstration program that the state passed. But their position is, ‘We’re against public finance.’ Well if you’re against public finance, you have to be against your comptroller who is accepting public finance if consistency or logic has anything to do with anything. But, so I consider it ironic.

But the conservative party came out against public finance and that has slowed conversations. I am pessimistic today that public finance will pass, but it’s not over. We have a few more weeks of the session and we’ll see what happens. But if they do not pass public finance, I will consider the coalition a failure. I have said that. I repeat that. And I will act accordingly.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Well, respectfully, I don’t think the question frames the reality accurately. Transparency – there’s a lot of pieces to transparency and what is most important to me is the public getting an honest explanation of what’s going on. Let me give you an example from just the last week or so. We looked at the 9-1-1 system. And we looked at the contract that was supposed to provide us with a new 9-1-1 system. And we decided that that contract was just plain not working. Now, in the past history of government, a lot of governments would have tried to downplay that, not be explicit about it, certainly not announce it. We explicitly went out and said we have come to the conclusion that this is not working, and we’re going to go on a different path and here’s how we’re going about it.

That is transparency of the highest order in my view – acknowledging mistakes, whether they’re our own or a previous administration’s, but most importantly saying something has to be done better. You know, the taxpayers not being treated fairly, the work is not being done right, we’re going to do things differently. I think there’s been a number of situations where I’ve been willing and my administration’s been welling to come clean and say we found something we don’t feel good about and we want to be open and honest about it. That’s one – I think in many ways one of the most important parts of transparency. I think another part of transparency is acknowledging the people who are trying to influence the governmental process, the lobbyists. And we said very clearly, which no previous mayor has done and which I do right now, we disclose all meetings with lobbyists if there’s any discussion of their subject matter. That’s something we do voluntarily, proactively, not because any law requires us to. And then all the other disclosures that we make, including disclosure about my schedule. Even if it’s a private event – of course there are private meetings in government. That’s by – that’s by definition necessary for government to work or any organization to work. And of course there’s private events that organizations hold, which is their right to do. But we disclose where I am – let me just finish – we disclose where I am. And if I give a speech, we put forward the prepared remarks for the speech. That to me is a lot of progress on transparency. And we’re very, very proud of that.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Marcia, again, that’s subjective. Respectfully, I think if you look at our batting average, we feel very good about the many, many ways –

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: That’s your choice. We look at a number of things when we have an opportunity to share information. We’re very proud of what we’ve done. Thank you.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: [inaudible] time with Officer Guerra’s family and my prayers are still with them. I’ve gotten to know them and [inaudible] the problem was, there was not a sufficient protocol for these situations. Commissioner Bratton – in an example of transparency – came out immediately after the fire, within days, and set upon doing the research. He was dissatisfied with the previous protocols and has instituted new protocols that are now in effect to protect our officers. So I think the story here, sadly, is we didn’t have the protocols we needed to have. Thank God we have them now. Thanks everyone.

Cuomo: Thank you.