National Outlook 2022: Keynote Luncheon

Jonathan A. Ballan, Co-Chair, Public & Project Finance, Cozen O’Connor; Brad Lander, Comptroller, City of New York

Transcription:

00:00:10:07 - 00:00:35:28
Jonathan A. Ballan

Good afternoon. Thank you, everybody. Wow. Quiet. Good. I wish everybody else in my life would be this obedient. Thank you very much for your courtesy. Hello. I'm Jon Ballan. I'm a co-chair of Public and Project Finance at Cozen O'Connor here in New York. And I think it's just terrific being here at an in-person muni bond event. It's just absolutely great.

00:00:35:29 - 00:00:37:00
Jonathan A. Ballan

So thank you again.

00:00:42:01 - 00:01:04:24
Jonathan A. Ballan

Thanks again to Mike Ballinger, Lynne Funk and the Bond Buyer for your exquisite COVID timing. There's nothing like attending in person. And I hope that anyone watching on Zoom are attendees here next year and I hope I'm here, too. And thanks to my Cozen partners for allowing me to engage in these types of what I guess they call non-billable activities.

00:01:04:24 - 00:01:31:06
Jonathan A. Ballan

But I call them I call them enjoyable. Anyway, this is the fourth time I've had the privilege, I guess the first time with this camouflage beard of introducing the keynote speaker at this conference. And each one has been a thrill for me. Mr. Comptroller, it's a pleasure seeing you here, but I'd like to take a quick trip about down memory lane to the previous introductions.

00:01:31:06 - 00:02:08:25
Jonathan A. Ballan

Just quickly, I saw your predecessor in the room earlier, the distinguished Bill Thompson. Bill is, hi Bill, Bill was my first official to introduce. And Bill, you always remember your first, Bill served two terms with distinction I can't erase that sorry. Bill served two terms with tremendous distinction. And he had much public service before being comptroller. And as many of you know, he's currently an enormously successful investment banker at Siebert.

00:02:08:25 - 00:02:31:22
Jonathan A. Ballan

And I'm proud to call him a dear friend. Anyway. Hi, Bill. In quick succession, I previously also introduced Eric Gertler, who at the time headed ESD and Gerrard Bushell, who likewise helmed DASNY. Eric quite memorably flew in from Europe for the lunch, and we gave him a cape because we don't know how he was in Italy one hour and here the next.

00:02:32:02 - 00:03:02:16
Jonathan A. Ballan

And Gerrard was a Ph.D., so to prepare, I decided to read his doctoral dissertation all of his excellent 200 pages. So I need to give a special thank you to Mr. Comptroller for not having a Ph.D., although you got an impressive academic background, because I was skiing this weekend and just didn't have time to read it. But Comptroller Lander was inaugurated on January 1st and is already off to a notable start.

00:03:03:08 - 00:03:32:04
Jonathan A. Ballan

Earlier this week, he spoke out for the brave Ukrainians defending their country and those Russians protesting in support of them. And he recommended the divestment of Russian assets held by the city's pension funds. And there might be an update on that. I'm not sure. Prior to those announcements in January, Comptroller Lander bravely announced his opposition to an immediate massive increase in the TFA borrowing authority, citing the premature nature of the quest.

00:03:32:05 - 00:03:55:15
Jonathan A. Ballan

Not dismissing it, but saying it was premature and that he thought it would be prudent to await an assessment of the resources needed following the recent infusion of federal funds, including infrastructure funds and others. Confirmation of the city real estate valuations and the possible reforming of city capital management practices. So it wasa  very brave step for the comptroller to take on his way in.

00:03:56:03 - 00:04:27:21
Jonathan A. Ballan

And Mr. Comptroller, though, I should warn you that this audience primarily thinks that the most pressing city financing issue is the banking RFPs. But but your position on TFA is great validity. And I have a feeling that Marge Henning, your outstanding deputy, who I've known since both of us were associates learning the ropes undoubtedly supported the view. That stance truly displays the vast difference between an executive role, like comptroller and a legislative one in the city council and we applaud you for that.

