Name | Rubén Cruz |
District | District 32 |
What is your plan for getting the city back to work, particularly in its hardest hit sectors? What kind of workforce development programs do you envision that would ensure access to communities of color and people with disabilities? | First things first. We need to be able to get to work safely. My plan is to significantly increase eco-friendly bus service throughout the city and adding routes to our "transportation desserts" that plague our communities of color and people with disabilities. People with disabilities in particular, face a nearly impossible barrier of stairs to climb and descend in our train system. That will not improve in the near future. We can get more eco-friendly and handi-capable buses on the job almost immediately. Just a %10 increase in bus service in our city can create front and back end jobs that I would earmark for communities of color and people with disabilities. |
What is your plan for creating healthy stable communities? How do you envision enlivening vacant commercial and city owned spaces? | My 10/10/10 plan envisions a city-wide change and commitment to create a truly healthy and stable city. Any property in the city with ten or more units will make a minimum of ten percent of it's units available for affordable housing or affordable business. Segregation is not just a school problem, it's a city-wide living problem. We know over-development leads inevitably to gentrification. I don't believe in enriching already wealthy property owners sitting on vacant commercial spaces. I would certainly entertain ways to utilize city-owned spaces for community events. |
What do you foresee is the role of creative economies in supporting economic recovery in New York City particularly for communities most affected by environmental, housing, and health instability due to COVID including our aging, immigrant, and working class communities of color? | Impossible is what New York does. 30% of budget waste in social programs such as our senior centers is in the disparity between product and service lines. Budget limits for senior workshops for example are woefully inadequate to cover year-round programing. Conversely, The product line of the budget is so large, many centers wind up splurging on product they don't need just to spend the money. Walk into any senior center maintenance and you may find two large snow blowers to clean 20 feet of frontage or other such expenditures because they are not allowed to move budget items from one line to another. I propose a flexibility model allowing agencies such as the department for the aged and parks and recreation and education to move budget items into services providing employment for artist and art organizations city-wide. Also artist consultant fees for senior center programs varies greatly with little to no protections. I'd like a little standardization of fees for artists to be able to earn a living. |
What is your plan for the city’s school system and what is your vision of the role that arts in education plays? | Blended learning should be available in one form or another permanently. Why? because we are still unbelievably a segregated school system. Justice Thurgood Marshall's words rings in my soul every waking moment. “Unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever begin to live together." During a meeting with the assistant commissioner of the department of education, I suggested that by having remote education available "in" the schools, we can afford opportunity for students and teachers to interact with each other city-wide. Perhaps "virtual" availability can "virtually" eliminate the blight of segregation our schools have suffered under for over a century. I would love to have poet Amanda Gorman teach a 40 minute virtual class about her poem "The Hill We Climb" to every student in our school system at the same time. Wouldn't that be amazing and inspiring? |
What are your plans for supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers? | How much does a "debt to society" cost? Time, rights, and little to no programs for rehabilitation. This can be a long conversation but let me just go right to my plan. My plan is to make the minimum wage available to incarcerated individuals. Let the debate begin. |
Share a link to your website and/or campaign platform | www.rubencruz.nyc |