A sad and urgent story to report. Somewhat myopically, I thought the carriage horse fight had been won. The truth is that the effort to ban the horses was stopped, but I didn’t realize how much of  a disconnected ideologue the mayor is or how little he cares about animals or the democratic process.  Do not let anyone tell you he cares about people who work.

The latest news from New York could be awful news for the New York Carriage Horses, and for everyone who loves animals and wants to see and know them.Their situation is dire, the mayor is once again negotiating obsessively, secretly and in bad faith.  He’s trying to ban the carriage trade without being blamed for it.

There is no deal close at hand, the carriage trade negotiators believe the idea of a stable for the horses in Central Park is a promising idea, but a fantasy.

I believe they are standing firm against this awful plan.

I quoted the Daily News the other day as saying a deal was close, that the city would build a new stables for the horses in Central park. That was inaccurate, it is not near to being close.  But there is a great danger of a bill being railroaded through the City Council that would cripple the carriage trade, cost hundreds of people jobs,  put many horses in danger,   and close two of the city’s three stables without any certainty that a new stable will ever even be built.

It seems that if the mayor can’t kill the carriage trade outright, he wants to persuade the people who work in the trade to commit suicide.

Once again, the people who say they are for the rights of animals but are not,  are close to driving away the beautiful draft horses from New York City, where they have worked and lived for hundreds of years. These horses are now in the gravest peril yet, all in the name of being saved. They are the luckiest horses in the world to be where they are, and the city seems to know it is blessed in many ways to have them. The mayor doesn’t know this, and the animal rights groups in the city have made it abundantly clear they know nothing about horses at all.

“We have no deal, we are not close to a deal,” said one person close to the negotiation. “The animal rights people are trying to make it look like a done deal. The mayor is unstable over this issue, he is obsessed with it, he is trying to ram through the City Council a bill that would essentially cut the number of licensed drivers drastically, put 150 horses out of work and in danger and restrict the trade in so many ways that we can barely function or make any money.”

The negotiators say the idea of a new stable in Central Park is what they are calling a “Trojan Horse,” essentially a trick to get council members to pass the new legislation. Humiliated by his failure to get a ban through the City Council after promising to get rid of the horses on “day one,” the mayor is simply (and secretly) trying another tack, an end run around any kind of open or democratic process.

The people in the carriage trade are fearful,  angry and disheartened, they are fighting back with a proposal to introduce safe “horse lanes” from the stables to the park rather than take public land in the park. But mostly, they are fighting for time. The stables would be a wonderful solution, if the offer was real.

Person after person has described the mayor as being obsessed with the idea of destroying the carriage trade and there is growing concern that he will muscle this legislation past the City Council.  He is repeatedly said to be disturbed on this subject.

NYClass, the animal rights group spearheading the effort to ban the horses, and the group that helped elect Mayor deBlasio is secretly supporting the bill that will essentially force two of the three stables into selling to hungry and very greedy real estate interests, cost scores of drivers their jobs, and keep only 75 to 77 horses in the city.  They are said to be leaking the stories about a done deal, they want it to happen. I bit.

And this is without any assurance that a stable will be built in the park at all. If they can’t kill the trade with one blow, they will try and do it by a thousand cuts.

The public has overwhelmingly rejected the idea of banning the horses from the city, this new plan is a complete and arrogant rejection of their wishes. Should the public will matter to an elected mayor?

The Teamsters are fighting to retain the status quo until a stable is built and better terms can be  agreed upon.  It sounds grim. The mayor, say the negotiators, seems almost disturbingly obsessed with advancing the idea that these changes must occur right now, and he is hoping to rush the legislation through the City Council very soon, before the enormous support behind the horses can organize again. It is not clear if he has support for this measure in the council.

“We have no agreement,” said one member of the carriage trade, “we are being steamrolled.”

Essentially, the most important issue is this: the mayor wants to implement his program before it is really negotiated, before the new stable is built or completed or even funded.  The carriage industry is expected to cannibalize itself without a  new home or rational or safe work rules.

Secondly, under the new rules, the owners cannot rotate or replace their horses, no spare horses, no replacements. This will drastically reduce the number of horses available, and radically increase the workload of the surviving horses.

This is critical. This is what keeps the horses healthy, safe and profitable. This is what keeps them from overwork and exploitation, some owners  have two horses, some have four or five. The restrictive new rules fly in the face of  persistent complaints from the mayor and the animal rights groups that the horses are overworked. In fact, the toll on the horses will be dramatic.  The quality of their work life will change immediately.

The remaining horses will have to to work more than twice is hard, more than 150 trained and able carriage horses will be sent away. None of the animal rights groups or the mayor’s office is yet willing or able to say where the horses will go or who will pay the millions of dollars it will cost to care for them. The only rationale for this rule is to cripple and weaken the carriage trade.