00:04:28:20 - 00:04:54:29
Jonathan A. Ballan

Following his obtaining master's degrees in urban planning and anthropology, and we were chuckling about which one was more relevant to being city comptroller right now. For many years, Brad Lander was an urban planner with expertise in affordable housing and community development. He was first elected to public office to represent District 39 in Brooklyn to the City Council in ‘09, and when there co-founded the Council's Progressive Caucus.

00:04:55:20 - 00:05:32:20
Jonathan A. Ballan

Brad continued to serve with distinction into the City Council until term limited last year, and then he won in an upset race for comptroller. Brad is best known for his progressive positions, protecting tenants and expanding workers’ rights, as well as for his impressive record of bringing accountability and transparency to city agencies. It's fortuitous that the comptroller has such an interest in accountability because as significant COVID-related federal monies are finite and carefully watching the expenditure of every dollar is essential.

00:05:34:06 - 00:05:50:22
Jonathan A. Ballan

One final comment, given current events, I feel compelled to try to say something, but please excuse my rudimentary college Russian. Ya Dyelayu Dlya Meer ee Svoboda na Natziah Ukraina ee Yevropa. Which, I think, based on many years ago  studying in short means I don't speak Russian too well, but I wish for peace and freedom for the Ukrainian people and Europe. Sorry to those Russian speakers without any further delay. It's my great pleasure to introduce city comptroller Brad Lander.

00:06:37:16 - 00:06:38:07
Jonathan A. Ballan

Thank you, Bill.

00:06:45:11 - 00:07:02:25
Brad Lander

Thank you so much, Jon, for that gracious introduction and definitely much better. Russian than I could pull off. And I really just want to echo your comments about having our thoughts. I don't know how many of you also woke up this morning and just watched what was going on in Ukraine. But our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine.

00:07:02:25 - 00:07:22:26
Brad Lander

And I do want to let you know there is an update. I actually have come straight here from the police pension fund board and that's one of our five pension funds. And they became, at my recommendation, the first public pension fund in the United States to divest Russian holdings. Consistent with both our fiduciary duty and in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

00:07:25:12 - 00:07:49:29
Brad Lander

And I will try to live up to the introductions you've done in the past. It is wonderful to see comptroller and friend and SUNY chair and so many things, Bill Thompson in the room. Thank you for your warm introduction. It is great to be here. With Marge Henning, our deputy comptroller for public finance, who I know in this room is a rock star.

00:07:50:15 - 00:08:13:01
Brad Lander

We also have with us our new executive deputy comptroller for Budget and Finance, Francesco Brindisi. While I don't have a Ph.D. in economics, he does so, you know, and Michael and the Bond Buyer community, thank you so much for this invitation. I really do appreciate it. I you know, I told the folks at the police pension fund that I was coming up here and they were like, oh, they were very excited.

00:08:13:01 - 00:08:36:18
Brad Lander

So So thank you for the invitation. I really I really appreciate it. On most days, New Yorkers aren't thinking a lot about how the city pays for the streets they use to get around the buildings their kids go to school in or the parks they used on weekends. And definitely not about the adequacy of the storm sewers or the pace of subways signal modernization.

00:08:37:11 - 00:09:05:15
Brad Lander

So when we first brought participatory budgeting to New York City in 2011 participatory budgeting or PB for short is a process where you allow some New Yorkers to suggest capital projects. And then, actually within the district, vote on how some of the capital dollars in their neighborhood would be spent. We started that in my city council district. I did not expect that people would get excited to vote for weatherproofing the roads.

00:09:06:16 - 00:09:32:02
Brad Lander

I knew that playground updates would be possible. I knew that people would want to invest in their kids' school playgrounds. And I wasn't surprised when people suggested and started voting for countdown clocks so they would know what time the buses were coming, before that was in the buses or the subways. And I was even not that surprised when they suggested and voted for freeze-resistant drinking fountains in Prospect Park.

