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Muslim bus driver’s discrimination lawsuit against MTA continues, even after driver’s de
Published: April 5, 2014 Publication: New York Daily News By Pete Donohue Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Sandra Townes rejected a MTA motion to dismiss the lawsuit Stephanie Lewis filed in 2004. Lewis was transferred off her bus route and eventually fired for not agreeing to put a NYC Transit division logo on her headscarf due to religious reasons. Bus driver Stephanie Lewis refused to cover her religious headscarf or place an MTA logo on it. A Muslim-American bus driver who re
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De Blasio sued by own allies to overturn charter school openings
Published: March 26, 2014 Publication: New York Post By Carl Campanile Top allies sued Mayor de Blasio Wednesday to overturn his decision to open 14 charter schools in city-owned buildings this fall. The chief plaintiffs include Public Advocate Letitia James, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and eight other city council members, The Post has learned. About 70 parents and advocacy groups — including NYC Parents Union and Class Size Matters — also joined the suit filed in
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Quiet Labor Deal Gave $3M in Back Pay to Elevator Workers
Published: April 7, 2014 Publication: DNAinfo By Colby Hamilton Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration declined to try and block a prevailing wage decision by Comptroller John Liu’s office that gave millions in retro wages to 443 elevator workers in 2013. CIVIC CENTER — A labor agreement at the end of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration granted retroactive raises to hundreds of city elevator workers, costing the city an estimated $3 million in back pay, DNAinfo has lea
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Jerry’s Newsstand Is Up and Running-(ish) Again: ‘We Shook City Hall!’
Published: January 16, 2014 Publication: Bedford and Bowery By Jenna Marotta (Photo: Jenna Marotta) Amidst congratulations and hallelujahs, Jerry Delakas rolled up the metal door of Astor Place Newsstand around 10:30 this morning, resuming the business he ran for 25-plus years before the city padlocked the place. Delakas had been operating his kiosk without an official license from the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Ninety minutes earlier, the DCA dropped off 16 boxes of p
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Zephyr Teachout blows into primary, pressuring Gov. Cuomo on his left
Published: July 10, 2014 Publication: The Villager By Lincoln Anderson Downtown progressive Democratic club members were having a hard time finding reasons why they should support re-electing Governor Andrew Cuomo to another term. More to the point, there were too many reasons not to back him, they felt, such as his support for charter schools, his acceptance of the Independence Party ballot line and his indecision on hydrofracking, just to name a few. In fact, some clubs — i
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Arthur Z. Schwartz
Published: March 1, 2009 Publication: West Village Originals By Michael D. Minichiello This month’s “West Village Original” is Arthur Z. Schwartz, who settled in the West Village in 1981. Currently a lawyer and partner in a Union-side labor and employment firm, he was also just hired as general counsel for ACORN. Beginning in 1995, Schwartz was elected to five consecutive terms as the Democratic Party District Leader for Greenwich Village and South Chelsea. In 2006 he was ele
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Transit Union to Run Dollar-Van Service in Park Slope
Published: August 10, 2010 Publication: The Wall Street Journal, Metropolis By Aaron Rutkoff The city’s transit union says it has won permission from the Taxi and Limousine Commission to operate a commuter-van service along the former route of the canceled B71 bus in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Prospect Heights. Arthur Z. Schwartz, an attorney for Transport Workers Union Local 100, said the new van service will charge passengers $1 for rides
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Academics Challenge $350M NY Public Library Renovation Plan
Published: July 3, 2013 Publication: Law 360 By Kaitlin Ugolik Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Levering Lewis and other academics launched a suit against the New York Public Library in state court Wednesday aiming to block the proposed $350 million renovation of the library’s central branch.
