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The BenCen Fall Events Calendar

October 3, 2019 / Michael Frank / 0 Comments

A look at upcoming events hosted by the BenCen

A Conversation with Congressman Antonio Delgado

October 10, 2019, 5:30-6:30 pm

Student Union Multipurpose Room, SUNY New Paltz Campus

The Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives is pleased to welcome to our college Congress member Antonio Delgado, member of the U.S. House of Representatives for New York’s 19th Congressional District. Congressman Delgado will be interviewed by KT Tobin, associate director of The Benjamin Center.

The focus of this public conversation will be on the opportunities and challenges that have presented themselves during Congressman Delgado’s early experience in Congress and his priorities going forward. We expect a full and frank discussion and will include time for questions from the audience.

This event is free and open to the public. More information.

New Paltz One Book

November 3^rd-9th

Join us for a week of programming centered around Eli Saslow’s book, Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist. All events are free and open to the public.

Saslow is a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Washington Post, and Rising Out of Hatred has been widely praised by critics nationwide. The New York Times said, “This is a double portrait: of a worse America, and of a better one. Neither of them has yet come to pass, but each of them might. Thanks to reporting that is both truthful and humane, we see in one young man’s decision a guide to the choices that face a generation and a country.”

One Book events will be held on the SUNY New Paltz campus, at Inquiring Minds Bookstore on Church Street, at the Elting Memorial Library on Main Street, as well as other locations throughout the Village of New Paltz. There are a limited number of reservations available to see the author speak on Tuesday, November 5, at 2pm. Details on how to do that, as well as a listing of all events, can be found here.

Parking: Cars in Communities

November 13^th, 8-11 am, College Terrace, SUNY New Paltz Campus

This panel discussion will focus on the development of new planning approaches to guide the use of cars in our small cities, towns, and villages. In an era of rapid technological change and new thinking about the potential impacts of evolving transportation options, the impacts on community development will be discussed. Panelist will include city planners and transportation engineers who are pursuing innovative solutions in Mid-Hudson communities.

There will be ample time for audience Q & A after the panel presentations.

Gary King Lecture Series

March 12, 2020, 6-7:30 pm (Location TBD)

Gaining Voice: The Causes and Consequences of Black Representation in the American States

Guest: Dr. Christopher J. Clark, Gary King Lecturer in Applied Social Science

Christopher J. Clark, Associate Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill, focuses on race and electoral representation in the United States and state politics and policy. Most of his research focuses on black electoral representation, and he is especially interested in the creation and influence of black political organizations such as state legislative black caucuses.

The annual Gary King Visiting Lecturer in Applied Social Research is underwritten by New Paltz alumnus Gary King ’80 (Political Science), the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor at Harvard University and the director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

This event is free and open to the public.

PCBs, Lyme Disease and Honeybees

June 4, 2019 / Michael Frank / 0 Comments

The world’s not a happy place these days but there is a temptation to think that at least some of what’s happening nationally — e.g. who gets what big job in Washington — won’t much impact your daily life. Wrong, for sure, when it comes to the air you breathe and the water you drink.

Look no further than Newburgh, New York last month.

In 2016 it was discovered that Washington Lake, a major source of water for City of Newburgh residents, was contaminated with PFOAs from nearby Stewart Air National Guard Base. These chemicals, used as fire retardants, have been linked to the proliferation of kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol and ulcerative colitis, among other diseases. Then just a few weeks ago, the City was again threatened by the use of a chemical foam used at the airport.

Exactly two days after the latest news of contamination, The New York Times reported that the EPA wants to downplay the risk of this class of chemical in drinking water under pressure from the Defense Department. Prior to the EPA’s revision, the agency had suggested those responsible for proliferation would need to take immediate action. But proposed revisions would let the agency drag its feet on cleanup or avoid remediation.

These events and others like them across the state and country make the Benjamin Center’s latest discussion brief, Hudson River PCBs: What the GE Clean-Up Brings to Life, by Simon Litten, more than a powerful history lesson.

