Two months after touring Jamaica to learn more about issues in the area, Borough President Donovan Richards launched a task force last Thursday to help improve the downtown hub.
The Downtown Jamaica Improvement Council, which is co-chaired by Richards and Councilwoman Nantasha Williams (D-St. Albans), also consists of U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica), state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-St.Albans), Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica), Council Majority Whip and Transportation Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Laurelton), Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman (D-Springfield Gardens) and Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Hillcrest).
The purpose of the task force is to streamline communication with stakeholders, which also include city and state offices and agencies, business improvement districts, chambers of commerce, the Greater Jamaica Development Group, York College, the Association for a Better New York and Community Board 12, to fast-track projects that would support the area’s commercial hub, enhance the quality of life for residents and upgrade transportation, according to the BP’s Office.
“We carefully listened to the Downtown Jamaica community about the issues impacting the quality of life in the neighborhood and are committing to make sure they are addressed quickly and comprehensively,” Richards said in a prepared statement. “Our Downtown Jamaica Improvement Council will work diligently to ... make it an even better place to live, work and visit. The Council will not rest until Downtown Jamaica reaches its fullest potential as a thriving commercial, residential and transportation hub.”
Williams sees the task force as a way to make Downtown Jamaica thrive as a place where people want to work, play and dine.
“Jamaica is one of the most important economic hubs in Southeast Queens and plays a vital role in New York City’s economy,” Williams said in a statement. “This is an opportunity to improve Downtown Jamaica by leveraging our collective resources. I look forward to ... make sure this vibrant part of our borough is even better than what it already is.”
Queens Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Grech is excited about the task force.
“As a board member of both the Rufus King Manor House and the York College Foundation, I know all too well the challenges that we face in this area of downtown Jamaica,” Grech told the Queens Chronicle via email. “I see it and sense it on my regular visits to the area. As we turn the corner on the pandemic we continue to beat the drum of public safety first and foremost among all things. We firmly believe there can be no prosperity without public safety.
“All the pieces of the economic puzzle are in place; we just need to assemble them properly efficiently and equitably.”
The Southeast Queens Chamber of Commerce also wants the downtown area to be prosperous.
“The SEQ Chamber of Commerce’s number one priority is to improve the health and wellness of our community,” SEQCC Executive Director Roxanne Simone Lord Marcelle told the Chronicle via email. “That encompasses the cleanliness and safety of Southeast Queens.”
The Jamaica Center Business Improvment District is thrilled to be a part of the task force.
This is probably the 999th task force to figure out how to improve this area. Apparently all that new tower overdevelopment has not translated to the streets. It's stories like this that make me miss Joe Moretti's legendary blog Clean Up Jamaica Queens.
16 comments:
I don't cringe easy but reading this Bull Shit again & again, year after year, over & over again makes me cringe hard.
This is what delusional dreams are made of in New York Shitty.
Is it too hard to ask Sheeple to vote for honest politicians ?
How much money are we spending on all these "Task forces" and where is the money actually going?
Knock it down. Turn it into a park. The Sheeple will be happy.
Addabbo's dad refurbished Jamaica very nicely.
Sheuer, Ackerman and Meng never did the same for Flushing.
It is true that when Britain abandoned Hong Kong, the wealthy Hong Kong Chinese
put money into refurbishing the library and subway, but that didn't last long,
given the large influx of much poorer immigrants.
Make Jamaica wait their turn.
Bring Joe Moretti in as a consultant and get things done.
Well getting bail reform fixed first would help. But what that area really needs is less garbage living in that area but that will never happen, so sorry nothing will ever help the area because everything you try to do will be "racist" in some way shape or form. Jamaica used to be nice in the first half of the 1900s. So unless you gave a time machine or if it become "crapified" like what they did to areas in brooklyn, then there really is no helping the area in its current state.
Nice work if you can get it. The roll call reads like a list of Queens County’s greatest scam artists of all time. When was it that Dinkens told us extending the subway into Jamaica would bring much needed economic revitalization? Or building a Social Security office there would bring stability to the neighborhood- all a pack of lies. They’re building luxury condos in Jamaica- the former St Mary’s hospital is a luxury condo- just wait until the owners step outside! They will run back inside screaming and start packing to move. And they will put homeless mentally ill drug addicts in their place. York College, give me a break! It’s a mere fiscal conduit for the above mentioned shysters.
And every police precinct in south Queens has to send cops they need to deal with crime and quality of life in their own pcts to Jamaica every day
The ones that say that the Jamaica is going in the right direction are only the ones in denial or making money out of every wrong that’s happening.
Are Elected officials under obligation to answer questions ?
No more hand outs. If you can’t afford it then hit the road.
All the pieces of the economic puzzle are in place! So we can slide them right into our pockets. More than a few of these winners have represented Rockaway. Look at the crap they’ve pulled there destroying the Peninsula. Follow the money.
The people who still support this admin after all that’s going on is unbelievable…
Donovan Richards, the chocolate mess who is polluting Boro Hall with the usual corruption, cronyism, nepotism, graft and greed (if it can BE even more polluable than what was left by Melinda 'Alley' Katz's, Helen Marshall's and Crusty, Bottom Feeding Crustacean Claire Schulman's despicable wake) is now a caracture of himself. A frightfully unqualified, bald-face liar, coward and thief, who can't even hire a cultural affairs director who has any trace of academic training, much less ALL pretense of a degree in fine arts or art history. I am an art history scholar with a PhD who met with Donovan Richards' lackey, Phil Ballman, last November 8, 2021 (with Community Board 9 District Manager James McLelland in attendance), as I meticulously layed out the entire history of Triumph of Civic Virtue, plus all filed documents to demand accountability by the Design Commission (and many other vacuous city design agencies) and why it is especially relevant to return the statue to Kew Gardens Plaza, without further delay.
When Helen Marshall capriciously, arbitrarily and unilaterally robbed Civic Virtue from its towering fountain and perch in Kew Gardens Plaza, and defiantly hauled it over to Green-Wood Cemetery on a flatbed truck, she willfully violated the Gift and Loan provision of the New York State Constitution (Article VIII) which prohibits the loan of city property to a private entity (such as Green-Wood).
Who is running Queens County and City Hall, peons? A feckless, intensely unqualified and incompetent Affirmative Action mill gone awry.
Every single plaza in the other boroughs has a public space that engenders pride, accountability and fiduciary compliance to clean, beautify and maintain the grounds, as well as any public art on the property. I'm not willing to wait for Civic Virtue to appear in the next life: Queens County taxpayers demand that our borough's gifted statue be returned right now, and to a fountain base that has its waterworks turned back on so that the people can enjoy their lunches under a welcome, historic setting——and a functioning plaza that didn't cost $1 Million to beautify under the profligate, wanton waste and mismanagement of Melinda Katz that quickly transformed into a blighted public urinal for the homeless!
Bring back Civic Virtue forthwith——and democracy MUST follow in its lead. Otherwise, let's stop pretending that 'MERIKA is a democratic republic——instead of an entrenched oil company, replete with a police state, totalitarian military operative.
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