PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Michele Birnbaum, Community Organizer
8:14:43
·
126 sec
Michele Birnbaum, a lifelong New Yorker and community organizer, expresses strong support for Intro 606, emphasizing the importance of accountability, responsibility, and liability in the legal system. She argues that Intro 606 is not mutually exclusive with other proposed bills and criticizes opposition arguments as "whataboutism" and paranoia.
- Birnbaum supports Intro 606 while acknowledging the value of other proposed bills like Intro 1131
- She stresses that creating infrastructure and enforcing its use are separate issues that can be addressed simultaneously
- Birnbaum dismisses concerns about police enforcement and comparisons to car accidents as irrelevant to the discussion of e-bike regulation
Michele Birnbaum
8:14:43
Yes.
8:14:44
Good evening, and thank you very much, chair Brooks Powers, and thank you very much, council member Holden, for all your work on this issue.
8:14:53
I'm a lifelong New Yorker, and I am, an organizer.
8:14:58
I've started many community organizations.
8:15:02
I have founded them, and I preside over them.
8:15:04
So I'm very, very active in my community.
8:15:07
I've I've started my discussions about electric bikes and vehicles many, many years ago.
8:15:14
I wanna say that I am in favor of intro 606, and that that bill is not mutually exclusive to any of the bills that are proposed.
8:15:26
Certainly, approaching this on the state level is worthwhile, and getting any additional information through 11:31 would be worthwhile.
8:15:34
But that does not preclude the passing of 606.
8:15:39
These are 2 different issues.
8:15:41
1 is creating an appropriate infrastructure, which most people seem to support, and the other is enforcing, the use of that in infrastructure.
8:15:51
The basis of our legal system is accountability, responsibility, liability.
8:16:00
To say that that's not going to make a difference in this case is to is to completely discount the whole basis of our legal system.
8:16:10
Of course, accountability makes a difference.
8:16:12
Of course, responsibility does, and, of course, liability does.
8:16:17
And that's what you heard when you heard the very sad stories that you heard today.
8:16:22
The same groups that, that push aside accountability and responsibility and liability would be mortified if that was to account for the behavior, of automobile drivers.
8:16:36
All I heard today was what about ism?
8:16:38
Well, what about cars?
8:16:39
They do that.
8:16:40
And I heard paranoia.
8:16:41
Well, what about the police?
8:16:42
They're gonna come and get us.
8:16:43
This is ridiculous.
8:16:45
The face is
UNKNOWN
8:16:46
Thank you.
8:16:46
Your time has expired.
Michele Birnbaum
8:16:48
Thank you very much.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
8:16:49
Thank you.