Litten shows that the extraordinarily costly, time-consuming, and ultimately equivocal cleanup of PCBs from the Hudson River is at least in part the result of even well-meaning researchers fumbling for decades about how to study the impact of toxins already released into the environment. Litten says “prevention would be far better, and far cheaper than cleanup.” Put differently, the broadly applicable general lesson is that pretending a problem doesn’t exist Continue reading

Politicians are Dodging the Hard Part

April 4, 2019 / Michael Frank / 0 Comments

Dr. Gerald Benjamin of the Benjamin Center recently contributed to a spirited discussion with City & State, on how and why New York’s all-Democratic legislature and executive appointed commissions on public financing of elections, congestion pricing for commuters to/from New York City, and legislative pay.

Benjamin characterized these commissions as legislators shirking responsibility and accountability to voters, “And not even requiring legislative action on specifics.” He dubbed these bodies “unconstitutional delegations of legislative authority. ” Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, also sided with Benjamin, saying, “We call them lawmakers for a reason – they make laws. The normal legislative process should take precedence over commissions/panels. Most other states – like Texas and California – have active committees, where legislation is shaped and developed out in the open, with input from many different stakeholders, including members of the public at official hearings and committee meetings. We need a real process with hearings and public input, that ultimately delivers well crafted bills.”

This discussion is lively and is worth a read at City & State. Above all, the key question revolves around accountability. We elect representatives to hear from experts, but also to weigh policy in the open, as Lerner points out. Are commissions allowing your recently re-elected or just-elected senator or assembly member to pretend they’re acting, when they’re actually avoiding hard choices?

Six Things You Need to Know About New York’s Blue Wave

November 9, 2018 / Michael Frank / 1 Comment

Dr. Gerald Benjamin of the Benjamin Center has written or edited more than a dozen books on the workings of New York State government and politics. In light of historic changes in the balance of power in New York State on Tuesday, it seemed all-too-obvious to get Benjamin’s quick take on what has happened and what it means for New York’s voters.

Next Wednesday, November 15th, Benjamin will co-lead a conversation at the State Academy for Public Administration in Albany on this topic. But ahead of that event here’s Benjamin’s framing.

The Most Important, Least-Discussed “Win” for Democrats

Benjamin said the statewide majority in the Senate, retention of the Governorship by Cuomo, and the firm grip on the Assembly is a precursor to retaining control of all three branches in 2020 and controlling redistricting. “We had a constitutional amendment to mitigate partisanship and redistricting. But the final say remains with legislators.” Consequently, he said, we can be sure that Democratic control will be cemented in both houses, and congressional districts will be redesigned to favor them.

However, speaking on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show Wednesday, Senators Michael Gianaris and Liz Krueger said they’re not happy with the redistricting amendment. “It was really nothing more than an awful political outcome,” Gianaris said. “The Republicans made sure that they ingrained an unfair process in the state Constitution.” Kreuger pointed out that, given the state’s party alignment, Democrats would still secure their majorities without the level of gerrymandering that exists today. “You can do redistricting independently and fairly and you’re still going to end up with more Democratic Senate seats because the gerrymandering has been so unfair for so many decades.”

How many decades?

The Benjamin Center Update

November 1, 2018 / Michael Frank / 0 Comments

An ongoing look at our research, events, and news coverage by and about our scholarship.

Calendar

November 6th
The Benjamin Center’s associate director, K.T. Tobin, will be a guest of Radio Kingston talking about Sam Sinyangwe’s studies of police violence against African American communities. This will be ahead of Sinyangwe’s visit to the SUNY New Paltz campus (see next listing). Tobin will be on air at 4:30 PM and you can stream the station live on your computer or phone.

November 8th
Sam Sinyangwe will be a guest of the Benjamin Center for an event at SUNY New Paltz at the Lecture Center at 6 PM. Sinyangwe is a data scientist who works with communities of color to fight systemic racism through cutting-edge policies and strategies. He connected with fellow activists DeRay Mckesson, Johnetta Elzie and Brittany Packnett following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and together they founded Mapping Police Violence, a data-driven effort to quantify the impact of police violence in communities. Sinyangwe is also a co-founder of Campaign Zero, a platform for advancing reform proposals to end police violence. Along with writer Clint Smith, he also hosts “Pod Save the People,” one of the most popular news and politics podcasts in the U.S. This event is free and open to the public; click for more information.