00:09:32:20 - 00:10:01:05
Brad Lander

There are a lot of winter runners, including Executive Deputy Comptroller Brindisi. So I wasn't surprised by any of that, but I confess that I was surprised when one of the winning projects in those very early years was to address drainage in Prospect Park. A few dedicated park users had seen that higher volume rains were now regularly flooding the park drive and making it difficult for park users just to get across the road.

00:10:01:16 - 00:10:49:15
Brad Lander

So lo and behold, they proposed a participatory budgeting project to address the drainage. And several thousand people voted for that project. And so we allocated city capital to fix it. And you can get by the southwest corner of the park today, even after a rain. You know, one thing that I came to love about participatory budgeting and be quite pleasantly surprised by is how much it helps people see the importance of those long-term infrastructure investments, which are critical but very rarely, outside of this room, capture public attention. Somehow, including people in the process of making just a few relatively small -cale collective decisions about how to invest their hard earned tax dollars in the infrastructure

00:10:49:15 - 00:11:17:25
Brad Lander

investments that their city needs to thrive. It calls forth the kind of shared responsibility that is necessary for the repairs and the upgrades and the new projects we need if we want flood-free parks and strong and resilient neighborhoods in general. I believe that the question we face at this moment in many ways is a similar one: How do we emerge from the COVID crisis in ways that make us more prepared for crises to come?

00:11:18:07 - 00:11:41:16
Brad Lander

Whether those are future pandemics, economic instability caused by war, or rising tides and temperatures. Our task together as a city and as a community here is to foster an inclusive recovery that heals the wounds of the pandemic, that binds us together more inclusively and that makes us better prepared to weather future storms than we were for this one.

00:11:42:05 - 00:12:04:12
Brad Lander

And to me, that in so many ways what public finance is all about, investing now for the good of the long term and that means investing in our streets and sewers and subways so that they'll be there for decades to come. And of course, it also means investing in a dynamic, well managed, flourishing city that can meet the promises of repayment down the line.

00:12:04:12 - 00:12:29:14
Brad Lander

That's how the city flourishes together. Our public infrastructure and the municipal bonds that finance it, they're a vehicle for our shared prosperity. And public finance to me, therefore, is a critical link between the idea of progressive government, something bold that can invest in the public goods that will sustain us, and an effective government where we are making sure to deliver on our promises.

00:12:29:14 - 00:13:02:16
Brad Lander

So I don't view this community as the f-ing bond traders that Bill Clinton cursed, but instead as a real intersection between the bold investments that are necessary if we want a thriving public sector and a more equal and resilient city and the work that those of us on the inside have to do to make sure that government is actually telling the truth and delivering on its promises every day. After that first year of participatory budgeting, after we'd ask neighbors to propose and vote for projects,

00:13:02:27 - 00:13:25:22
Brad Lander

we learned pretty quickly that people didn't just want to vote on the projects. They really wanted to know what was happening next. And I assumed would be able to point them to a database or maybe a map on the city website where they could track the project from authorized in the budget through design, through bidding, through construction and through completion so they could follow along.

00:13:25:29 - 00:13:47:17
Brad Lander

Sadly, I don't think it will surprise you to learn that no such website or database existed. So we invented our own. We, for the projects in our district, put up a map and a database and had our staff call quarterly through city agencies so we could tell people: You voted for and we promised these projects and now we are going to have oversight and make sure they get done.

00:13:48:21 - 00:14:15:28
Brad Lander

But that until ten years later when I was able to pass a bill in 2020 to require it no such system existed for the capital projects of the city of New York. And it's urgently necessary because even after funds are allocated, project timelines lag and cost rise. And those delays cost us in both dollars and an ever-growing queue of much needed repairs even as our infrastructure ages further as the temperatures and the seas rise. New York City invests, with your help, $10 billion every year on infrastructure projects. But too often after they're financed we get far less for those investments than we should. And this is a time when we've got to step up and do something about it. Federal infrastructure funds championed by Senator Schumer and President Biden really give us a once in a generation opportunity to think more strategically about how we do capital projects, those financed with federal funds and those financed with municipal bonds.

