Nolan and Gioia on toxic schools

See today's oped in the Daily News by Assembly member Cathy Nolan and City Council member Eric Gioia, responding to Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott piece last week --- in which Walcott defended the indefensible -- the opposition of this administration to requiring environmental and community review of toxic sites for leased schools. This is how the Nolan/Gioia oped starts:

“Deputy Mayor Walcott's "Be Our Guest" piece last week is a disingenuous public relations ploy to protect mayoral power and avoid accountability at the expense of the health of New York City's schoolchildren and teachers.”

The bill in the Legislature sponsored by Nolan would provide the most necessary basic rights of disclosure and City Council review for the SCA’s plans to lease buildings on contaminated sites:

“As a check and balance on mayoral control, communities must be given notice of plans to lease toxic sites for schools and the Council must be given the opportunity to vote on the appropriateness of a site.”

The administration’s dishonesty on this issue and their lack of concern about the health of our children matches their dishonesty on class size. For more info on this issue, see our previous posting here, about the contaminated Information Technology HS in Long Island City, and the New York Lawyers for Public Interest website here.