REMARKS
Council Member Hanif's statement on Intro 215
0:13:05
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175 sec
Council Member Avilés reads a statement from Council Member Hanif explaining the purpose and potential impact of Intro 215, which proposes the creation of an Office of Translation and Interpretation.
- Intro 215 aims to address insufficient language access infrastructure and agency failures to meet Local Law 30 requirements
- The bill proposes consolidating existing language access teams into one streamlined entity
- The new office would directly fulfill agency requests for translation and interpretation, reducing reliance on external contracts
- The office would oversee Local Law 30 implementation and provide support for community interpreter initiatives
Alexa Avilés
0:13:05
Good afternoon.
0:13:06
I am count she is council member, Shahannah Hanif.
0:13:09
And she regrets that she is dealing with some health issues and unable to join in person today.
0:13:16
She thanks me and I thank her back for holding this important hearing and reading this statement on her behalf.
0:13:22
Of intro 215.
0:13:24
She'd also like to thank the 18 council members who have signed on to this bill, including co prime sponsors, council members, Dela Rosa, Marte, Brennan, Narcisse, Brewer Ng and Gutierrez.
0:13:37
As the committee report lays out, the city's insufficient language access infrastructure has caused city agencies to fail to meet the requirements for translation and inter mutation set out by local law 30 of 2017.
0:13:52
Due to a lack of sufficient intergovernmental resources, city agencies issue large language service contracts to out of state companies who produce subpar work at high costs.
0:14:04
The consequences are serious.
0:14:07
During the pandemic, the city was often unable to communicate time sensitive information to our immigrant communities regarding the vaccine, safety protocols, and changing policies.
0:14:20
Additionally, as the number of new arrivals has increased over the past 2 years, language access has been a consistent barrier to connecting folks to essential services.
0:14:31
Intro215 seeks to mitigate this issue by establishing an office of translation and interpretation within the mayor's office of immigrant affairs.
0:14:41
This would consolidate the ongoing and often overlapping work of the language access team, language services team, and office of language services coordinator into 1 streamlined and strengthened entity.
0:14:55
As this office scales up, it would directly fulfill more and more agency requests for a document for a document translation and live interpretation at events allowing agencies to wean off of external contracts.
0:15:12
This would increase the quality of the work decrease wasteful spending, and create jobs for New Yorkers with language skills.
0:15:20
The office would also play a parallel role to the state office of language access, overseeing local law 30 implementation and providing guidance and support a cross city agencies.
0:15:31
The office could additionally serve as the city's main support, entity for the community interpreter bank, and the 3 worker owned language service cooperatives for language languages of limited diffusion that this council has funded and is helping to launch.
0:15:49
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your the testimony from the administration and the public.
0:15:56
And with that, I turn it over to committee council to administer the oath.
