Gariiiiiiib Progress Memo 4/03

Hey all,

Progress recently has not been great, but I'll try and cover what I'm working towards right now:

1. Finding an injured worker. The union-side option has not been working (i.e., for the past three months - they give me a very friendly run-around every time I ask) so I'm restaring my quest to find an injured hi-rise worker via personal injury law firms. The first time I tried this 2 months ago it wasn't a great success, but I didn't push the issue or go after more than 2 firms.

2. Getting more context from the opposition to the current safety regime. I already have a dialogue open with Council member Mendez from The Village, and I'm working on Councilmember Dilan from Brownsville. Both are on the Safety and Buildings committee. Mendez has already expressed her dissatisfaction with the current system to me.

3. I've been pelting the DoB with annoying questions for a while. They often do not result in great results. But I'll keep doing so. Specifically, I'm asking what the City is doing for safety for low-rise and non-union workers, but it's usually a press-friendly response, similar ot what you get fromt he unions and the Builders. The city says it's a priority and they're working on it, when I know pretty well they're not. They were so nice before... they got me the comish's full statement at that february emergency meeting and everything.

4. The fourth sign that my project is too big and cumbersome, I'm still looking for cities to compare NYC to when it comes to high-rise construction safety. I don't always get a lot of information in the way you might from the DoB website, for exmaple, and of course I'm limited to cities in the English-speaking world. Working, working... might not work out.

5. Academic sources. I haven't even started this angle - I'll keep you posted.

Thanks,

Andrew