00:14:52:08 - 00:15:10:20
Brad Lander

But we'll miss that opportunity if we don't start planning now. You have to have shovel-ready projects. But if you rush too quickly and you don't think strategically about what the priorities should be, you're not creative about how to finance federal funds and municipal funds. I give one example. The federal funds are going to focus on the streets.

00:15:10:25 - 00:15:29:19
Brad Lander

We know that we need to be focused on the sewers. Of course, the street and sewer projects could be done together if you can organize the projects so that that will happen. But they won't if you don't pause a beat and try to use that money strategically. You'll just roll forward and wind up in the same place you were before with projects over time and over budget.

00:15:30:12 - 00:15:59:13
Brad Lander

So under my tenure, I'm committed to make the comptroller's office a place where we use all our tools to overhaul the city's capital projects management system to support greater accountability. Chester, on my notes, that was going to be an applause line if anywhere, you know. But seriously, where we are already working with Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo, who is also super passionate about this issue, to think more strategically about the investment of those dollars, to make sure we're generating local jobs.

00:15:59:13 - 00:16:42:17
Brad Lander

The federal money for the first time allows you to use local hiring to bring a laser focus on resilience and then to speed up timelines and reduce costs. We're already identifying bottlenecks and waste, like the fact that for projects over $10 million, the New York City Office of Management and Budget reviews every contract not just once, but twice. And this is totally separate from the views, the reviews that the law department OMB, the contracting agency and my office will perform in registration once on behalf of the city and once on behalf of the largely defunct Fiscal Control Board. We can provide the effective oversight needed with far less bureaucracy and get a lot more out of our

00:16:42:17 - 00:17:04:07
Brad Lander

money as a result. As part of this effort, we're going to need to dramatically improve the city's process for assessing and prioritizing the state of good repair of our infrastructure. I want to tell you a funny story here about my education in municipal finance. And I don't know if it's really funny, but we try a lot of things in comptroller humor.

00:17:05:10 - 00:17:38:07
Brad Lander

When I first sat down with our wonderful Deputy Comptroller for Public Finance, Marge Henning, to get my education, I started with an understanding that's largely based in kind of household economics, like the city, I've got an expense budget for groceries and utilities and the like, and we have a mortgage that financed our major capital asset, our home. And because my mortgage is secured not only by my income, but by that asset, my lender cares about the state of good repair of my house, or at least make sure that we're insured to maintain its value.

00:17:38:07 - 00:17:59:23
Brad Lander

So I confess, I was like a little unmoored when Marge explained to me that there's actually no lien-like or insurance structured relationship between your investments and our infrastructure. That kind of like blew my mind. And I'm like, well, who is looking out for the infrastructure? And the truth is, there's no real external oversight of the state of good repair of our infrastructure.

00:18:00:05 - 00:18:19:16
Brad Lander

And sadly, not much internal oversight either. This thing we put out every year called the Ames Report is functionally useless. We really do not know what is the condition of the infrastructure, what it would cost to put it in a state of good repair, what cycle that needs to be on. And you all you need to know is what happened on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

00:18:19:22 - 00:18:43:12
Brad Lander

And no, that's not just one bridge there's 700 bridges in New York City. See, I told you that was not a very funny joke. But what I promise out of it is that our office is going to do a better job of assessing and prioritizing the repairs and new infrastructure we need for a vibrant and resilient economy. Whether you guys have a lien on it or not, now, more like my mortgage,

00:18:43:12 - 00:19:10:12
Brad Lander

our city's credit is secured, of course, by our financial position and our anticipated revenues. And that means that if progressives like me want to invest in public goods, then, as Jon said, we need to be paying real close attention to our long-term fiscal health. Right now, that means taking a good, hard, honest look at our fiscal future, making wise use of the remaining federal stimulus funds, focusing on the basics, like sanitation and safety,

00:19:10:22 - 00:19:36:25
Brad Lander

investing for a more inclusive and shared recovery, and building a more resilient city to confront long-term risks. And in my remaining time, I just want to go through each of those things a little bit. For the look at our fiscal future, I'm grateful to be supported by the great staff of our office's budget bureau, who have just tomorrow putting out our first triennial budget and economic report of my tenure reviewing Mayor Adams’ preliminary budget.

