REMARKS
Shahana Hanif explains her vote on the NYC budget
1:02:17
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127 sec
Council Member Shahana Hanif votes no on the budget, expressing gratitude for the council's efforts to limit cuts but criticizing Mayor Adams' choices. She highlights victories in library services, cultural sector funding, and housing, but objects to cuts in education, parks, and CUNY while criticizing increased NYPD funding.
- Praises $2 billion boost in capital funding for housing
- Criticizes $150 million cut to 3-K program and $78 million cut to CUNY
- Objects to $23 million cut to parks and increased funding for NYPD projects
Shahana Hanif
1:02:17
I vote no.
1:02:18
I do so with deep gratitude for the work that this council has done over these past months.
1:02:22
Am proud to be a part of this council team that was able to limit some of the administration's most egregious cuts, thanks to the leadership of speaker Adrian Adams.
1:02:32
The return of 7 day service for libraries, full restorations to our cultural sector, and the $25, 000, 000 for Promise NYC are big victories.
1:02:40
That would not have been won without the council's tenacity.
1:02:43
I also want to celebrate that the council on the progressive caucus secured a $2, 000, 000, 000 boost in capital funding for housing, which will help us emerge out of the housing crisis.
1:02:53
However, mayor Eric Adams has forced through a budget that continues to decimate our educational system from baby cradle to graduation tassel.
1:03:01
His $150, 000, 000 cut to 3 k abandons.
1:03:05
The promise of universality and means that some families in my district won't get seats that work for them.
1:03:11
He has failed to invest in public schools in my district, causing teachers to be ex assessed in class sizes to rise, and he has cut CUNY by $78, 000, 000, depriving this generation of students of the resources that were available to me when I attended Brooklyn College.
1:03:26
We are also seeing a $23, 000, 000 cut to parks, which will result in less frequent trash pickup a lower level of landscape maintenance, and even more limited access to bathrooms.
1:03:36
At the same time, mayor Adams is funneling money into his NYPD pet project that do not work towards real community safety, including the COP CITY Multiagency Training Center, the 86 member PR team, the teenage school police cadet program, and the strategic response group.
1:03:52
A budget is about choices and mayor Adams has made the wrong ones.
1:03:56
Ultimately, this is a restoration budget that prevents funding for essential services from going bad to worse.
1:04:02
But New Yorkers deserve proactive investments that strengthen the resources their families need.
1:04:08
I cannot sign off on a budget that despite the council's best efforts continues us down mayor Adams' path of austerity.
1:04:16
I vote I on all with the exceptions of M42 and M43 and accompanying resolutions on which I vote no.