Important Council hearing tomorrow

The hearing by the NYC City Council Committee on Housing and Building regarding the proposed bill, Intro 1015-2009 (in relation to the safety and security of construction sites at which permitted work has been suspended), is scheduled for Mon., Sept. 21, 2009, 10:00 a.m. in the Committee Room, at City Hall. You should consider attending on Sept. 21. Have photo ID, allow a few minutes to get through security, the R subway City Hall stop is outside the gate. Sign speaker's slip if interested in making a brief statement--maximum of 3 minutes, bring extra copies of statement to hand in.

Attached is a 4 page statement which I sent to Councilman Lew Fidler for his information and use. (Note: a number of recipients did not receive first email attempt because I included it in text of email and it was too long, so this time it is attached). Feel free to borrow from it , to simply let Councilmembers know you support its message, focus on mentioning specific examples and some details (number of complaints, violations, how long exists, kind of blight) of stalled sites that you are aware of and are problematic.

This hearing is an opportunity to try to deny developers another benefit that does nothing to help the public, and a chance to bring the issue of property blight into a spotlight-- to get a law on the books attempting to clear sites so that neighborhoods don't have to suffer with ugly fences, overgrown weeds, and garbage for years, as they do now.

Here is the link for the bill.

Please consider attending, speaking and/or sharing your thoughts with your Councilmember, so that he/she is familiar with concerns and can give testimony to the committee.

Thank you for your attention,

Ed Jaworski, Exec. VP, Madison-Marine-Homecrest Civic Association