NY DMV hires 320, expands office hours to reduce long lines while praising andrew cuomo for keeping immigrants out of nassau otb because he is king of ny const art 1 sec 3 & food truck names
Sunday, April 12, 2020
| Track Code | Track Name | Entry | Scratch | 1st Post ET | 1st Post Local | Time Zone | Stakes Race(s) | Stakes Grade | T.V. Indicator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SA | SANTA ANITA PARK | 72 | 48 | 3:00 PM | 12:00 PM | PDT | |||
| SUN | SUNLAND PARK | 168 | 24 | 2:30 PM | 12:30 PM | MDT | Mt. Cristo Rey H. | ||
| TAM | TAMPA BAY DOWNS | 72 | 0 | 12:35 PM | 12:35 PM |
The DMV office in Medford last month. Credit: Barry Sloan
The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles is hiring scores of new staff, expanding office hours, opening on Saturdays and even shipping workers from its headquarters in Albany to Long Island to help reduce long lines created by a new law making driver's licenses available to immigrants living in the country illegally.
The department has hired a total of 320 new employees, including some in preparation for the program, and is continuing to recruit more staff, including
through a job fair it held this week in Massapequa, said DMV spokeswoman Lisa
Koumjian.
through a job fair it held this week in Massapequa, said DMV spokeswoman Lisa
Koumjian.
“We’ve seen a big impact already,” she said. “We truly are doing everything we possibly can. … We understand nobody wants to be standing outside in the cold for hours.”
Advocates gave mixed reviews, with some seeing improvements in some offices while long lines persisted in others.
Since the so-called Green Light Law went into effect Dec. 16, DMV offices on Long Island and elsewhere have been overwhelmed with crowds of immigrants seeking driver's licenses. Some arrive as early as 4 a.m.
Some DMV offices have shut down the lines by noon, telling new arrivals the office would not be able to accommodate them that day, and to go home and make an appointment.
“The crowds we are seeing are truly unprecedented,” Koumjian said. The DMV is now handling about triple the number of applications it typically does this time of year, she added.
The long waits have impacted not just immigrants.
The DMV has opened on Saturdays for appointments at seven of its busiest locations, including Garden City and Medford on Long Island, Koumjian said. That practice could expand to other offices. The DMV statewide has already handled several thousand customers on Saturdays, Koumjian said.
The department is also opening all Long Island and New York City offices an hour early, at 7:30 a.m., she said.
Of the 320 new hires, 270 were dispatched to DMV offices in New York City and Long Island, she said. All Long Island offices have some of the new staff. Officials said they expect to hire at least 100 more people.
Some employees from DMV's Albany headquarters have relocated to Long Island and New York City to pitch in, Koumjian said.
The department this week started giving people on line tickets with an exact time when they will be served.
“They can go get lunch. They can go run to the store, run an errand … and then they come back to the office at their allotted time and they can get service right away,” Koumjian said.
Advocacy groups welcomed the changes, though they had varying assessments about their effect.
“We’re definitely seeing the impact” at the Medford and Riverhead offices, said Patrick Young of the New York Immigration Coalition, who this week met with advocacy groups whose workers were active at those two offices.
“We were surprised that the overall impression” is that “things have been improving,” he said. “The folks on the ground felt that the DMV was really making a very strong effort in those two offices.”
But Eliana Fernandez of the Brentwood-based nonprofit Make the Road New York said the lines on Monday at the Hauppauge and Massapequa offices were just as bad as they were in December, although there seemed to be better organization.
Victoria Hernandez of Patchogue-based Sepa Mujer welcomed the DMV’s efforts, though she too said lines were still long at some offices.
“We are happy because it’s going to be less people waiting outside with this weather," she said. “It’s really cold.”
The department is encouraging customers to make a reservation online to reduce
their waiting time, especially those needing a license test. They can do so at: dmv.ny.gov/reservation.
their waiting time, especially those needing a license test. They can do so at: dmv.ny.gov/reservation.
Koumjian said that besides more staff and longer operating hours, “we reconfigured our office space to add work stations and converted flex space, like conference rooms, to permit testing rooms to maximize the amount of customers we can serve at one time.”
The department also has purchased document authentication devices to help expedite license and permit transactions.
By Bart Jonesbart.jones@newsday.com
Bart Jones covers religion at Newsday, where he has worked since 2000, and is a former foreign correspondent for The Associated Press in Venezuela.
Wandering Dago case to cost taxpayers $325K
Previous settlement cost $68K; additional litigation still underway
ALBANY — One half of the Wandering Dago’s five-year legal saga reached its conclusion, but there’s no end in sight for the other.
The controversially named food truck is back outside the state Capitol, selling lunch, but its owner is still fighting to get her state job back.
In 2013, state officials banned the truck from state property and programs because of its name. (“Dago” is widely considered an ethnic slur against Italian-Americans, but the truck’s owner has insisted it is actually a nod to Italians’ early history in America, when many were day laborers paid “as the day goes.”)
Truck owner Andrea Loguidice mounted a fight in federal court against the ban on freedom of speech grounds, lost an initial ruling, but won on appeal. Earlier this month, part of the cost to taxpayers was revealed, as attorneys for Loguidice and the state submitted paperwork in federal court stipulating the state would pay her attorney $325,000 for legal fees and court costs.
Because the state is represented by the Attorney General’s Office, whose staff would be drawing salary with or without the Dago case, that side of the pricetag is harder to quantify.
Saratoga Race Course faced a similar claim after ousting the Wandering Dago. NYRA later settled that suit for $68,500 without admitting liability.
Attorney George Carpinello of Boies Schiller Flexner said Loguidice wasn’t seeking reimbursement for revenue she lost when she was barred from state property and state programs, just an end of the ban. But he added that she did lose revenue. There are 10,000 potential customers within walking distance, and Wandering Dago missed out on every one of them during its exile, he said.
There’s more money still at stake for Loguidice and for state taxpayers as a result of state officials’ handling of the matter, Carpinello said Monday.
“This is only the end of the first chapter. We still have the second case to adjudicate,” he said, referring to Loguidice’s firing. “It’s really unfortunate that we’re five years into this.”
Loguidice was an attorney working for the state Department of Environmental Conservation when the Wandering Dago controversy boiled over. She was still on probationary status as a new hire, and officially was fired for conflict of interest: Bringing the food truck to a General Electric event while also being involved in legal matters involving General Electric’s dumping of PCBs in the Hudson River.
That’s unfounded for two reasons, Carpinello said. First, a GE property was the site of the event, not the organizer — a third party organized the event. Second, Loguidice was not involved in day-to-day operations of the food truck at that point, on instruction of her supervisors at DEC, though she retained ownership.
The purported conflict of interest is a pretext for punishing her for dubbing her truck Wandering Dago and then fighting back over it, Carpinello said.
“She was fired because of that controversy. Our claim is that she was terminated because she brought the lawsuit.”
In this part of the case, Loguidice is seeking more than legal costs: She also wants to be reinstated, with backpay.
“She would very much like to return to her job,” Carpinello said.
He said he hopes to go to trial soon, but pretrial processes are going slowly.
Loguidice has not practiced law since her firing.
Clarification: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that the state would reimburse its owner for $325,000 in legal fees and court costs after losing its attempt to block its operation near the state Capitol. In fact, the state will make that payment directly to her attorney.
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