There are a number of good things about the mayor’s bill, but none of them really work unless and until the stables are built and the smothering new rules are softened or change. As best as I can tell, this is where we are now.

There is nothing humane about ripping the horses away from their familiar environments and human attachments. It is nightmare out in the world for horses, if there were room out there for more than 150 big draft horses, they wouldn’t be sending 160,000 horses a year to slaughter.

This is true abuse, of the horses, of the people who have cared for them. The carriage trade, almost alone in the animal world, has found a way to keep domesticated animals in the city, and keep them healthy and safe and well cared for. It defies any notion of animal rights and welfare to destroy this industry in this cruel and unnecessary way. There is nothing environmentally sane about removing horses from the city to make room for more cars and condominiums.

The irony is that the carriage trade likes the idea of the stables, and is open to negotiating a solution along those lines, but no one in the city government is willing to negotiate with them, or really deal with them at all. They have become the Orwellian “non-humans,” people considered outside of the moral community, people who don’t need to be treated with dignity, or even considered at all.

I am not a part of the negotiations, for me it is past time for the carriage trade to consider legal action that seeks to protect their rights against a government guilty of gross overreaching. The carriage trade has retained Norman Siegel, one of the best civil rights lawyers in the country. I have no idea what he is planning. Speaking only for myself, I think is time for him to come forward and address the serious civil rights issues that underlie this drama.

The mayor has refused to speak to the carriage stable owners or the drivers or meet with them. Animals rights organizations have contributed more than a million dollars to supporting his candidacy and defeating his opponents.  The mayor has consistently worked with animal rights organizations but never been willing to talk to the carriage trade. The interests of the horses are not being protected.

The carriage trade has had no real representation or opportunity to negotiate for their jobs and livelihoods, and there is the perception of serious wrongdoing and corruption involved in the mayor’s truly curious obsession and involvement with the carriage horses. Here is a man who has never even owned a dog or cat, who suddenly makes removing horses from the city the major priority of his administration.  A man who was given truckloads of money by a real estate developer who happens to head the animal rights group – NY Class – that has spent millions of dollars to ban the horses from the city.

You try and connect the dots.

Now, he is refusing either to budge or negotiate on these critical issues for the horses and the working people who depend on them. There is nothing progressive about his actions or the manner in which he is pursuing them. This remains a fight for anyone who loves animals, lives with them, or wishes to keep them in our lives. The fight against the horses is irrational and undemocratic. Every newspaper, major business group, working people’s party and gender, age and ethic group in the city has said again and again they want the horses to stay, and by overwhelming margins. The mayor has said again and again he doesn’t care. He is saying it again.

It would be awful to let these horses suffer and die. I hope to do everything I can to stop that. This when elected officials ought to be held accountable.

The bottom line, say the carriage horse owners and drivers, is that the mayor can choke the industry to death and remove them from their homes and base of operations without having to take the blame for banning them overtly. If you read the new law in its current form, it essentially bans the horses without admitting it to an angry public. They ought not to get away with this.

I am not an attorney but there is deep concern that real estate interests who seek to take over the stables have played a prominent role in the assault against the horses, who have been found again and again to be safe, healthy and well cared for. I hope there is some legal action to force the mayor and his dealings into the open. Here is a bill that would practically force two of the three stables to sell immediately, the third if and when the mythical stable is built. If the new rules are passed, the survivors won’t last too long either.

Civil rights also plays into the question of freedom in this story, the right of law-abiding people who have broken no laws and violated no regulations to keep their way of life and freedom of choice to pursue work that they love. The long and ugly campaign against the carriage trade is outrageous.  When government overreaches, there is considerable precedent for seeking relief from the courts. The mayor seems out of control on this issue, he needs to be compelled to tell the truth and be open about what he has decided and why.

I hope they sue. I hope they drag the mayor into court and force him to tell the truth under oath about this campaign.

In the face of so much conflict and abuse of power, the meaning of victory changes almost daily. Once, victory meant leaving the horses alone. Now, it means keeping the status quo in place until it is clear what stables are being built, who will pay for them, and how many horses can be housed in them humanely while keeping this industry intact. No one will ever care for the horses more lovingly and well than the carriage trade has learned to do in recent years. They deserve support, not persecution.

The horses depend on us to keep their safe and important lives, and so do hundreds of jobs and a way of life, and the idea that animals belong with us in our every day lives, not only in private preserves, rescue farms and slaughterhouses.

This is another of those awful fights that should not be happening.  The horses were not in danger, they pose no serious danger to others. But here it is.

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The vast majority of my blog readers live outside of the city, but many live in New York.  I can’t tell anyone else what to do, but here is a list of members of the City Council Transportation Committee for those who wish to contact them: