Caption Danny Dromm and a lobbyist from Transportation Alternatives

Open Street organizer and creator falsely maligns community group run by a gay man as homophobes

 Jackson Heights Post

 A heated dispute has erupted between opposing sides of the 34^th Avenue Open Street program in Jackson Heights — with the initiative’s co-founder saying he was the victim of homophobic slurs leveled at him by members of an opposition group.

Jim Burke, a well-known LGBT activist (and volunteer capo for Transportation Alternatives-JQ LLC) and co-founder of the 34^th Avenue Open Streets Coalition, says a dispute surrounding the use of 34th Avenue led to him being verbally abused.

The 34th Avenue Open Street Coalition have been staunch advocates for the corridor to be made a permanent open street, while a rival group, the Jackson Heights Coop Alliance, opposes the concept, arguing that is unfair to drivers who need to park their cars and that it makes it tough for emergency vehicles to traverse.

Burke, in an interview with the Queens Post Tuesday, said he was called a “c**k-sucking f****t,” by an SUV driver who he believes is a member of the Jackson Heights Coop Alliance. However, Burke said that he wasn’t 100 percent sure that the driver is a member of the Alliance since he doesn’t know all the people that are part of the group.

Ricardo Pacheco, the leader of the Jackson Heights Coops Alliance, was critical of Burke for making the accusations and is demanding Burke provide further evidence. He said the accusations are slanderous and are just a means to undermine his group.

Pacheco also criticized local leaders, such as Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who held a press conference Monday accusing the alliance of bigotry. He said Krishnan did not investigate the allegations and his actions were malicious.

Burke also said there have been various instances where passers-by on the street have uttered racist epithets at volunteers. He said that his partner Oscar Escobar, whose first language is Spanish and speaks English with an accent, was asked by two opponents to show his “papers.”

Burke, however, said he doesn’t know for sure if the racist comments were made by members of the Jackson Heights Coop Alliance, although he assumes so.

Burke said he has been targeted because of his role with the 34th Avenue Open Street program. His group advocates for making the 34th Avenue Open Street program – which runs 26 blocks from Junction Boulevard to 69th Street along 34th Avenue – a permanent fixture in the neighborhood.

The strip — which is currently closed off to traffic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays through Sundays under the program — is being converted into a series of pedestrian plazas and traffic-restricted zones, in accordance with a plan released by the Department of Transportation in October.

Advocates for the open streets plan, known as Paseo Park, argue that the open streets initiative has been a huge success since it creates much-needed public space in the neighborhood.

Opponents of the plan, however, say the plan eliminates much-needed parking and makes it harder for emergency vehicles to access local residents.

Burke wrote that the e-mail led to unnecessary strife in the neighborhood by directing hate toward the volunteers of the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition.

“Purported members of this group have used homophobic, xenophobic, and racist slurs against our volunteers and program participants, sometimes in the presence of children and community members,” Burke wrote. The letter did not go into specifics about the alleged hate-filled incidents.

He called on Richards to investigate the Board’s leadership for sending out the email.

On Monday, the LGBT Network, a group advocating for LGBT people in Queens and Long Island, held a press conference along the 34^th Avenue Open Street to bring attention to the alleged incidents against members of the Coalition and called for an end to hate in the neighborhood.

Burke attended the press conference and was joined by Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, former Councilmember Danny Dromm, and David Kilmnick, president and founder of the New York LGBT Network.

Krishnan stood with Burke and the activists to condemn the alleged bigotry.

“I am appalled at the homophobic harassment that 34th Avenue volunteers like Jim Burke and many others have had to experience by members of the so-called Jackson Heights Coops Alliance,” Krishnan said.

“No matter how their members may feel about 34th Avenue, there is no excuse to engage in hate. Jackson Heights Coops Alliance must condemn its members’ actions now.”

  The press conference sparked an almost immediate response from the Jackson Heights Coop Alliance, which released a statement late Monday condemning the media event.

“The malicious accusation directed at us by Councilmember Shekar Krishnan and the 34th Avenue volunteer Jim Burke without concrete evidence is disturbing, if not pure slander,” the statement, written by Pacheco reads.

“We demand any evidence that supports this claim.”

Furthermore, Pacheco, who is an LGBT activist, alleges that his group was not contacted about Burke’s claims before the press conference was held.

On Tuesday, Pacheco wrote an open letter to Krishnan, labeling the councilmember’s actions as “malicious and libelous.”

“Without a shred of evidence, nor even a preliminary investigation, you proceeded to make malicious, baseless, unfounded, unverified and hateful allegations against the Jackson Heights Coops Alliance,” the letter reads.

“This was nothing less than a precalculated attempt to embarrass, discredit and defame our name as a community organization and attempted to portray me as being a homophobic bigot.”

“As the president and a gay man myself who has a long history and proven track record of advocating for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ community, I would never tolerate such bigotry from our alliance or from anyone else.”

Pacheco also called on Krishnan to make a public apology for his actions.

Krishnan responded to Pacheco’s open letter on Wednesday with a brief statement to the Queens Post.

“We take every instance of hate speech brought to us very seriously,” Krishnan said.

“It’s shocking that when a victim comes forward, the response by some is to discredit and vilify rather than condemn the harassment.”

