Greater

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, has been following the city and state budgets for some time, and he knows that the Covid-19 pandemic has put them both in a precarious state. Rein argues that there are lessons we can learn from previous fiscal crises, and that there are creative measures we can take before the government looks at cutting services or raising taxes, both of which could have cyclical negative impacts on the city overall. 

Jarret Berg, cofounder of VoteEarlyNY, says there's a lot that's about to change about voting in New York, and a public education campaign is needed. Following up on our previous conversation about ranked-choice voting, we talk about other ways in which the vote can be suppressed in New York City, and the reforms to combat those issues. 

Susan Lerner is one of the city's leading experts on ranked-choice voting. As Executive Director of the nonprofit Common Cause, she was instrumental in the campaign during New York City ballot initiative to bring ranked-choice voting to New York City primaries and special elections. That measure, as part of a slate of Charter Commission recommendations, passed last November and goes into effect in 2021.

But while an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers voted in favor of the change - there's still a lot of confusion about what it is, how it will work - and who stands to benefit.

Sally Susman, Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer, gives an insider's look at how quickly development of a safe Covid-19 vaccine is coming along. The New York City-based pharmaceutical giant is working closely with nonprofits, government, and other private companies to solve the biggest problem facing the world today.

Jonathan Harber has been pushing for innovation in learning long before it became such a necessity during the pandemic. As someone who has started a charter school, as chairman of StartEd Inc, and as a board member of the Fund for Public Schools, he supports a community of innovators looking to find the pain points in education - and solve them.

Perhaps nowhere is this more important than in New York City, where a large, diverse student body faces many challenges in getting an equitable education while having to learn remotely. Harber is arguing for, among other things, an innovative approach to repurposing school gyms and cafeterias for distanced learning.

Nick Turner has spent decades working on the criminal justice, policing and community issues. As president of the Vera Institute of Justice, he oversees nonprofit work in key areas like changing conditions in prisons, combatting misuse of jails, and making justice systems more equitable and effective, especially among the city and country's growing minority communities. 

In this episode, Nick talks about the impact the coronavirus epidemic and subsequent protests against police brutality are having on his advocacy work, and the ways in which he thinks enormous policing budgets could be better spent. 

Bradley Tusk is a man who does many things to help democracy bring about positive change - from mobile voting to working the levers of government to bring an end to hunger. In this episode he also learns he's an unwitting trisector evangelist, as his work bridges the non profit, private, and government sector worlds in his efforts to help New Yorkers. Tusk is a venture capitalist, philanthropist, and CEO of Tusk Ventures and Tusk Strategies. He joined us to talk about how public policy can be shaped in the future.

Each summer in NYC, government, private, and public organizations come together to fund and manage a program that's become vital to tens of thousands of young people in the city: the Summer Youth Employment Program or SYEP, which matches teenagers with hundreds of employers and pays non profits to manage these relationships.

This year, in the wake of Covid-19, Mayor de Blasio cancelled the $125 million program for the summer. Saskia Traill, CEO of ExpandED Schools, worked with many others to build a civic coalition to take the lead, and government followed and restored funding, ultimately saving the summer for 35,000 NYC teens.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, many New Yorkers have become far more aware of the importance of local government officials in their lives through the daily press briefings delivered by the governor and mayor. But behind the curtain of city and state flags, there is an unflagging team of agencies and departments working together in novel ways to make the city livable - and more equitable. Marisa Lago, the head of the Department of City Planning and the Chair of the City Planning Commission, explains what goes into city planning — and what citizens get out of it.

With calls for police reform reverberating across the United States following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, criticism and outrage have focused on the ways police departments have functioned for years. Like many complicated problems, true reform in policing and justice will involve several layers of government, the work of nonprofits, and the support of the private sector. Alvin Bragg, a law professor, former prosecutor - and current candidate for Manhattan District Attorney - zeroes in on the role the legal system plays in all of this and what New York City has been doing — and should be doing — to enact real change.