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DNAinfo.com Rachael Ray Urges De Blasio to Make Good on Free Lunch Vow in City Schools by Amy Zimmer

Several City Council members asked the chancellor when free lunch will be a reality for all students.

“I want to wake up in a city where every kid has the opportunity for free lunch,” Upper East Side Councilman Ben Kallos said at the budget hearing.

“I’m not saying ‘no,’” Fariña said. “It’s all a matter of priorities. We have to take it one step at a time.”

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Gotham Gazette Proposals Target Closure of Gender Pay Gap by Carmen Russo

“When you talk about previous wage salary, you establish a floor,” said James. “And as a result of that floor, which is discriminatory in nature, you start off with a discriminatory base. So we really want to prohibit city agencies from asking about previous salary information of job applicants.”

City Council Member Ben Kallos, the only man who serves on the Council’s Committee on Women’s Issues, also believes wage disclosure will be an important tool in working towards pay equity.

 

“You can look up every public employee’s salary and we know what their gender is,” Kallos told Gotham Gazette in a phone interview. “Why can’t we do an automatic and internal audit comparing folks to their collective bargaining and make sure people are getting paid what they’re supposed to? The entire point of the civil service is supposed to be equity and treating people based on what they know, not who they know or what their gender is.”

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Curbed City Council Approves Major Changes to NYC Landmarks Law by Tanay Warerkar

Here's a breakdown of some of the other changes introduced by the Council. Members of the Land Use Committee who objected to the measures, including Councilman Ben Kallos, were against the deadlines, particularly for historic districts, and were concerned about the absence of extensions,according to YIMBY. The bill has also been opposed by the Historic Districts Council.

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