DMI Events

On Monday, November 19, 2007, the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy hosted the latest installment of its 'Marketplace of Ideas' series featuring Boston Mayor Thomas Menino at the Harvard Club in New York City.

In 1997, Mayor Thomas Menino launched Boston's abandoned buildings survey. The program surveys the city's abandoned commercial and residential properties. The city then works with private owners and developers to rehabilitate them into viable housing units. In the last decade, the number of abandoned residential properties in the city declined 77% as properties were reclaimed and abandonment was reduced. In 2006, the US Conference of Mayors recognized Boston's Abandoned Housing Stratgey as a 'best practice.'

A panel discussion on affordable housing and the rehabilitation of vacant properties featured:

HON. SCOTT STRINGER
Manhattan Borough President

BRAD LANDER
Director, Pratt Center for Community Development

CARLTON COLLIER
Executive Director, Parodneck Foundation

Introduction by
WILLIAM WACHTEL
Founder, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

Moderated by
ANDREA BATISTA SCHLESINGER
Executive Director, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

THOMAS M. MENINO is serving his fourth term as Mayor of the City of Boston. The first Italian-American Mayor of Boston, he was elected to his first term on November 2, 1993, winning 64 percent of the vote and 18 of the city's 22 wards. Mayor Menino was re-elected to a second term without opposition in 1997 and won a third term in a landslide victory in November 2001. Most recently, Mayor Menino won a historic fourth election in November, 2005 with 68 percent of the vote. Prior to his election in 1993, he previously served four months as Acting Mayor and nine years as a District City Councilor from Boston's Hyde Park neighborhood.

A lifelong resident of Hyde Park, Mayor Menino is a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas High School. In 1963, Mayor Menino earned an associate's degree in business management and advertising and sales from Chamberlayne Junior College. In 1988, he earned a degree in community planning from the University of Massachusetts. Mayor Menino and his wife, the former Angela Faletra, have two children, Susan and Thomas, Jr., and six grandchildren.

During his tenure as Mayor of Boston, Mayor Menino has worked hard to improve the quality of life for all of Boston's 589,000 residents. As President of the United States Conference of Mayors from 2002-2003, Mayor Menino championed homeland security and housing availability. He has been an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation since 1989.

In the summer of 2004, Mayor Menino brought the Democratic National Convention to Boston. The convention put a national spotlight on Boston, showcasing all that Boston has to offer. Estimates put the economic contribution of the convention at more than $150 million dollars and its positive effects will be felt for years.

Mayor Menino's reputation for getting the job done has earned him a high approval rating among Boston residents. Among his main priorities, are: providing every child with a quality education; creating affordable housing; lowering the crime rate; revitalizing Boston's neighborhoods; and promoting a healthy lifestyle for all city residents.

Recognizing the importance of affordable housing for all of Boston's residents, Mayor Menino made the creation of affordable housing a top priority in 1999 and boosted housing starts by 135%. The following year, Mayor Menino implemented Leading the Way, a comprehensive housing strategy that directs city departments to sell vacant land for housing development, increases housing funding by selling surplus city buildings, and works to keep affordable housing from going market rate. The highly successful three year plan led to the city's permitting more than 7,900 new units of housing, 2,200 of which are affordable; rehabilitating more than 1,000 vacant public housing units; and preserving more than 3,100 affordable rental units from going to market rate rents. In 2004, Mayor Menino launched a new housing plan, Leading the Way II, which sets out new, ambitious housing targets.

SCOTT M. STRINGER was sworn in as Manhattan’s 26th Borough President in January of 2006 after serving 12 years in the New York Assembly, where The New York Times credited him as having “a sterling reputation as a catalyst for reform."

During his first year in office, Borough President Stringer helped breathe new life into Manhattan’s Community Boards, ensuring that every neighborhood will have a strong voice in decisions that impact local resident’s lives. He revamped the Borough President’s Land Use Division and effectively weighed in on crucial development projects that will shape Manhattan’s future. His continued advocacy for development that reflects neighborhood values has resulted in victories for local residents from Battery Park to Washington Heights.

Borough President Stringer worked to secure a $900,000 grant from the federal Justice Department in order to crack down on domestic violence in Northern Manhattan and followed through on his pledge to create the Manhattan Borough President’s Youth Sports league which serves more than 1,000 children across the borough by providing much needed after school activities.

Since taking office Borough President Stringer has emerged as one of the City’s leading voices on the need for comprehensive transportation reform and he has continued his career long fight for affordable housing by conducting the first ever borough-wide survey of vacant lots and abandoned buildings to identify sites for the creation of more affordable housing in Manhattan.

In 2006, the Borough President authored a number of ground-breaking policy reports on issues of importance to every New Yorker including parental involvement in our public schools, nursing home emergency preparedness, public safety and transportation.

During his twelve years in the State Assembly, Mr. Stringer authored landmark legislation to protect victims of domestic violence, led the fight against repeal of the commuter tax, voted against every attempt to weaken rent regulations and sponsored legislation that ended “empty-seat voting” in Albany.

Borough President Stringer was born in Washington Heights where he graduated from local public schools and went on to graduate from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

BRAD LANDER directs the Pratt Center for Community Development, which works for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city for all New Yorkers by empowering communities to plan and realize their futures. During Brad's tenure, the Pratt Center has helped to shape a new inclusionary zoning policy in order to create affordable housing in New York City, to protect the tenure of public housing residents in Staten Island, and to create a new dialogue and strategies for how growth can be made to work for New York's low- and moderate-income communities. Brad also teaches affordable housing, real estate development, and community planning at Pratt.

Before coming to the Institute in 2003, Brad served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a community-based organization in Brooklyn that develops and manages affordable housing; creates economic opportunities through workforce development, job creation, and adult education; and organizes tenants and workers to fight for a better community. Brad's work at Fifth Avenue Committee was recognized with awards from the Ford Foundation, Fannie Mae Foundation, and New York magazine. He holds two master's degrees--one in City and Regional Planning from Pratt and a second in Social Anthropology from the University College London. He also holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago. Brad lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Meg Barnette, and their children, Marek and Rosa.

CARLTON COLLIER is Executive Director of the Parodneck Foundation. For over three decades, the Parodneck Foundation for Self-Help Housing and Community Development, Inc. has played a leading role in providing financial, technical and organizing assistance to New York City's self-help housing and community development efforts. The mission of the Foundation, a city-wide, tax- exempt, not-for-profit agency, is to provide low and moderate-income residents with resources and capabilities that will enable them to create, own, and/or manage their own housing and improve their neighborhoods.

Mr. Collier has headed the operations of the Parodneck Foundation and one of its four major programs, CATCH (Community Assisted Tenant Controlled Housing, Inc.) since 2006. CATCH operates under the mutual housing association model and is responsible for over 800 housing units, many in previously distressed buildings acquired under various city and federal programs.

Before joining CATCH in 1994 he accumulated over twenty years experience as an organizer with the District 1199 Hospital Union, the Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, and other groups. Mr. Collier has extensive experience in the construction and non-profit management fields. His success in transforming an extremely troubled South Bronx building was featured in a two-part Los Angeles Times series in 1992.