REPORT AN INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUE IN OUR DISTRICT!

This year Congressman Espaillat brought home nearly $8 billion from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to fund the Second Avenue Subway expansion, rebuild our city’s crumbling bridges, repave our decades-old roads, and so much more to make transit routes safer and more accessible for all New Yorkers – but he needs our help to monitor and ensure infrastructure service requests and outages are made public and repairs are handled as timely as possible.

This interactive tool developed by his office allows residents to pin a location on the leftward map or type in a specific address to report any infrastructure issues that need immediate attention in your neighborhood and across New York’s 13th congressional district. The more issues or ongoing projects that you report, the more information he will have to help redirect federal funding to these projects.

https://espaillat.house.gov/infrastructure

Manhattan DA Bragg Clarifies

In the last month, I have seen, first-hand, your tireless, great work on behalf of New Yorkers. And I
have received valuable feedback on the January 3rd Memorandum.

The January 3rd Memorandum was intended to provide ADAs with a framework for how to approach
cases in the best interest of safety and justice. Our collective experience, however, has been that the
Memorandum has been a source of confusion, rather than clarity.

As I emphasized in my remarks to the office, you were hired for your keen judgment, and I want you
to use that judgment – and experience – in every case. Therefore, I am issuing this letter to memorialize the key elements that I conveyed in our office-wide meeting on January 20:

1) The position of this Office on a case will be presented exclusively by the Assistant who appears
on the case. The January 3 Memorandum provided guidance internal to this Office and it has
been, and will continue to be, supplemented and superseded through oral and written guidance,
including in this letter. The January 3rd Memorandum did not create any rights, substantive or
procedural, in favor of any person, organization, or party, nor did it place any limitations on the
lawful prosecutorial prerogatives or discretion of the District Attorney and his Assistants.

2) A commercial robbery with a gun will be charged as a felony, whether or not the gun is operable,
loaded, or a realistic imitation. A commercial robbery at knifepoint, or by other weapon that
creates a risk of physical harm, will be charged as a felony. In retail thefts that do not involve a
risk of physical harm, the Office will continue to assess the charges based on all of the
aggravating and mitigating circumstances presented.

3) Gun possession cases are a key part of our plan for public safety. People walking the streets with
guns will be prosecuted and held accountable. The default in gun cases is a felony prosecution.
We also will use gun possession cases as an opportunity to trace the sources of illegal guns and
build cases against gun traffickers.

4) Violence against police officers will not be tolerated. We will prosecute any person who harms
or attempts to harm a police officer.

Marcus Garvey Park Dog Run, Reviewed

Your feedback for Gothamist’s review of NYC dog runs made it onto their site:

The dog run in Manhattan that got the most mixed reviews was Marcus Garvey Dog Run, located near Madison Avenue and E. 120th Street. One reader said it was not a very good space for smaller dogs in particular.

“There is a small, very long and thin area for small dogs with nothing there but a broken bench; it’s an afterthought, and sitting in it would feel like an insult. In both areas, the ground is covered by dirt over which large (about 3 inches) bits of wood are spread. Maybe that’s fine for large dogs, but small dogs are soon filthy after running around in that muck. I can’t understand a way to go there with a small dog without needing to bathe the dog immediately after visiting, and since it’s not good to bathe dogs too frequently, how can small dogs use that dog run for daily exercise?”