By Rich Bockmann
In the latest rebuke of the Bloomberg administration’s use of stop-and-frisk, the City Council Thursday voted to defeat the mayor’s veto on two NYPD-reform bills known as the Community Safety Act.
In late June, the Council passed, by a margin of 40-11, one part of the act that would create an inspector general to oversee the department.
A more controversial proposal that would expand the city’s anti-profiling law and open the department to bias-based lawsuits was passed 34-17, garnering the bare minimum number of votes needed to override the veto Bloomberg had pledged.
He made good on that promise a month after the Council’s initial approval when he took his red pen to the act, and said he would spend the following weeks trying to persuade Council members who voted in favor of the bills to reverse their stances.
In the meantime, a federal judge in early August ruled the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk to be unconstitutional and appointed an independent monitor to oversee the department as it implements a number of changes. The administration has filed notice it plans to appeal the ruling.
As the Council members gathered at City Hall Thursday and prepared to vote some took the chance to speak on the two bills.
City Councilman Eric Ulrich (D-Ozone Park), who opposed both measures, criticized the procedural tactic the council used to force the bills out of the Public Safety Commission, where chairman Peter Vallone (D-Astoria), another opponent, had held them up.
“But here we are, dangling by one vote hoping somebody didn’t show up or had a baby,” he said, drawing boos from a crowd gathered in the balcony. “That’s a joke.”
A few minutes later a visibly pregnant Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) received a showing of applause when she announced she would be supporting the two bills, both as a person of color and “unapologetic for being 8 1/2 months pregnant.”“I know [my son] is coming into a better New York City,” she said.
The inspector general bill passed 39-10, earning the support of Queens council members Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans), Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), Ferreras, Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills), Donovan Richards (D-Laurelton), Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) and Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica).
Council members Liz Crowley (D-Middle Village), James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), Peter Koo (D-Flushing) and Ulrich voted against the bill.
Koslowitz, the only borough Council member to split her vote, opposed the anti-profiling measure, which passed the council with a 34-15 margin.Councilmen Vallone and Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) were not in attendance for the vote.
Bloomberg released a statement saying he would ask the courts to step in and block the law expanding anti-profiling.
“Today’s vote is an example of election year politics at its very worst and political pandering at its most deadly,” the statement read. “The fact is our administration has zero tolerance for racial profiling – that’s why I signed a racial profiling ban into law in 2004. [The bill] is not aimed at stopping racial profiling, which is already against the law. It is aimed at winning votes.”
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
