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The Village Independent Democrats held their monthly general membership meeting at Greenwich House on Thursday, November 8, 2007. At the meeting New York State Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick gave her Albany report. Assemblymember Glick, of the 66th assembly district, is the chair of the committee on higher education.

Before she gave her Albany report however, she shared with us her opinion on the office of New York City mayor. She feels that our current mayor is attempting to, with some minor success so far, create an elitist city. New Yorkers have a high opinion of Mayor Bloomberg, she says, because so far things seem to work. But they could be working better and Assemblymember Glick underscored the importance of electing a Democrat mayor in 2009. She stated that Democrats will have to make a few key points if they want to have a chance in winning the mayor’s office:

• 11,000 units of affordable housing in New York City have been sold off while Bloomberg has been mayor.
• Bloomberg turned the Board of Education into a city agency called the Department of Education. (I don’t know what the difference is between a board and a department, but I have a sneaky suspicion that communities had more control over their public schools with the board system.) The Department of Education’s report card system, which evaluates school performance on a year-to-year basis, punishes schools that do well because it does not consider performance over a span of years.
• Creating an incentive for showing up and doing well on tests is a good idea, but giving them cash for showing up and doing well on tests is a horrible idea. This reinforces failure. Furthermore, the reward should be related to education.
• Construction congestion: the Department of Buildings is not holding contractors responsible for violations. Violations are looked upon as part of a “cost of doing business.” There have been more building collapses and damages to adjacent properties during Bloomberg’s mayoralty to date than there were under Giuliani.
• There does not seem to be much planning when it comes to city planning. We are losing space for start-ups, small businesses, and affordable housing.

In her Albany report Assemblymember Glick talked about the MTA’s proposed fare increase. (The MTA is a state agency.) She thinks it is a bad idea, she considers it a tax on working New Yorkers, and if it is in fact a tax then we should at least wait until the governor comes out with his state budget in a few months before considering fare increases.

Then she talked about higher education, the committee she chairs. The committee is mostly about CUNY/SUNY, but private universities are disproportionately represented among members. The committee wants to raise tuition. She opposes increases in tuition without trying seeing the state budget first and trying to seek out other sources of funding. The committee also wants to implement a differential tuition pricing scheme in public schools. Assemblymember Glick is flat out against differential tuition in the SUNY system.