Following the result of the 2008 Presidential Election, many  Americans are hoping for policy changes for disabled citizens and their families. Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s "Plan to Empower People with Disabilities" is one that we can expect will enhance the lives of those living and coping with disabilities on a daily basis. The most important component of this plan is the Community Choice Act, which will end the current institutional biases and instead provide disabled individuals and their families the opportunity to choose how and where their care is administered.

The significance of reform for disabled people is that now, many of the people I represent will receive adequate and appropriate care. All too often I see people of all ages come into my office who have been poorly treated, mis-diagnosed, and suffering unnecessarily. If the president elect keeps these promises, the hope is that the rights of the disabled will be ensured and protected.

Again, a fatality at a construction site that should have and could have been avoided if the safety regulations were followed. I agree with Edward Jerome, the area’s director of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, that there are specific regulations regarding "sloping and shoring a trench to prevent collapses." The rules are there, they must be followed. Furthermore, it demonstrates a failure to adhere to the mandates of the labor law of the state of New York.

Again we are reminded of the dangers involved in many of the City’s construction sites. Crane accidents, which are among the most deadly facing construction workers, are more often than not the result of negligence and non compliance with safety standards by those utilizing cranes around the city. Failure to make the work site safe leaves the construction companies and/or the City liable for damages, pain and suffering, and wrongful death.

Following the amount of deaths crossing over into the double digits this year alone, we certainly hope that elected officials in the City of New York take some initiative to improve the standards of safety for crane operation and construction sites.

 

Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the United States is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to members of the armed forces sustained while on active duty and not on furlough and resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces. The opinion is an extension of the English common-law concept of sovereign immunity.

The practical effect is that the Feres doctrine effectively bars service members from successfully collecting damages for personal injuries, whether or not they were suffered in the performance of their duties. It also bars families of service members from filing wrongful death or loss of consortium actions when a service member is killed or injured.

The full CBS News report can be seen below. CBS reported earlier this year that the “Carmelo Rodriguez Military Malpractice and Injustice Act” is being introduced into Congress by New York state representative Maurice Hinchey.

Although most public employees must file time sheets, work regular hours and meet other criteria to qualify as public employees, the comptroller’s office says elected and some appointed officials do not have to. As a result, hundreds of officials statewide are allowed to earn coveted pension credits without having to keep time sheets of the hours they actually worked in what essentially is an honor system.

-The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, will sign the new term limit bill on Monday, November 2:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has scheduled a Monday bill-signing ceremony for the law that gives officeholders the option of a third consecutive four-year term.

The bill narrowly passed the City Council last week after just three weeks of debate. Bloomberg pushed the law through the council because he wants to run for a third term. His critics say term limits changes should not be up to the council but should be decided by the voters.

-After warning AIG about using federal bailout money as rewards for executives, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has cautioned nine other banks about using government bailout payments as bonus money for executives, as it is illegal under state law.

In a letter sent to Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc, Morgan Stanley, State Street Corp, and Wells Fargo & Co, he also asked their boards to explain what mechanisms they have put in place to protect taxpayer money.

"Specifically, corporate expenditures and payments, made in the absence of fair consideration of undercapitalized firms, may well violate NY Debtor and Creditor Law 274, which deems such payments illegal fraudulent conveyances," Cuomo’s letter said.

The Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC) has issued its 2008 report cards grading state policies that allow farmers, homeowners, and small business owners who generate renewable energy to connect to the grid and receive credit for the electricity they produce, provisions known as net metering.  With net metering, when electric customers with wind or solar systems produce more energy than they use, their electric meters spin backward, providing them with a net gain.

“This year’s Freeing the Grid report has a number of bright spots that are particularly welcome given the declining economy, Americans’ desire for energy independence, and widespread concern about climate change,” said NNEC’s James Rose, a principal author of the report. “Chief among these is New York, singled out for praise in the report’s ‘Best Practices’ section for two new laws that vastly expand the ability of New Yorkers to net meter.”

Other states to take iniative on net metering laws along with New York include Arkansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont.

