New York – It has been nearly two months since Alex Zablocki, candidate for Public Advocate, sent a letter to Council Speaker Christine Quinn requesting information regarding CouncilStat and cuts to the Public Advocate’s office. To this date Alex has received no response to his letter.

On July 6, 2009, Alex Zablocki sent a letter, on behalf of his campaign, requesting more detailed information on CouncilStat. The letter, which is attached to this release, was prompted after the City Council cut the budget of the Office of Public Advocate by 40%. In the letter, Alex Zablocki asked two specific questions:

1. Why cut the budget of the Public Advocate by nearly 40%, when every other city agency and elected office received cuts of only 1-6%?

2. Can you please send my campaign the number of constituents that CouncilStat is reporting (currently by percentage) for the last year (12 months), first by borough and than citywide?

CouncilStat is a program designed to give legislators better information on what constituents are complaining about and how to better allocate funds to help resolve these problems. Information is displayed on the City Council website by the percentage of residents that called, emailed or faxed Council Members on certain city issues (or in relation to city agencies) but fails to show the raw data.

For example, if 100 constituents were logged into CouncilStat and 30 of them were housing related questions, it would appear a large percentage of New Yorkers had problems with housing (in this case, 30%). In reality, only 30 people had problems. Overall, the public should know how many people are being logged in the system, not just the percentages.

“Percentages only mean so much and I believe that the number of contacts per issue and the percentage should be made available to the public.”, Alex Zablocki said in the letter. “Speaker Quinn and many members of the Council cut the budget of the Public Advocate for reasons we still do not know. One Councilmember has submitted legislation that would eliminate the office entirely and has said that the office is full of redundancy. The Public Advocate helps over 12,000 people a year. I want to know how many people each City Council office helps per year. Percentages matter, but raw data matters more and we have the right to know how many constituents are logged into CouncilStat. 60 days should be more than enough time for Speaker Quinn to answer my request.” Zablocki continued.

Alex Zablocki is now going to the press to get answers, not to benefit himself, but benefit the public. While the City Council was quick to cut funding for the Office of Public Advocate by 40%, the Council didn’t lead by example in their own house. Zablocki believes that the tax payers are getting more “bang for their buck” out of the Public Advocate’s office (21 cents per resident) than ever before and thinks he can prove it by comparing the budgets of the City Council (and offices) to their constituent services, reported by CouncilStat.

The Public Advocate is a citywide, charter mandated elected office that is not only an independent voice in city government, but is there to assist the residents of New York City with getting access to government services and working to make government work more efficiently. Alex Zablocki is the Republican candidate for Public Advocate and submitted nearly 30,000 petition signatures with the Board of Elections to qualify his candidacy. Alex is the youngest candidate to ever run for Public Advocate and has over six year’s experience working in city and state government as well as being a small business owner since 2001. Alex is a lifelong New Yorker and currently resides in the borough of Staten Island.

More information about Alex Zablocki and his candidacy for Public Advocate can be found at www.alex2009.com or by calling his campaign at 718-734-1093.

Alex Zablocki’s campaign can also be reached by sending a text message to 347-983-9370 or by reaching us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/alexforpa.


The letter sent to Speak Quinn can be downloaded here.