NYC Council hopeful Inez Dickens claims she ‘fought hard’ for bill proposal that’s seen little movement for a year

Assemblywoman Inez Dickens, who’s running for City Council in Harlem, recently highlighted at a candidates forum how she’s “fought hard” for a bill that would address the oversaturation of drug treatment facilities in neighborhoods like the one she represents.

The bill, which Dickens introduced in 2022, seeks to cap the number of such facilities within any community board district at five — a change residents in neighborhoods like Harlem have been demanding for years.

But there’s one problem with what Dickens said.

While the Harlem Democrat introduced the bill last year, she failed to gain any sponsors for it in that legislative session and neglected to reintroduce anything resembling it until after her remarks at the forum, which means it isn’t likely to get a hearing anytime soon.

“In case you couldn’t find it, A09571 is the bill number that I put in,” she said at a forum for Council candidates two weeks ago. “That’s the only way we’re going to stop the oversaturation in any one community. And so that’s why I wanted and put in this legislation and have fought hard for the passage of this.”

The bill Dickens name-checked is not up for consideration this legislative session and wasn’t reintroduced during the current session. Her new Assembly bill, A06910 — which was introduced this session, but has no co-sponsors — wasn’t introduced until May 9 of this year, more than a week after the April 27 candidates forum. Neither of the bills has an accompanying bill in the state Senate, either, which Albany political observers view as perhaps the biggest hurdle for Dickens getting her proposal enacted.

“If any bill is going to become law in Albany it has to have a Senate sponsor,” said Rachael Fauss, a senior policy adviser at the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “If it’s a one-house bill, it’s not a real effort to move legislation forward.”

Dickens, 73, is running against incumbent Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan, Assemblyman Al Taylor and Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five, for the Council seat now occupied by Richardson Jordan, who’s viewed as vulnerable thanks to her stance on a 145th St. development proposal, her use of Council resources for campaign purposes and comments she made about the war in Ukraine.

Prior to her stint in the state Assembly, Dickens served as a City Council member for 10 years, during the administrations of former Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio. She’s positioned herself as an experienced alternative to Richardson Jordan, a relative neophyte.

When asked to elaborate on how she’s “fought hard” for her oversaturation bill when she only reintroduced it days ago, Dickens’ campaign spokeswoman Sofia Quintanar said the latest bill has been in the drafting phase since at least February 2023.

So far in the current legislative session, which is set to end next month, Dickens has introduced 10 bills, including A06910, and hasn’t passed any of them. Records show she’s been absent for 134 floor votes, even though state lawmakers have the ability to attend hearings via video conference.

A spokeswoman for Dickens’ campaign said her absences from the Assembly shouldn’t come as a surprise. The veteran Harlem lawmaker had a kidney transplant last year.

“All absences related to the transplant were documented by a surgeon in writing. Throughout the entire process there was not a moment in which she was not in contact with the [Assembly] speaker about her condition and was in virtual attendance when she was not in the operating room,” Quintanar said.

“There were times when the member was in attendance and did not mark herself present. Assembly leadership has been notified of this error, and they are in the process of correcting the record.”

Dickens isn’t the only candidate running for the Harlem Council seat who’s neglected to show up for votes. According to City Council voting records, Richardson Jordan herself was marked “absent” for nearly 20% of the votes she’s had the opportunity to make — missing 151 of those 813 votes.

Richardson Jordan pushed back when confronted with her voting record. When asked about it by the news outlet, Patch, her spokeswoman noted that the Council member has been present for “every stated meeting where a vote was needed.” What the spokeswoman appeared to overlook is the fact that votes also take place in Council committee hearings.

Richardson Jordan has been marked absent for stated meetings, which are the semiregular meetings of the full Council, as well.

According to what her spokeswoman told Patch, when the Council woman “attends these meetings on Zoom, she does not get the credit for being present.”

When asked about this, Breeana Mulligan, a spokeswoman for the City Council, noted that there’s “a process that Council members must follow if they are unable to attend a hearing in-person and require an accommodation for remote participation.”

“Council members are allowed to participate remotely under limited circumstances, including as part of accommodations pursuant to approved medical absence. It requires the member to complete the request process for them to be marked present in attendance records,” she said. “Even where remote participation is granted, state law requires that a quorum of Council members be physically present for remote members to participate.”

Richardson Jordan did not respond to questions from the Daily News about her attendance record. When asked about Dickens’ record, she told a News reporter that “your whole profession is pretty awful” and refused to answer questions.

Dickens and Richardson Jordan aren’t alone in missing votes. Taylor has missed his share in the Assembly as well — skipping a total of 28 floor votes during the last legislative session, according to state records.

Taylor said he’s “proud to have one of the best attendance and voting records” in the Assembly.

”I’ve attended probably 99% of all session days, and I’ve taken off only five or six days from session since being elected in 2017 for family illnesses and bereavement,” he said. “I promise this same level of commitment and passion every day in the City Council.”

Fortunately or not for Salaam, he hasn’t missed any votes as a lawmaker at all, but that’s because he doesn’t have any legislative experience.

Salaam who is known for being wrongfully convicted and later exonerated as one of the Central Park Five, also hadn’t been living in the city for years until recently. He returned to New York in 2022 after living in Georgia for several years.

Before that he was incarcerated, due to his wrongful conviction, for nearly seven years in state prison.

In response to questions about his yearslong absence from the state, Salaam’s campaign manager, Jordan Wright, said the Council candidate “vowed to make every day count” after being exonerated.

“Harlem tenants and seniors need our representatives to deliver new solutions to old problems,” Wright said.