One consultant, Marie T. Baran, ran the board’s Long Island office until she quit two years ago and began selling advice to rail workers on how to navigate the system of which she had been a part. Other disability advisers are prominent former union leaders, including one who once represented labor on the board of the L.I.R.R.’s parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Government investigators are particularly interested in learning why L.I.R.R. retirees tend to use the same physicians, while citing the same ailments in numbers far out of line with other railroads. Investigators have issued dozens of subpoenas to consultants, doctors and retirees, among others.

Disability consultants are charging roughly $1,000 for the use of their services. Several of these consultants, as well as a few doctors, have been subpoenaed by the state attorney general regarding the investigation into the fraud.

His attorneys are scheduled to appear in a state court in Rochester this morning to appeal his convictions. The 46-year-old Phillips claims he entered his guilty pleas only because he got bad advice from a court-appointed lawyer.

-Anger is rising in New York City over affordable housing and the laws surrounding it. Many advocates for affordable housing believe the laws that deal with housing issues in New York are not properly followed or implemented.

The group outside the DHCE [Department of Housing and Community Renewal] on Tuesday wants a review of a law that allows landlords to raise rent after basic repairs and renovations, as they say it is being abused. They also take issue with what they describe as increasing harassment from their landlords in an effort to get them out of rent-stabilized apartments, and then increase rent.

“A housing law with too many loopholes and too few protections, a steady decline in the number of affordable housing units available citywide, and now a devastated economy, are about to create the most disastrous environment for New York City tenants in recent memory,” said Michelle O’Brien, Campaign Director of the New York Home Coalition.

-Lawrence Lessig, a champion of fair use copyright laws, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times entitled “Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix”. In the piece, Mr. Lessig cites mainstream media outlets who are requesting their copyrighted materials be pulled from political ads in what he deems to be censorship over political campaigns.

Last year, Fox News ordered John McCain to stop using a clip of himself at a Fox News-moderated debate. Last month, Warner Music Group demanded YouTube remove an amateur video attacking Barack Obama that included its music, while NBC asked the Obama campaign to pull an ad that included some NBC News video with Tom Brokaw and Keith Olbermann. No doubt, these corporations are simply trying to avoid controversy or embarrassment, but by claiming infringement, they are effectively censoring political speech.

Senator McCain has taken a lead in responding to this copyright extremism. In a letter addressed to YouTube last week, the McCain campaign rightly criticized the Web site’s decision to remove work that is “clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine” of copyright law and called upon YouTube to be more protective of political speech by conducting a more extensive review of material before it gets taken down.

Randy Mastro, who represents council members Bill de Blasio and Letitia James and served as a deputy mayor under Bloomberg’s predecessor Rudy Giuliani, argued it is a conflict for the council to vote to extend their own political careers.

"This case concerns the blatant violation of the City Charter’s conflicts laws that will necessarily result from the Council’s vote on such self-serving legislation," said the lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court.

According to a recent poll, 89 percent of New York City voters say that the vote belongs in their hands, and not in the hands of city council. Should the injunction to stop the vote fail, the 51 members of city council will vote on the law today.

UPDATE: City council voted 29-22 in favor of extending term limits on Thursday evening. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had this to say shortly following their vote:

"Today, the majority of the City Council decided to give the people of New York a fuller choice in the November, 2009 election. I believe that was the right choice, and I want to thank Speaker Quinn for her leadership.

"Those of us who work on both sides of City Hall must now move forward with the important decisions that face us, particularly finding ways to soften the fallout from the economic downturn and balancing our budget as revenues decline. We have a lot of work to do together to get New York through these tough times."

As shocking as a story like this may initially appear to be, the reality is that these kinds of “freak accidents” occur in our city quite frequently. The simple fact that this building maintenance worker was inside a loading dock area and was able to fall out while reaching for a light is indicative of improper safety regulations.

From the investigations thus far, it is unclear exactly who was at fault here, but given my own experience with these kinds of accidents, it is typically due to a failure to adhere to the mandates of the labor law of the state of New York.