AOC 'stumbles' into Santosland

Daily Point

Ocasio-Cortez flyer was an outlier

The rollercoaster of surprises for George Santos’ constituents in CD3 took another twist Thursday when an unexpected government flyer showed up in a few district mailboxes.

“Rep. AOC is here to help you,” was the greeting, accompanied by a smiling photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the one member of Congress whose outsized national profile might have been eclipsed in the last 18 months by Santos’ notoriety.

The flyer provided to The Point offered help with the red tape of the typical federal government programs: Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid claims, veterans benefits, passport requests and immigration case inquiries. It provided contact information and an invitation to visit her two regional Bronx offices in Hunts Point or Co-Op City.

But in the CD3 hall of mirrors where the question of whether Santos survives his first term despite his insistence that he is running again in 2024 dominates the political conversation, there was bewilderment and even a little intrigue. A spokeswoman for Santos said the office hadn’t gotten any calls about it.

So was it a troll? Had Democrats, who are trying to redraw the district’s lines again and possibly extend them through the Bronx to Westchester, accidentally tipped their hand that the progressive New York City pol was heading to the suburbs?

Turns out it was simply an error. Lauren Hitt, communications director for AOC, said it was most likely a software mistake by the vendor who prints and mails out the official communications. Hitt said the flyer was approved by the House as nonpolitical, which means federal taxpayers pay for it. It was the first one AOC’s office has sent since the 2022 redistricting and it was an effort to reach out to new constituents in parts of the Bronx she didn’t represent before. “There are a lot of steps that needed to happen and somewhere in there was an error," said Hitt. "If there were more than a few dozen sent I would be genuinely surprised,” she added.

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Hero to statistic

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Final Point

Climate-change cash floods in

What do you do with a big pot of money designed to help Mother Nature? Last November, New York voters approved a $4.2 billion environmental bond act, and since then, state officials have been going around explaining how they plan to spend it.

At the top of the list is climate change, state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos explained Thursday at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood. It was the last of a series of informational meetings about the bond act that have been held around the state.

 Inside the college’s cavernous arena, Seggos said this year’s long hot summer was once again a reminder of the impact of climate change, raising questions about how we are going to deal with it on the local level. He mentioned the Canadian wildfires that turned our air a dark hue of orange earlier this summer and other problems caused by rising seas and hotter-than-ever ground temperatures. “It’s been one of the most impactful summers ever,” Seggos told a crowd of about 200.

The state spending involves a wide range of environmental priorities, from zero-emission school buses and chargers, to cleaning up pollution and flooding problems around the state, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by negative environmental and climate change impacts.

 One of the new climate change programs getting $250 million from the bond act will be for buyouts of private homes and businesses plagued by constant flooding from the rising sea levels caused by climate change, said the DEC’s Mark DePaul Lowery, assistant director of its Office of Climate Change.

Many on Long Island, with its plenty of low-lying properties along the coastline, especially on the South Shore, are likely candidates for the new buyout funding, Lowery said. After Superstorm Sandy in 2012, a few dozen homeowners actually lifted up stakes and moved out permanently from their water-sogged homes, helped substantially by federal funding from that emergency. Many others affected in Sandy’s wake raised the foundations of their homes several feet higher, also with government help, as a way to avoid the impact of future coastal flooding.

But this new state funding for buyouts will be aimed at those who have seen the impact of rising sea levels do a slow creep, rather than crash, to their door. Lowery said the state funding will be aimed at those “who do not want to live where you have to sandbag your front door,” and experience constant flooding. The terms of that buyout program are still being worked out, he said, but expected to be in place by early 2025.

— Thomas Maier thomas.maier@newsday.com