At a time when New York City is facing the potential of having to make huge cuts to services because of how the migrant crisis is putting a strain on public resources, members of the city council are considering implementing “woke” measures that would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars they don’t have.
The council’s agenda that was published for its meeting earlier this week included discussion items for removing historical figures’ statues from the city as well as potentially creating a task force that would consider reparations.
One of the public hearings, set to be held through the Cultural Affairs Committee, would remove any work of art that’s located on property the city owns that “depict(s) a person who owned enslaved persons or directly benefited economically from slavery, or who participated in systemic crimes against indigenous peoples or other crimes against humanity.”
Based on that criteria, statues of George Washington and Christopher Columbus that are in the city would be removed. So, too, would one of Peter Stuyvesant, who settled New York and was a Dutch governor.f
The Public Design Commission would also be tasked with determining whether a statue needed to be removed. If the commission ruled that a statue can remain standing, it would have to come up with a plan on how to install an “explanatory plaque” right next to it.
In addition, the PDC would be forced to consult with New York’s Department of Education to plan out installation of similar plaques on a sidewalk or other public space next to any school that’s named after someone who fits the above criteria.
In addition, the city council was set to consider whether a task force should be created to “consider the impact of slavery and past injustices for African Americans in New York City and reparations for such injustices.”
A similar task force that was created in California eventually suggested that reparations be paid to certain people for racial injustices of the past. The total amount of those reparations, though, would be more than twice as much as the state’s entire budget.
In other words, this is not a proposition that New York could afford – even if people got behind the idea of it.
New York’s city council also is considering proposals that would require all city employees and human services contractors to go through anti-racism training. They’re also considering requiring a sign to be placed near the intersection of Pearl and Wall streets “to mark the site of New York’s first slave market.”
All of this is going on while the city is literally starving for money. Eric Adams, the mayor of the city, said just last week that there’s a “financial tsunami” coming as they’ve had to deal with thousands of illegal immigrants coming to the city recently.
The mayor has said that in order to provide support to the migrants, the city would have to slash the budgets of just about every department. In all, Adams said the migrant crisis would likely cost New York City $12 billion.
