Hevesi's son is pissing off Mario's son regarding donations from his sister's homeless shelter provider

NY Daily News

  A Queens assemblyman is accusing Gov. Cuomo of turning a blind eye to the state’s growing homeless problem while deep-pocketed donors linked to shelters with state and city contracts fill his campaign coffers with cash.

Cuomo has raked in more than three-quarters of a million dollars in donations over the past decade from contributors with ties to the shelter system, according to Assembly Member Andrew Hevesi (D-Queens).

Board members associated with various homeless shelters have gifted the governor $322,972.50, while donors associated with Help USA, a shelter service provider founded by the governor and chaired by his sister, Maria Cuomo Cole, have ponied up $451,285 in donations.

“Andrew Cuomo is profiting from the growth in homelessness," Hevesi told the Daily News. "He has taken three-quarters of a million dollars from people who have a financial interest in having more people become homeless.”

Cuomo adviser Rich Azzopardi, pointing out that the sum is less than 1% of the $118 million raised by his boss in recent years, said Hevesi’s criticisms are nothing more than the smoldering remnants of a grudge against the governor for locking up his father, former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, over a pension fund scandal more than a decade ago.

“As the governor always says, anyone who can be influenced by a single dollar has no place in government and that is as true now as it was the day when Attorney General Cuomo busted Hevesi’s father for selling the pension fund to the highest bidder," Azzopardi said. “The assemblyman’s conspiracy theories are sad, his family vendetta is pathetic and he should be doing better by his constituents.”

Hevesi countered that his only concern is the steady increase in the number of people, especially children, struggling with homelessness under Cuomo’s watch.

Each year, about 250,000 New Yorkers find themselves faced with the prospect of spending a night in a shelter at some point. The majority, three out of five, are school-aged children, according to the Assembly Committee on Social Services, which Hevesi helms.Since 2011, the number of school-age kids experiencing homelessness in the Empire State has increased 69% to 152,839 students.

Wall falls on and kills construction manager inside an Averne apartment building still under development

NY Daily News

A construction manager was killed Tuesday when a wall in a partially completed Queens building collapsed on him, officials said.

Jose Martins, 67, of Warren, N.J., was buried in debris when the wall came tumbling down inside the 
building on Beach 67th St. near Ocean Avenue North in Arverne about 2:20 p.m., cops said.

Workers were building a seven-story, 126-unit apartment building at the site

Another small business bites the dust as Kew Gardens pharmacy shuts down after 40 years

 

NY Post

A beloved Queens small business fills its last prescriptions Monday.

Many are mourning the demise of Metropolitan Pharmacy, a 40-year-old small business on Metropolitan Avenue in Kew Gardens near the Richmond Hill border, as well as its sister business, Metro Pharmacy II, in Forest Hills.

The closing of Metropolitan Pharmacy will be a great loss, residents say, because owner Ira Lisogorsky has selflessly served the neighborhood.

“I needed some medicine, but my insurance card wasn’t going through because of a technical glitch,” recalled Suzanne Hall, a Kew Gardens resident and a longtime customer.

“Ira knew how much I needed the medicine, gave it to me immediately and told me that he’d settle the insurance issue later on,” she said.

So why is Metropolitan Pharmacy shuttering?

Lisogorsky, who fills thousands of prescriptions, said he has problems with drug companies as well as regulatory and city policies.

“The city doesn’t care about us,” he said. “They look at us as a cash cow, and yet it is small businesses that made this city.” He cleans his sidewalk each day, but said “if the wind blows, suddenly I have a fine.”

The nearest pharmacy is a CVS down the hill on 126th street and you can buy candy and beer there too. Good thing we got big retail options.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has to fire her chief of staff

 

George The Atheist

 Just Who Represents The Queens 14th CD?

Who?  Officially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

So why is her Chief-of-Staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, mouthing off for her?  Referring to moderate members of Democratic groups in a Tweet last month as "New Southern Democrats" who are "hell bent to do black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s."   He sure p.o.'d Pelosi and many of the old school Dems, no?

Who elected this guy Chakrabarti? Seemingly the puppet-master of Ocasio?   AOC's string-puller?  And he doesn't even live in Queens but is a carpetbagger from Greenwich Village in Manhattan!!!

Impunity City

 A few weeks ago on the heels of the congressional hearings of the Senate's border funding bill, a brash man in his 30's  decided to take to social media and rail against the establishment very old guard and "moderate" Democrats for their support of it. And the social media storm came from the chief of staff of the most pop-centric elected official of our time (and arguably maybe all time since the young Kennedys) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Saikat Chakrabarti. Although he made salient points about the congressional hacks constant cave-ins, he made a boneheaded analogy comparing Speaker Pelosi and the other Dems voting for it to the Dixiecrats of nearly a century ago, which he immediately deleted. 