 Wow, Jimmy is the Jussie Smollett of open streets. For someone who claims that his open street brings people together its hysterical how he never bothered to communicate with his neighbors from the co-op alliance. But it's clear that he chose to feud with them instead and weaponized his connections with elected officials to close 25 blocks from residents, delivery people, and city emergency and sanitation services who need to drive on them. And he didn't even bother to find out the alliance leader was a gay man like him and tried to weaponize bigotry to his and his political allies advantage. 

All for a stupid fake park and anti-car agenda. 

Vaccinated Danny Dromm calls firefighters and E.M.T.'s cowards

Didn't see you trying to put out that apartment building inferno in your district that displaced 400 of your constituents you #vaccinated coward.https://t.co/mcYhAKL3Vo

— This is JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) October 30, 2021

Danny Dromm calls the cops on open street protesters!

@Dromm25 @NYCMayorsOffice @NYCMayor @CueUpNYC @enforcelawsNYC @communityboard3 @QnsBPRichards @GovKathyHochul @NewYorkLtGov Mr. Dromm has stoop to a new low. He’s threatened his constituents for exercising their first amendment rights. https://t.co/skl4yUgvDn @PiperJosephine1 pic.twitter.com/FRc7zdyD3D

— 34OS Resisters United (@34OSResistersU) October 13, 2021

Why doesn't little Danny call Transportation Alternatives and send the bike stasi over to help him?

Jackson Heights fire victims about to be kicked to the curb

So where are the elected officials who represent this area? Out on the campaign trail pimping for progressive candidates instead of helping their constituents? I can't help but notice the absence of Danny Dromm in this piece. Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas gets a temporary pass because she's in Albany. Jessica Ramos showed up and said she was heartbroken but that's about it. How about tapping into Mutual Aid and BLM funds? After all, all that money was raised "for the community!" (/end sarcasm)

JQ LLC: Danny Dromm has been more concerned with turning the avenue that charred building is on into a "linear park". Even after the inferno displaced hundreds of tenants.

Also absent in de Blasio's HPD's sadistic treatment of these people is his buddy and upper class Windsor Terrace neighbor Stephen Banks of the Department of Social Services, which is still using hotels to shelter people who are mentally ill or just came out of prison, but for some reason the D.S.S. doesn't seem to think hotels cannot be utilized for people who have been disenfranchised from their homes and community by fire.

 

Devouring their own...

 

 Queens Eagle

Queens candidates, activists and lawmakers have criticized Councilmember Daniel Dromm for a series of confrontational tweets directed at several candidates for City Council — predominantly women of color — who he says do not adequately highlight LGBTQ rights issues in their campaign platforms. 

Dromm, a pioneering gay rights activist, defended the tweets, calling them a deliberate strategy to put LGBTQ issues front and center in the 2021 campaign, and to galvanize younger New Yorkers who he said have taken the struggle for equity for granted. 

“What motivated me is that I’ve been a gay activist for the last 47 or so years. We’ve fought so hard for LGBTQ visibility in political platforms and to revert back to an era where you have the political platform that did not include LGBTQ issues is a setback for the community,” he told the Eagle.

But several activists, elected officials and candidates responded that the issues they champion are inherently LGBTQ rights issues. They also blasted Dromm for focusing his attention almost exclusively on women candidates.

District 22 candidate Tiffany Cabán, who identifies as queer, was one of the women of color who Dromm publicly questioned. Cabán said that LGBTQ rights issues cannot be isolated from other progressive goals.  

“Housing is a queer issue, incarceration is a queer issue, workplace protections, reproductive justice are queer issues…” she tweeted. “I walk into every space bringing my full brown, queer self, even when it isn’t safe to do so. My politics are rooted in radical queer tradition.”

Danny Dromm is leading legislation to ban nuclear weapon proliferation in NYC

 

 
NY Post

Between homelessness, classroom disorder and rising crime, it might seem like there is plenty for the City Council to do. But instead of dealing with such humdrum matters, the council’s tackling the threat of nuclear war — by reaffirming New York’s status as a nuclear weapons-free zone, and setting up a commission to oversee compliance with that directive.

A hearing this week took on nuclear disarmament directly. Danny Dromm sponsored legislation to create an “advisory committee to examine nuclear disarmament and issues related to recognizing and reaffirming New York City as a nuclear-weapons-free zone.” This, in a city that has zero nuclear weapons — or even military bases.

Many New Yorkers may not know, but will surely be relieved to learn, that the city has banned the “production, transport, storage, placement or deployment of nuclear weapons” since the passage of a resolution in April 1983, at the height of the Reagan-era “No Nukes” movement.

 

Four decades later, the city wants to launch a committee of six members, led by the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office on International Affairs, to “establish a working definition for how a nuclear-weapons-free zone might be defined in New York” and to “host discussions, public programs and other educational initiatives related to nuclear disarmament.”

The hearing quickly ran into difficulty when Commissioner Penny Abeywardena, though agreeing with the peacenik principle, insisted that the responsibility didn’t fall under the ambit of her office, which is focused on relations with the United Nations — mostly, public relations and handling parking-ticket complaints from scofflaw consulates.

“The presence of nuclear weapons in New York City,” she clarified, “is not an international issue.” Moreover, since the deployment and use of nuclear weapons is a federal matter, “cities do not have jurisdiction or involvement in this decision-making process.”

Look out Kim Jong Un!