Latest news with #ShekarKrishnan
CBS News
24-07-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Elected officials take sides in Queens church property sale controversy
A small plot of land looms large in Jackson Heights, Queens. When neighbors got word of the imminent sale of a piece of St. Mark's Episcopal Church property, they rallied against new development at the site. "We need the park space," Brandon Munoz said. Behind a fence on 81st Street, the lot adjoins the church and is now used for a daycare. "My concern is if the church is thinking about developing on this land, it's taking what little space there is for our children," Alex Florez said. Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas has joined the voices pushing St. Mark's to keep the space green. "Our neighborhood is park-starved," she said. "We don't need a massive development in the middle of a historic district." City Councilmember and Parks chair Shekar Krishnan is looking to negotiate with the diocese to sell the land, not to a private developer, but to the Parks Department for a pocket park. "The speaker of the City Council and I have both allocated together $4 million in the budget in June towards the eventual purchase of the St. Mark's play yard," he said. "But we have not even been able to secure a meeting with the church leadership." Krishnan says the church is neglecting the needs of its community by refusing to come to the table. Bishop Lawrence Provenzano sees it differently. "I think it's a disingenuous representation of what has happened," he said. "We're not being greedy at all. What's actually happening here is St. Mark's actually needs the resources to do ministry." He says the space could become apartments or an outpatient clinic, but the remainder of the church grounds will remain open. "The fruits of all of this would be that St. Mark's would be both a good neighbor and an asset in the community," he said. Though the city may offer market rate for the lot, he says, a deal would take too long. "It's not resulted in there being a real offer, and clearly, we're having to move in other directions," he said. But Krishnan says the city is expediting the process. "It normally takes years. We have brought it down to months," he said. For those in favor of a park, the stalemate is disheartening. "It is frustrating because we have this opportunity in this neighborhood that's very rare," Munoz said. They say they will continue fighting for a neighborhood with green space for all. "It is just so compelling to think that we can preserve that for generations to come," Melissa Zavala said. You can email Elle with Queens story ideas by CLICKING HERE.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC Council passes $116B budget amid potential hits from Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill'
NEW YORK — The City Council approved the upcoming fiscal year's budget Monday in an unanimous vote, as the city faces funding threats and the likelihood of intensified immigration enforcement from President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill.' The election-year budget, at $115.9 billion, is the city's largest ever and was touted by councilmembers Monday as a way to 'Trump-proof' the city. 'This budget finally includes some things that we've been fighting for four years now, to make sure that New Yorkers are OK,' Speaker Adrienne Adams said at a press conference ahead of the vote. The NYC budget passage came as lawmakers in Washington, D.C., Monday debated Trump's proposed budget, which would increase spending on the president's immigration agenda, give tax breaks to wealthy households and corporations and make heavy cuts to health care and nutrition programs. 'We also made sure that, once again, we have been fiscally responsible to our communities, to our city, and making sure that we are Trump-proofing this city to the best of our ability,' Adams said. The city budget includes increased funding for immigration legal services, coming as Trump acts on his hard-line deportation agenda. 'On a day when Senate Republicans are passing a horrific budget bill that adds 10,000 ICE officers to the federal government, further criminalizing immigrants across America, we in New York City are protecting our immigrant communities," Councilmember Shekar Krishnan said at the meeting Monday afternoon. While budget negotiations hit a sticking point over programs for immigrant legal services, the budget allocates $74.7 million for immigration programs. Mayor Eric Adams and the Council have frequently been at odds during budget negotiations in years past. This year, coming in an election year as the mayor seeks a second term, went by more smoothly. Although the two sides of City Hall clashed on some topics, with legal services for recent immigrants a sticking point, the budget has added funding for many areas the mayor has cut in prior years, including libraries and child care. 'This is, in my opinion, the easiest budget we had to pass, because we knew what we expected from each other and what we needed to deliver, and we were able to accomplish that,' Adams said at the announcement of a handshake deal on the budget on Friday evening. Budget watchdogs have warned the city is overspending instead of setting aside money for the city's reserves to protect from potential headwinds out of Washington, D.C. 'Instead of putting aside $3 billion to soften the first blows of federal cuts and protect against a future recession, the budget increases spending more than twice the rate of inflation and leaves future budget gaps of more than $9 billion, after accounting for underbudgeted expenses,' Citizens Budget Commission President Andrew Rein said in a statement Friday. But Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan pointed out that the city's reserves are at a record-high $8.45 billion, and said that, because of the Trump administration's threats to further destabilize vulnerable populations, it made sense to allocate more money to them now. 'We made a conscious decision that right now it is more important to pour money into the communities that need most,' Brannan said. 'We can't run the city on reserves.' ______
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC Council passes $116B budget amid potential hits from Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill'
NEW YORK — The City Council approved the upcoming fiscal year's budget Monday in an unanimous vote, as the city faces funding threats and the likelihood of intensified immigration enforcement from President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill.' The election-year budget, at $115.9 billion, is the city's largest ever and was touted by councilmembers Monday as a way to 'Trump-proof' the city. 'This budget finally includes some things that we've been fighting for four years now, to make sure that New Yorkers are OK,' Speaker Adrienne Adams said at a press conference ahead of the vote. The NYC budget passage came as lawmakers in Washington, D.C., Monday debated Trump's proposed budget, which would increase spending on the president's immigration agenda, give tax breaks to wealthy households and corporations and make heavy cuts to health care and nutrition programs. 'We also made sure that, once again, we have been fiscally responsible to our communities, to our city, and making sure that we are Trump-proofing this city to the best of our ability,' Adams said. The city budget includes increased funding for immigration legal services, coming as Trump acts on his hard-line deportation agenda. 'On a day when Senate Republicans are passing a horrific budget bill that adds 10,000 ICE officers to the federal government, further criminalizing immigrants across America, we in New York City are protecting our immigrant communities," Councilmember Shekar Krishnan said at the meeting Monday afternoon. While budget negotiations hit a sticking point over programs for immigrant legal services, the budget allocates $74.7 million for immigration programs. Mayor Eric Adams and the Council have frequently been at odds during budget negotiations in years past. This year, coming in an election year as the mayor seeks a second term, went by more smoothly. Although the two sides of City Hall clashed on some topics, with legal services for recent immigrants a sticking point, the budget has added funding for many areas the mayor has cut in prior years, including libraries and child care. 'This is, in my opinion, the easiest budget we had to pass, because we knew what we expected from each other and what we needed to deliver, and we were able to accomplish that,' Adams said at the announcement of a handshake deal on the budget on Friday evening. Budget watchdogs have warned the city is overspending instead of setting aside money for the city's reserves to protect from potential headwinds out of Washington, D.C. 'Instead of putting aside $3 billion to soften the first blows of federal cuts and protect against a future recession, the budget increases spending more than twice the rate of inflation and leaves future budget gaps of more than $9 billion, after accounting for underbudgeted expenses,' Citizens Budget Commission President Andrew Rein said in a statement Friday. But Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan pointed out that the city's reserves are at a record-high $8.45 billion, and said that, because of the Trump administration's threats to further destabilize vulnerable populations, it made sense to allocate more money to them now. 'We made a conscious decision that right now it is more important to pour money into the communities that need most,' Brannan said. 'We can't run the city on reserves.' ______