The academics claim the library has removed at least 3.5 million books from stacks below the central library building in connection with its renovation plans, restricting access t
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Charters Don’t Have to Pay Rent, for Now
Published: January 3, 2012 Publication: School Book By Anna Phillips A state Supreme Court judge has rejected a request from public school parents and advocacy organizations for a preliminary injunction to require New York City to charge charter schools rent for the space they occupy inside public school buildings. The ruling, by Justice Paul G. Feinman last Wednesday, said the parents and organizations had failed to prove that the traditional public schools would lose substa
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Jon Kest, Legendary Organizer for Social & Economic Justice, Dies at 57
Published: December 6, 2012 Publication: Common Dreams By Craig Brown Jon Kest, a long-time community organizer and advocate for social and economic justice, died Wednesday night. Kest was was diagnosed with liver cancer this summer. Kest was the executive director of New York Communities for Change. Kest was a former chief organizer for the local ACORN chapter in New Orleans, and also former director of New York ACORN. He was the younger brother of former ACORN National Exec
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Suit will charge ‘institutionalized racism’ at NYC Sanitation Department
Published: February 12, 2013 Publication: Silive By Ken Paulsen California-based Advocates for Justice is announcing a class action lawsuit that alleges discrimination in the Sanitation Department’ promotional practices. (Photo by Staten Island Advance photo) A federal class-action lawsuit will be announced Tuesday alleging the city Sanitation Department possesses a “plantation mentality” that suppresses the promotions of minorities. The workers say they chose Lincoln’s birth
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I.S. 303 continues appeal despite ruling
Published: August 2, 2011 Publication: Home Reporter News By Heather J. Chin BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Heather J. Chin
Protests have accompanied the proposed co-location of Coney Island Preparatory Charter School in the building that houses I.S. 303 and Rachel Carson High School since the idea first surfaced. The final decision on the lawsuit/appeal placed by nearly 100 parents of students attending I.S. 303 against the Department of Education’s (DOE) decision to move a c
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The Zadroga question: to pay or not to pay
Published: July 27, 2011 Publication: Downtown Express By Aline Reynolds and Terese Loeb Kreuzer For many years, free medical treatment has been available to residents, students and Lower Manhattan workers who were exposed to the Sept. 11, 2001 attack and its aftermath. But the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act that Pres. Barack Obama signed into law in January 2011 opened the Victim Compensation Fund to this group for the first time. Sheila Birnbaum, who was app
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SAG/NY Sets February Runoff – Election Ballot Mailing/Deadline Set After Craig Threatens Lawsu
Published: February 21, 2001 Publication: Backstage By Roger Armbrust The Screen Actors Guild/New York has set the runoff election to break a tie between national board-of-directors candidates Kelly Craig and Jordan Derwin. Ballots will be mailed to all eligible SAG/NY members on Feb. 10, with a return deadline of March 4. The guild set the specific dates following a threat by Craig to seek legal action after John Sucke, SAG/NY’s executive director, informed her he would not
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Charter Fight Heads to Court
Published: January 8, 2014 Publication: NY Press By Daniel Fitzsimmons Newly elected public advocate and others file suit to halt DOE charter school decisions, including two on the East side A coalition of elected officials and activist organizations has sued the city in hopes of nullifying some 42 school co-locations throughout the city, including two on the Upper East Side. The DOE’s Panel on Education Policy, a 13-member school board of which 8 members are appointed by the
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REASSIGNED OSBORN TEACHER FILES $2M LAWSUIT
Published: April 3, 2014 Publication: The Rye City Review By Liz Button Fourth grade Osborn School teacher Carin Mehler has filed suit against six of the seven members of the Rye City School District Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Alvarez and several members of the district’s administration and staff, becoming the first teacher to take legal action against the district almost a year after she and three other district elementary school teachers were re
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Attorney Plans to File Preliminary Injunction to Get Mehler Back to School
Published: April 3, 2014 Publication: The Rye Record By Sarah Varney Attorney Arthur Schwartz will move for a preliminary injunction that could allow client Carin Mehler to return to her classroom at Osborn School. “We will ask for a judge to issue a stay so that Mrs. Mehler can get back to work,” said Schwartz. Mehler was one of four elementary school teachers suspended for allegedly coaching students during state testing. (Two of the teachers have already come to an agreeme
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2nd Rye teacher on testing scandal leave sues school district
Published: April 29, 2014 Publication: Lohud, The Journal News By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy A second teacher is suing the Rye school district — and several school board members individually — for putting her on administrative reassignment following allegations of improper coaching more than a year ago, The Journal News has learned. Dana Coppola, a third-grade teacher at Milton Elementary School, is joining Osborn Elementary School teacher Carin Mehler’s lawsuit, filed last m
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MILTON TEACHER JOINS SUIT
Published May 1, 2014 Publication: Hometown Media Group By Liz Button Third grade Milton School teacher Dana Coppola has joined fourth grade Osborn School teacher Carin Mehler in her lawsuit against six of the seven members of the Rye City School District Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Frank Alvarez and several members of the district’s administration and staff, increasing total monetary damages sought from $2 million to $4 million. After a year, none of the four elem
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