November 14
After his series about the City of Poughkeepsie’s failure to follow its own plans for a successful economic, social, and business environment, and its unfair tax lien system that puts homeowners at risk of losing equity in properties seized by the city, the Benjamin Center’s senior research associate, Joshua Simons, will be part of a panel discussing a land banking system. The event, Understanding Poughkeepsie’s Tax Lien System and Opportunities for Land Banking, will include guests, Tarik Abdelazim, Associate Director of National Technical Assistance, Center for Community Progress, Jennifer Holmes, Assistant Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Madeline Fletcher, Executive Director, Newburgh Community Land Bank. It will be held at the Mid-Hudson Heritage Center, 317 Main St., Poughkeepsie, from 5:45 to 8:00 PM; click for more information.

BenCen in the News

City & State: Why Cuomo never had to debate Molinaro
Bloomberg: Molinaro has no Chance
White Plains Daily Voice: Westchester to use Benjamin Center Guidelines to save County Tax Dollars
The New York Post: New York School Testing’s Epic Failure
Gotham Gazette: The Attorney General’s Real Job
Wild Earth: Hopeful Signs for Kids Learning from Structured Outdoor Play

What You are Voting on in Tomorrow’s School Budget & Board Elections

Tomorrow, people across New York State will head to the polls. On the ballot? The election of school board members to govern local public school districts. And – very importantly – there will also be the chance to vote “yes” or “no” on the only budget directly put before the electorate, the one to support K12 public schools.

Think about this as you’re “pulling that lever”: the local share of school budgets, the part paid for by your property taxes, has been increasing over time because the state has been paying proportionally less towards the general fund, effectively pushing off a greater portion of the tab to you and your property tax paying neighbors.

Overall, too, we’re still under-funding our schools, with an impact that falls more heavily on schools in poorer districts where there are fewer local resources. Here is the trend over time in local, state, and federal funding, as a percentage of total revenue, for our Ulster County school districts:

Failing the Test

April 13, 2018 / Robin Jacobowitz / 4 Comments

by Fred Smith, retired administrative analyst with the New York City public school system, with Robin Jacobowitz, Director of Education Projects at the Benjamin Center

It’s that time of year again.

This week, approximately 1.2 million children in grades 3-8 sat for the annual New York State tests in English Language Arts (ELA). Math exams will be given in early May.

The State Education Department (SED) has been testing students in reading and math for decades. But in 2013, SED began administration of Common Core-aligned tests. In 2011, NCS Pearson, Inc. was awarded a five-year contract to develop these exams. Pearson received $38.8 million for its work.

From the outset, some parents and educators questioned the value and impact of Common Core-based testing. Parents and teaching professionals were concerned about the ambiguity and inappropriateness of the questions, the length of the assessment, the frustrating experiences English Language Learners and students with disabilities had with the exams, and the lack of transparency that thwarted scrutiny of the testing program. There was particular concern about the developmental appropriateness of the reading passages and items used to assess eight- and nine-year-old students in grades 3 and 4.

Initially, these complaints were dismissed by officials as unfounded, the scattered griping of overprotective parents or a sign of low expectations for children. But eventually the Education Department made some adjustments in its program – it shortened tests by one or two questions, removed time limits and, this year, testing will take place over four days instead of six.

Still, after several years of implementation, it is fair to investigate the quality of this ongoing program, which targets more than one million students each year and costs taxpayers millions of dollars. Student performance on these instruments is widely reported and commented on. We need to flip the accountability question and now ask, “How did the tests perform?” Continue reading

What We Lost When We Vetoed a Constitutional Convention

January 22, 2018 / Michael Frank / 0 Comments

Calling a state constitutional convention is New York’s long established method for fundamental, systematic governmental reform. Yet in a period of pandemic corruption and enormous anger at government, with demands for change from all across the political spectrum, New Yorkers rejected the convention option by a margin of 5-1 this past November. In essence, if 2016 was a year of great demand for change, the regret set in quickly afterward, and 2017 became a year, at least in New York, of holding fast to a system that people perceived to be less frightening than yet more change.

Peter Galie and Gerald Benjamin, co-authors with Christopher Bopst of New York’s Broken Constitution, and strong convention advocates, sat down a few weeks after the election for a post mortem. The reasons for the crushing defeat of the convention question, they thought, were both structural and political. Most voters didn’t even know there is a state constitution; they don’t distinguish between it and the revered national document, which most of them certainly don’t want to be touched in an era in which basic rights are threatened. New York has no initiative process; referenda are limited in use and unfamiliar to many as a way of making decisions. The wording of the convention question, mandated in the constitution for use every twenty years, requires that everything be on the table if a convention is called.