00:19:37:28 - 00:20:19:23
Brad Lander

And, you know, at the moment, the city’s reopened, but we're still grappling with short- and long-term challenges presented by the pandemic and by new ones that are emerging. So the city finished 20,21 with private employment, close to 3.7 million jobs, up 242,000 from a year ago, but still down 413,000 from the pre-pandemic peak. Restaurant and retail workers were hit especially hard and employment in these sectors is likely to be slow to return as many of the office workers who once patronized Manhattan's bars, restaurants and stores continue to work remotely, at least on a part-time basis and adjusting to continuing patterns of remote work,

00:20:19:24 - 00:20:48:22
Brad Lander

as I was talking to a few of you about before, and the impacts on office space and on employment are likely to be among the greatest challenges of our city's economic recovery in the coming years. Going forward, what I would like to see is less finger wagging about just telling people they got to get back to the office and more creativity and collaboration across public and private sectors to reimagine office space and jumpstart the jobs and businesses of tomorrow.

00:20:48:29 - 00:20:55:14
Brad Lander

Think Biotech Labs, innovation incubators, CUNY campuses and more Midtown karaoke.

00:20:56:22 - 00:20:58:24
Brad Lander

All right. 

00:21:00:28 - 00:21:22:17
Brad Lander

But look, despite the challenges, there are actually quite a lot of reasons to feel positive. And we need to be honest about what the challenges are: Inflation and the risks this war poses to the global economy and the halting nature of this recovery. That said, the city is in remarkably good condition. I know there was a question mark got got before about public safety.

00:21:22:24 - 00:21:39:27
Brad Lander

We remain the safest big city in America. While crime was up about seven and a half percent year-over-year from last year to this year, that's actually consistent with kind of all our cities across the country. And I think the steps the mayor and others are taking will make sure that it remains a really safe and thriving place.

00:21:40:05 - 00:22:04:11
Brad Lander

And you can see that at least in what's happening as people are coming back. Property values rebounded in the most recent tentative property roll. Residential real estate transactions have been through the roof. Tax collections to date are $1.6 billion above the November plan. And we project that will be more like $3 billion above that plan when all is said and done.

00:22:04:29 - 00:22:33:23
Brad Lander

There's a lot of growth and potential remaining and coming back in New York City. Now Plenty of risks remain, as I said, not only on the revenue side of the budget, but the expense as well. And that report that's coming out tomorrow will identify some of them, including under budgeting of overtime, what we spend on homelessness, long term programs that are being funded by federal funds that are going to continue after the federal funds expire.

00:22:33:29 - 00:22:52:20
Brad Lander

So we've got a sharp eye on all of those things. And you'll be able to see in the report what we recommend and where we think will be, which is really manageable gaps in the out years. With two important caveats that I just want to make sure that, you know. First, the current plan the mayor offered doesn't account for likely labor increases.

00:22:52:27 - 00:23:21:01
Brad Lander

We are about to head into collective bargaining on every one of our labor agreements in an era of high inflation. And that obviously is is a real risk. And the mayor's proposal does not include a credible effort to build up the long-term reserves that the city needs. It only adds a scant $55 million in FY 23 and nothing in the remaining years of the plan. Obviously, with the uncertainties that we're facing, we need a bigger budget cushion than that.

00:23:21:07 - 00:23:38:26
Brad Lander

So I'll be fighting all the way through June and working closely with the Council, working closely with OMB to try to make sure we not only put more money in our rainy day fund this year, but we codified deposits into it. So we're making them every year consistently when we're up. And that we're only have rules for when we can take it out when we're down.

00:23:38:26 - 00:23:59:08
Brad Lander

That's what the rainy days fund is for. And we're going to make sure we use it wisely. Jon mentioned one area where I've already disagreed publicly with the mayor, though there are a lot of places we agree as well. I'm not supporting the request for a $19 billion increase in the TFA authorizing capacity. You already heard what a big fan of infrastructure

00:23:59:14 - 00:24:29:04
Brad Lander

I am. But we don't even get close to our debt limit until FY 26 about three years from now. We've got the funding we need for the next few years. That federal infrastructure bill will provide more. So it's premature to seek to double the TFA capacity at this time. But one related area where I do agree with the mayor and this is honestly the only audience I'm ever going to have a chance to mention this one to, because the idea of supporting the general debt service reserve and saying that anywhere else is kind of preposterous.

