Roger Herz at the microphone asking a question at a CityLaw Breakfast. Image Credit: CityLand
First to the microphone at many CityLaw Breakfasts during the Q&A session following the speaker’s prepared remarks was Roger Herz. Roger, with a serious demeanor and in a steady voice, would announce himself: “Roger Herz, Time to Improve Municipal Efficiency.” And then Roger would ask a pointed question, well prepared, and personal, often adding that he had been pressing the same point for years. The speakers always knew Roger from prior appearances, emails and events. They regularly responded with apologies, explanations and promises to get back to Roger. (read more…)
Elizabeth Fine became General Counsel and Executive Vice-President of the Empire State Development Corporation in 2014 after a long career of government service. Fine grew up in New Haven, Washington D.C., and Lima, Peru. Her family eventually settled in the Boston area, where Fine graduated Brookline High School. Jonathan Fine, Elizabeth’s father, had worked in Lima for the Agency for International Development while her mother, Edith W. Fine, was an administrator for the Peace Corp. Afterwards Fine’s mother worked as an attorney for Boston’s Corporation Counsel and later became a judge of the Boston Municipal Court, then rising to the Massachusetts Superior Court and the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. Fine’s father eventually became the Boston’s Deputy Commissioner of Health and founded the non-profit “Physicians for Human Rights.” 
On October 17, 2019, the City Council approved a plan to replace Rikers Island. A month earlier, Allen P. Cappelli, a member of the City Planning Commission, had voted with the 9-3 majority in favor of the application. Cappelli called Rikers Island an “absolute abomination” and in need of “shuttering.” Cappelli’s vote reflected four decades of public service. 
