Council speaker tries new ‘buffer bill’ after Mamdani rebuff

“This story was originally published on May 20 by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning. City Council Speaker Julie Menin is preparing to re-introduce a limited version of a controversial bill that would establish anti-protest “buffer zones” around schools, opting not to try an override of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s veto of an earlier bill. Menin’s new bill would direct the NYPD to plan protest buffer zones for public and private K-12 schools only. Colleges, universities, museums and libraries, teaching hospitals and other educational facilities will not fall under the bill’s scope, according to a draft obtained by THE CITY. Menin confirmed the changes. “We’re taking steps that will result in a greater consensus among Council members, as well as the community at large, that will focus the legislation more clearly on the sites that serve the most vulnerable students,” she said at a press conference Wednesday. Menin did not have information on exactly how many K-12 schools or early childhood education centers have been targeted by protesters to date. She said the Council was in a position to override the mayor’s April 24 veto – which requires a supermajority of the council, or 34 votes – but instead chose to introduce a new version. “What our weeks of conversation also revealed was that there was a considerable number of members who wholly support the intent of the legislation, but who had concerns about which educational facilities are included,” she said. “We not only listened to these members’ concerns, but we heard them and now we’re choosing to address them rather than dismiss them,” Menin added. The proposal, known as Intro 175, has been the source of enormous controversy since it was first introduced by Councilmember Eric Dinowitz in January. Unions, civil rights groups and community organizations — including some groups representing the city’s Jewish community — decried the measure as a threat to free speech rights. Organizations representing Jewish and Catholic schools, as well as the city’s mainline Jewish groups, supported the measure. Menin pushed for the schools buffer zone bill, and a similar bill that establishes anti-protest perimeters around houses of worship, as an answer to the NYPD’s widely-criticized response last year to protests outside the Park East Synagogue, which had hosted an organization that helps Jews move to settlements on the occupied West Bank, as well as to the 2024 pro-Palestine encampments on college campuses. The Council ultimately approved watered-down versions of both bills in late March. The bill addressing houses of worship passed the Council by a veto-proof majority. Mamdani eventually vetoed the schools bill — the first such move of his tenure — after intense lobbying from unions and community organizations who opposed it. Many of those same groups took a victory lap on Wednesday, after news broke that Menin had failed to whip enough lawmakers to secure a veto override. “The dangerously broad, anti-free speech ‘buffer zone’ bill, Intro 175-B, will not become law,” James Davis, president of the City University’s staff union, said in a statement. “This is a victory for the CUNY community, labor rights, and social justice in New York City.” “These ‘buffer zone’ bills have never been about keeping New Yorkers safe, but about silencing our voices,” Jews for Racial and Economic Justice executive director Audrey Sasson said in a statement. It is unclear whether the city Department of Education supports the latest version of the bill, and a spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. The agency also did not testify at a marathon February hearing where the police department testified against it, saying it already has protocols in place to address protests. Disclosure: Irizarry Aponte is a PSC member in her role as an adjunct instructor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

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