00:24:29:04 - 00:24:49:08
Brad Lander

But the city's general debt service reserve is currently authorized by bond covenants rather than by law. And we're pushing in Albany to change that so that it would be permanently authorized. That's the feature whereby the city's property taxes go first into a state-authorized general debt service reserve, and the interest on our bonds is paid first from there,

00:24:49:13 - 00:25:22:03
Brad Lander

before that money flows down to the city. And obviously that's a big part of why our ratings are so strong double-A from Standard Poor's, Aa2 from Moody's, double-A-plus from Kroll’s, but just a double-A-minus from Fitch. So I'm just saying. Now one reason we're in relatively good position at such, having come through such a challenging time, is the $26 billion that we are getting from the federal government in pandemic relief from FY 20 to FY 26.

00:25:22:21 - 00:25:45:05
Brad Lander

But that's a one-time, time limited opportunity to help our vulnerable students and small businesses and neighborhoods recover. So we need to make sure we're spending it wisely. And I'm very pleased to announce that just this morning our team has released a public tracker on our website and you could check it out right now at checkbook NYC dot com slash stimulus.

00:25:45:14 - 00:26:23:08
Brad Lander

It is the most transparent tracking system that we've seen anywhere in the country where you can get down to the budget and object code and unit of appropriation level and see exactly how federal stimulus funds have been spent. It's a great tool. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to track the spending than the outcomes. Data available on the tracker will tell you that the Department of Education has spent $725 million on cleaning classrooms, but we don't know which rooms have ventilators or improved indoor air quality, we spent more than $260 million on learning loss, but we don't know what those funds have bought or how they've actually impacted students’

00:26:23:08 - 00:26:51:12
Brad Lander

social, emotional and academic recovery. We spent $240 million on a city cleanup core. But as I move across our neighborhoods, I gotta tell you, I'm not seeing it. And in fact, this budget cuts sanitation services, something that we're going to be pushing back on, because without clear goals, transparency and our accountability, we run the risk of squandering this one-time opportunity and getting too little for this extraordinary federal resource.

00:26:51:19 - 00:27:22:13
Brad Lander

We need to spend the remaining half of these funds really wisely to focus on the basics like sanitation and safety, to confront inequalities that we've seen so painfully in this pandemic by investing in supportive housing and mental health care and CUNY, and especially affordable and supportive housing. And then especially, and I'll move to my conclusion, to get our city more ready for the crisis to come than we were for the one that we just went through.

00:27:23:04 - 00:27:50:26
Brad Lander

As I said at the start, on most days New Yorkers aren't thinking about the sewer infrastructure, but if they weren't, last year on August 31st they sure were on September 1st, being prepared for a rainy day in the New York City of 2022, that means addressing not just our fiscal resilience but also urgently our climate resilience. Rainy days are coming faster and harder, and we've got to get ready.

00:27:51:04 - 00:28:23:05
Brad Lander

Not just extra drainage on the running paths in Prospect Park so that park joggers don't have to avoid streams, but better sewers and green infrastructure in places like southeast Queens, where that storm water last year rushed into basements and killed 13 of our neighbors. Six months after Hurricane Ida and nearly ten years after Superstorm Sandy, we have not done nearly enough to get our sewers, streets and vulnerable communities ready for the rising seas and temperatures to come.

