NY Daily News – July 15, 2015
by Erin Durkin
The head of the firefighters union slapped City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito with a lawsuit Tuesday — charging her claims to promote open government are a “farce.”
Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, charged the Council broke the Freedom of Information Law in connection with a debate over disability pensions for firefighters and cops.
“Melissa Mark-Viverito decided unilaterally to stop us from having a debate,” Cassidy said. “She can disagree with us or even vote against us, but she does not have the right to stop a debate.”
The UFA was pushing a proposal to give firefighters who are seriously injured and retire on disability 75% of their salary, restoring benefits for newly hired officers that were taken away in 2009.
The Council had no power to alter the disability statute on its own, but Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens) sponsored a resolution to get the state to make such a change.
But backers charge that despite the support of a veto-proof majority of Council members, Crowley’s resolution did not get a hearing within 30 days as the Council’s rules require.
Council staffers claimed Crowley couldn’t force a hearing because a different Council member had called dibs on sponsoring the proposal.
The Council denied the UFA’s FOIL request to find out who that pol was, prompting the lawsuit.
After Mayor de Blasio introduced his own, less generous disability plan, both his proposal and Crowley’s ultimately got a hearing at the end of May. In a last-minute vote in June, the Council backed an updated version of the mayor’s plan.
The final offer made by the mayor, which Mark-Viverito backed, would have given service members hired after 2009 75% of their salary if they qualify for Social Security disability, and 50% if they don’t. Gov. Cuomo backed the more generous union proposal, which would offer 75% to everyone.
All the proposals died in Albany.
The union says the issue is crucial because under current rules, young firefighters hurt on the job could end up living on as little as $27 a day.
Mark-Viverito took over the speakership vowing to make the Council more democratic and passed a series of rules reforms making it easier for bills to move through the body.
“Her and her leadership team…talk about transparency, talk about good government,” Cassidy said. “I think it’s a farce.”
“When they got in they said we’re going to run things differently. The reality seems to be they’ll run it differently if they agree with you on an issue. If they disagree, they’re going to stop and stifle debate,” he said.
The Council said the freedom of information denial was proper because attorney-client privilege in their view applies to communications between Councilmembers and Council legal staff.
“Last year, the Council passed widely praised rules reforms which have made the body more open and transparent than it has ever been, and this is just part of the administrative proceedings for FOIL requests,” said spokesman Eric Koch. “We take FOIL very seriously and are confident the determinations made were correct in the letter and the spirit of the law.”
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