March 2023 - PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
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Presidents Message March 2, 2023 Hope all is well with you and your family. During the last couple of months, we have all been fighting to keep our health benefits from being changed. I would like to thank everyone who participated in our efforts with the City Council to stop the change to the Administrative Code. When the Speaker of the Council spoke at the hearing, she mentioned that she received over 100,000 emails from retirees requesting that the City Council not change the code. Through the summer and fall we have been working on forming a Legislative Information Network with many other organizations. The network is up and running and continues to grow. The LIN was utilized for the City Council effort, and we thank those organizations for their participation in stopping the change being sought by the MLC. I should also mention the work being done by the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees on our health protection and the great job they have been doing. The effort by the City and the MLC is not over and since we are into the legislative session, we are moving forward with health protection legislation. As we all know, the attempt by the City and the MLC would affect all civil service retirees. There are two health protection bills that are numbered for this session. One bill, sponsored by Senator Lanza (S4191), and Assemblyman Weprin (A4989) would protect all retirees in the state. We are putting our efforts into moving this bill forward, and working with the Alliance to get this bill a dedicated effective date. Once the actions are planned I will reach out to you through your club president. Expect that soon. Regards to All, Mike Fahy |
May 10, 2022 - Legislative Agenda Update
| URGENT -
Hello All (IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED) It is crunch time for our legislative agenda. This session of the NYS senate and assembly will be ending in early to mid-June. The below bills are our focus for this session and with your help they will move. We need action on all four of these bills.
#1 is on the Assembly calendar for a vote. If it passes in the assembly, it will go to the senate for a vote. This bill has the greatest promise and it has the most co-sponsors of our focus bills but we need more, we need this to be law to stop a change in benefits for retirees. #2 & #3 need an all-around push for co-sponsors which will move it further on the process. #4 can go and has a good number of co-sponsors already. We need all members to call their current or past NYS Senators and Assembly members and ask them to co-sponsor this bill. Please urge all of your family and friends to call as well. The phone numbers can be looked up on: www.nysenate.gov nyassembly.gov It is very important that the senators and assembly members receive these calls. The more co-sponsors the bills have, the more likely the bill will become law. The last calls that we made moved these bills into a great position. We need to do it again to move them forward. |
DECEMBER 2021
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December, 2021 To all Chapter Presidents and Members I would like to start by saying Thank You to my current Executive Board for their dedicated service to the National NYCPD 10-13 and to our Chapters. As you are all aware by now, as of January 1, 2022, I will be stepping down as President of the National; however, I will be staying on as an advisor to our new President Michael Fahy to insure a smooth transition. Also stepping down is Secretary Marie Zolfo who will be replaced by Salvatore Pepitone, as well as Treasurer John McLoughlin, who is being replaced by Jill Killeen. 1st Vice President John Briganti and Vice President Richard Molloy have been re-elected and will remain on the Board with President's Advisor Harvey Katowitz. Thomas Sullivan has been appointed Chairman of our Committees. I have been involved with the National for twelve years, as has been Marie and John. It is now time for us to step down/retire and let some young energetic new board members continue the goals of the National 10-13. At this time, I also want to extend a special thank you to President Emeritus, Anthony Perrone for mentoring me during my time on the National Board, and I am sure Tony will do the same for President Fahy. The holiday season is approaching quickly upon us. During this crazy time in our lives, with the COVID virus, which we all thought, was behind us, now we face this new Omicron variant. As the world goes into panic mode, we pray that we don't go back to extreme restrictions, let us make the best of the holiday season and hopefully Mr. Freeze stays away and we have mild winter weather. In January, the New York State Legislation will be back in session. We are told that the State Legislative Buildings will finally re-open, thus allowing us to visit the legislators in Albany. Your National Executive Board has already been aggressively active during this quiet time of the 2021 session. We have met with numerous State Senators, Assembly members and via phone conversations and letters. We have also been attending the Alliance of Public Retirees monthly meetings in Albany in preparation for the 2022 legislative session. Most of our Legislative Agenda Bills have already been numbered and we have verbal commitments from our prior bill sponsors that they will be re-submitting our 2022 un-numbered bills for the 2022 session. NOTE: Our 2021 numbered bills do not need to be re-numbered; they only need 2022 re-submission of the 2021 Fiscal/Actuary Notes that are required for all legislative bills. As you all are aware, former Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul is now the Governor of New York State. The Governor has already announced that she will be running for re-election in November 2022. It is our opinion, and that of our Alliance organizations, as the Governor seeks re-election, she will be more supportive of our Legislative Agenda Bills in comparison to former Governor Cuomo. As we all know as retirees, as per the Taylor Law, we are no longer able to vote or negotiate regarding our benefits via our line organizations. This is why we must look to our elected officials to protect the benefits that we fought for and earned. While talking about benefits, I am sure you all are aware of the cities new proposed Medicare Advantage Program, which as retirees, we had no input into this proposed change to our medical coverage. As of this writing, the plan is on hold due to a court injunction. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be, but I believe that at some point we will be pushed into a new Medicare Advantage Plan. It should be noted that we presently have two separate Legislative Bills in Albany. One is for all state workers and the other is for New York City police, firefighters and their dependents. If passed and signed by the Governor, it will guarantee our benefits that we had when we retired. I must mention that there has never been a more dangerous time for our law enforcement profession or our city, not to mention the lack of respect to all law enforcement officers in the country. The NYPD and other law enforcement agencies are under attack by radical groups and progressive liberal politicians who seek to destroy all we have achieved. As of December 15th, 58 police officers have been killed in the line of duty incidents and in all, 314 have been shot. In addition, there have been 95 ambush-style attacks thus far this year across the United States. All record numbers with one month left for the year 2021. Let us all pray and never forget the above officers and their families. I would like to conclude by saying that is has truly been an honor and privilege to have been President of the National 10-13 Organization. I want to once again thank my Executive Board, our Chapter Presidents and Members for allowing me the honor to serve as your President. Fraternally, |