00:28:23:25 - 00:29:06:27
Brad Lander

City investments in complete resilient streets will save lives in the decade ahead. Improving the capacity of our water and sewer infrastructure, both green and gray. That's what's necessary to get ready for those next big rainstorms. And while we're making those urgent investments to our streets, we've got such a big opportunity to transform them as well with pedestrian and bus and bike infrastructure, as well as the electric vehicle charging infrastructure that we're going to need to make sure our city’s not left behind in the electric vehicle future, deploying city capital to rain-proof our neighborhoods, to protect coastal communities, to improve indoor and outdoor air quality, to get ready for heat waves, which will actually probably be

00:29:06:27 - 00:29:35:21
Brad Lander

the most deadly of the climate crises, to modernize our subway signals and make the system accessible. Those are not luxuries or good ideas or options. They are absolutely essential to the long-term stability of our city, of our communities, and of our economy. We will not be able to survive as a city, and we sure won't be able to repay our bonds if we don't have the infrastructure necessary to have a thriving and resilient city during the climate crisis.

00:29:36:18 - 00:29:58:04
Brad Lander

And of course, resilience means more than just being ready for the next storm. This really is the last and most urgent moment to make the clean energy transition that we need that will help us prevent the storms to come. To that end, I'm proposing a massive scaling up of rooftop solar energy in New York City because rooftops are a thing

00:29:58:04 - 00:30:15:06
Brad Lander

that what we got here in abundance. Right now, if you want to do solar on your roof, and I know because I did it on mine last year, you have to act almost like a mini developer yourself. There are some installers to help you, but you got to get the tax credits. You got to identify by the nice sort of funding.

00:30:15:06 - 00:30:38:00
Brad Lander

You got to get a loan. You don't know anything about the rules and codes. So we are never going to scale that up. What we're proposing is creating a local development corporation authorized by the city where that city-owned LDC could do all the heavy lifting. It could go out into the marketplace and organize financing backed by the city's general revenues.

00:30:38:14 - 00:31:13:01
Brad Lander

And then it can knock on your door and say, you know what? We're ready to, with your permission, sign a lease with you. And we will permit, install finance and asset-manage the panels on your roof. Sharing the benefits, either will pay you a monthly rent or we'll share the energy with you, share the energy benefits. And we're confident, if we do that, that we could, over the next five years, install 25,000 rooftop solar panels, create several thousand good green jobs, actually confront barriers in the system that are making it hard for private actors to do those installations.

00:31:13:07 - 00:31:35:03
Brad Lander

Because it's a headache to deal with the fire department about battery storage or the Landmarks Preservation Commission, about landmarking. So the city could not only become substantial a clean energy, municipally owned utility backed by green bonds, but could also help New York City become one of the places that does by far the best at making that transition to green energy.

00:31:35:12 - 00:31:53:25
Brad Lander

And I can tell you for sure that if that were presented in participatory budgeting, New Yorkers would vote for it in a landslide. The folks in this room are partners in all that work, and in the months to come, we're looking forward to give you many more ways to partner. We've got, we just had something out in the field this week at TFA.

00:31:54:01 - 00:32:19:03
Brad Lander

We're coming soon with GO offering, and we're looking to expand our investments in wind, green bonds and ESG ratings. So that you can join us even further in this partnership to mitigate the impacts of climate change, to advance renewable energy technologies, to enable more efficient and less polluting transportation, to keep furnishing clean water, all while generating quality returns.

00:32:19:17 - 00:32:56:16
Brad Lander

Look, these are daunting times. We'd be foolish to pretend otherwise. Pandemics, war, climate change, they devastate families. They raise our anxiety levels. I could tell you personally, they rattle markets and they shake our confidence in the future. How do we restore that confidence? By telling the truth, by being honest with people. By delivering services effectively, by spending public funds wisely, by insisting on a more equal future, by investing in the long-term, and by preparing for clear with clear eyes for the risks to come.

00:32:57:04 - 00:33:29:00
Brad Lander

I wish there were shortcuts, but I'm really pretty sure that there aren't. But the good news is this: focusing on the basics, investing in a more inclusive recovery and building a more resilient city. They aren't just the right things to do to confront the harm and the pain of the calamities that we've been through. They are by far the best long-term ways to build a genuinely thriving New York City and a common future for all our communities for the years and the decades ahead.

00:33:29:13 - 00:33:34:02
Brad Lander

And that is a pretty good return on your investment. Thank you so much.