PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by James Inniss, Public Safety Organizer from New York Communities for Change
10:04:07
·
128 sec
James Inniss, representing New York Communities for Change, strongly opposes Randy Mastro's nomination as Corporation Counsel, citing Mastro's controversial legal career and its potential impact on low-income communities.
- Inniss criticizes Mastro's representation of Chevron against indigenous communities in Ecuador and his role in the extended house arrest of attorney Steven Donziger.
- He highlights Mastro's lawsuit against Local Law 97 (NYC's climate law) and his efforts to overturn tenant protection acts.
- Inniss also mentions Mastro's involvement in cases against the Working Families Party, congestion pricing, and other issues affecting New York City residents.
James Inniss
10:04:07
Hello.
10:04:07
My name is James Ennis.
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I run the public safety work at New York Communities with Change.
10:04:11
We're an organization that represents and organizes people of low income in in color communities from the Bronx, the Brooklyn, to homozygous and queens.
10:04:20
I just wanna say we reject the nomination of this gentleman today.
10:04:25
We see his nomination or if he was confirmed as the same as being a bloodthirsty fox guarding a head house.
10:04:31
A lot's been said about the gentleman today.
10:04:33
I'm not gonna go get into all of it, but I do have to, for my members, speak to a couple of the low lights of his career.
10:04:40
Right?
10:04:41
The gentleman abused the legal system on behalf of Chevron to prosecute Stephen Darzier, who successfully represented the indigenous communities of Ecuador and got $1,000,000,000 settlement.
10:04:52
Stephen had to spend 995 days on house arrest because of the legal abuses this gentleman did against him in the courts.
10:04:59
This gentleman also is suing the city to overthrow our landmark climate and jobs law, local law 97, And he's alleged he's assumed he's saying that the law is superseded by state law.
10:05:12
So his argument is state law supersedes all municipality law on climate, which is an absurd statement in itself.
10:05:18
And these are things that affect us.
10:05:20
My my members, I just wanna point out.
10:05:23
Mister Maestro was behind the long running abusive investigation into the New York State working families party that made it harder for them to keep their ballot line.
10:05:30
The gentleman is also Chris Christie and Phil Murphy's top lawyer to stop congesting pricing here in New York city.
10:05:37
He is also James Dolan's lawyer, as we all heard, keeping other lawyers out of New York out of Madison Square Garden.
10:05:43
And these are all the people or the clients he had while he was broken, newly married, leaving public service.
10:05:49
I just wanna point that out.
10:05:51
We've had a lot about the gentleman's housing and his representation of the rent stabilization arm association.
10:05:58
I'm just gonna add as recently as May of this year, he filed a writ with the Supreme Court to over to overthrow New York's housing of stability and tenant protections acts.
10:06:08
We're in the middle of a housing crisis.
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Our members find this totally unacceptable.
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And with that, I'll you and the rest of my time.
10:06:14
Have a good one.