Even though these are atypical reactions from an electorate body of officials that are cognizant of their weakening status in office and of the growing and widening disdain of them by their constituencies to undermine a young and immensely popular upstart like Ocasio-Cortez, their vindictive accusations of her being dependent on her obnoxious chief of staff does have merit.

But in actuality, it's not only because of his tweet conflating the current shitty Congress and the shitty racist enabling one back in the day or even wearing a very stupid t-shirt, it's mostly because he's a dishonest person and a multi-millionaire feigning to be a revolutionary, trying to become a player in D.C.. He also could have underhanded reasons to personally profit from what on the surface are progressive policies that are being pushed.

Chakrabarti, or Chak as he will be referred to here for the sake of brevity and it sounds better, got filthy rich in Silicon Valley developing a web tool called Mockingbird and participated in Bernie Sanders miraculous yet defeated presidential campaign, followed by hooking up with the current representative of New York's fighting fourteenth district in Northeast Queens and the South Bronx with the Justice Democrats PAC he co-formed.

But since that victory, he's been pulling some very shady and non-progressive stunts

Murray and 17. Again.

To: Vallone Paul


So every year this comes back. Every year we are dealing with the same issue. If I remember correctly, it was determined that there was a water leak beneath the sink hole. This determination was last year if I’m not mistaken. Do we have to wait for an accident? Or worse?  

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Alfredo Centola

President 

Founding Member 

We Love Whitestone

Rally to Preserve 1632-Richmond Terrace Cemetery

Hi Fellow Staten Islanders,

Enclosed are a few videos that we did to assist in letting people know about a rally to halt, for a short time, the destruction of a burial site that goes back beyond the American Revolution and includes some Native American graves at 1632-Richmond Terrace last Saturday, late morning on July 20, 2019.

We have produced these 5 videos with the intention of using the links on FaceBook as our way of distribution. Instead of making one longer video with all the speakers, we decided to show only a few of the presenters by themselves with their own point of view.

You can view them in any order that you like and please pass them on to anyone who you think would be interested and can help.

Charlie Olson

Developer denied (finally)

 

 

Update:

Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2019, 04:17:49 PM EDT

Subject: Update on Kimco Proposal

Hi Everyone,

First, I just want to thank everyone for their advocacy and input over the past several months. As you know, there was a lot of back and forth between the community, the applicant, and our office, and a flurry of activity last night into the early hours of this morning. These latest negotiations arose from last minute modifications to the project that were presented to us in an attempt to reach a consensus that would satisfy both the applicant and the community. By late morning, we were still not convinced that that this project would prove to be a benefit the community, and therefore unworthy of a rezoning.

However, a vote was still scheduled for 10:30am this morning in the Council’s Sub-Committee on Zoning and Franchises, which was to be followed by a vote of the full Committee on Land Use. After hearing the strong continued objections from the community – lead by many of the individuals on this email – Council Member Koo was prepared to vote against the proposed Kissena Center Proposal.

After informing KimCo of his intention to vote to disprove the proposal moments before the scheduled vote, KimCo officially withdrew their application, thereby removing the item from the committee’s consideration and agenda. A copy of their withdrawal letter is attached.

Thank you to everyone again for your efforts, and for standing by Council Member as we faced pressure from all sides. We look forward to continuing to work with everyone on behalf of our community.

Best,
Elaine C.

____________________________
Elaine Cheung | Chief of Staff
Office of Council Member Peter A. Koo
District 20

Wolkoffs hold secret meeting with CB2 over 5 Pointz tower developments

THE CITY

Queens community board members met privately last week with a developer seeking their approval on revised plans to build luxury apartment buildings at the old 5Pointz graffiti hotspot, THE CITY has learned.

Three people, including developer David Wolkoff, gathered at Manducatis Rustica, Italian restaurant, on July 16. The session came less than two weeks before the board’s deadline to weigh in on an expanded version of the two towers Wolkoff hopes to build.

The board is under no legal obligation to be transparent. But news of the session rankled good-government watchdogs and opponents of the plan, who are still furious nearly six years after Wolkoff whitewashed the street art that drew visitors from around the world.

Community Board 2 Chairperson Denise Keehan-Smith previously told THE CITY a meeting was scheduled — but did not address subsequent repeated question on what was discussed at the restaurant or who attended the clandestine get-other.

 “We are preparing our recommendation” for the revised plan, Keehan-Smith said on Monday, declining further comment. Lisa Deller, the board’s Land Use Committee chairperson, said at a June meeting that a letter of denial already had been drafted.

Wolkoff, who co-owns the property with his father Jerry, did not respond to a request for comment. Jerry Wolkoff told THE CITY that he didn’t see anything wrong with the covert meeting.

“I encourage my son and myself to meet with anybody in a community or anybody in the city… Why shouldn’t we?” Wolkoff said. “I wouldn’t do anything where I would hurt a community or hurt individuals.”

“My son is the same way,” he added. “He will reach out to people to meet because I’ve always done that. We don’t hide. I’m a different developer. We meet, we listen, and if it makes sense we’re going to do it.”