This scares those who have constitutionally guaranteed benefits or favored policies that they don’t want to risk.

Are Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore Our Fault?

November 20, 2017 / Michael Frank / 1 Comment

November continued an unabated, grim chronicle of sexual assaults perpetrated by powerful men against women in positions of relative weakness or outright dependence. It’s easy (and justified) to condemn the offenders, but does the society in some measure have itself to blame as well? Dr. Eve Waltermaurer of the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz has been studying violence in intimate relationships for twenty years. The results of her recent Views on Women (VOW) poll offers disquieting insights into the social context for these acts of sexual assault.

The VOW poll—supported by the Times Union’s Women@Work —randomly surveyed 1,050 New Yorkers across the state. Findings from VOW identify a far deeper societal struggle about rape and sexual assault than most of us realize, chiefly that we tend to blame the victims of these assaults, and not solely the offenders, according to Waltermaurer.

For instance, when asked if a woman dressing in provocative clothing contributes to her being raped, over 60 percent of men aged 18-35 believe it does. But it is not just men who hold these attitudes. Strikingly, Waltermaurer found that just under 45 percent of women in the same age bracket agree with this sentiment.

These disturbing poll responses, Waltermaurer says, are unfortunately part of a pattern we’ve been unable to break. And while we hear many young women speak out against these abuses and for women’s empowerment, Waltermaurer has found that younger women may actually subscribe to negative attitudes toward women who are victims of sexual violence more frequently than their older counterparts. “One reason older women more frequently reject the idea of sexual and domestic violence as ‘normal’ is that as they gain self-confidence over time they realize, ‘I don’t need to accept this.’ A younger woman, in terms of relationships, has not quite achieved this confidence.”

A chief problem is that even today, Waltermaurer asserts, we do not know how to talk about these issues, especially when sex is involved. Sex is shunned Continue reading

Elected Officials and Social Media Use: Should There be Rules?

November 15, 2017 / Michael Frank / 1 Comment

Social Media can make government better, more accessible, more transparent, more accountable, all good things. But when elected officials decide that government social media accounts are theirs to use as they please, we may be in very different territory. Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum reminded us of that this week.

In 2015 the Benjamin Center studied how local governments in the Mid-Hudson region use their websites and social media. We found that nearly 97 percent of the towns, villages, and cities of the region had some digital presence. At the time of the study 60 percent of local governments had a Facebook presence, but barely one fifth were on Twitter. (This was in the sleepy pre-Trump era of Twitter.) In general, we found that the more open governments are with constituents, the more they engender trust.

Even though our study was conducted barely two years ago, it came against a very different societal backdrop. President Obama was behind the push for government at all levels to communicate electronically with the goal of increasing trust and accountability. These days cities like Kingston and Poughkeepsie maintain fairly active Twitter accounts and post frequently. This seems appropriate: In our fast-paced era, when even Facebook seems too onerous to peruse, governments that can blast quick info to constituents (especially missives that can be read on a phone) are reaching people quickly and simply.

But what happens to the trust that openness engenders when the public official steps out of his or her governance role, and uses official social media platforms to advance personal views, or agendas?

Once Donald Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, sheriffs around the country have felt emboldened to use social media to express their own views, sometimes using government platforms as their bullhorn. The latest but hardly the most inflammatory missive came this past weekend when Ulster County Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum used both Facebook and Twitter to tell citizens to boycott the NFL because, he argued, players taking a knee during the national anthem were being unpatriotic.

If you were ever in combat and were the last person to pull up the zipper on a body bag of your fallen… https://t.co/R1YNHu79dT

— Ulster Co Sheriff (@UlsterCoSheriff) November 11, 2017

This isn’t nearly as disturbing as sheriffs in Oklahoma trying to thwart criminal justice reform through use of official social media communications. Continue reading

The BenCen Blog

Informing Public Discourse in the Hudson Valley and Across the State

Category: The Benjamin Center (page 1 of 4)

The BenCen Fall Events Calendar

PCBs, Lyme Disease and Honeybees

Politicians are Dodging the Hard Part

Six Things You Need to Know About New York’s Blue Wave

The Benjamin Center Update

What You are Voting on in Tomorrow’s School Budget & Board Elections

Failing the Test

What We Lost When We Vetoed a Constitutional Convention

Are Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore Our Fault?

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Category: The Benjamin Center (page 1 of 4)

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