Long Island City luxury tower from de Blasio's "affordable" housing program is open for lottery applications

 LIC Post

A new affordable housing lottery has opened with 33 units on offer in a large Long Island City development.

The units, located at 42-10 27th St. in a building called One LIC, include studios, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments. Applicants have until June 9 to apply and units will be awarded to qualified tenants via a lottery. Studios will start at $2,241 per month, with three-bedroom units going for as high as $3,283 per month.

The building, which is 21 stories and contains 110 apartments, is located adjacent to the Queensboro Plaza subway station which serves the N, W, and 7 lines.

The new building boasts a rooftop deck and includes other amenities such as a public lounge, party room, laundry room and bike storage.

Parking is also available at an additional cost.




One LIC, like one city right? ROFFLOFL

A "party room"

And parking, I thought the idea behind these towers was to discourage people from driving?

It's becoming more clear that Maspeth High School discriminated

The principal

From the NY Post:

A Queens public high-school principal excluded 500 Catholic-school kids from a list of 4,000 students applying to get into his school, raising cries from furious parents of foul play.

While more than 4,000 eighth-graders applied for a seat in the school, its principal failed to forward all 500 applications from Catholic-school kids to the Department of Education for possible placement.

Maspeth HS is a “limited unscreened” school — one of 225 in the city — which gives admission priority to students who live nearby and attend its information sessions or open houses.

These schools send a list of those applicants to the DOE, which gives them priority in a “random” lottery.

The system is ripe for abuse by principals who want to exclude certain students or favor others, critics say.

Principal Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir told parents at a Juniper Park Civic Association meeting on March 16 he made a “clerical error” in omitting all Catholic-school kids from the list.

But Abdul-Mutakabbir told civic leaders in a prior phone call that parochial applicants pose a “problem,” Juniper Hill president Bob Holden told The Post.

“He said, ‘In all honesty parochial schools are a problem because many of the students opt out and don’t go to my school. That leaves a seat [empty] and it costs the school funding,’” said Holden, who called for an investigation.

Maspeth High School refuses to take local kids

Well I have been getting a flood of emails from parents of kids who applied to get in to Maspeth High School this September. So far it's been confirmed that NONE of the kids attending parochial schools in the community board 5 area were accepted to the school and those monitoring the situation are having trouble finding public school kids who got in as well. When the school was built, there was controversy over it in part because the DOE would not guarantee admission to local kids. They did say that the school would take students who reside within school district 24 before accepting kids from outside of it. Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale and Ridgewood are part of district 24 along with Elmhurst and Corona. Although the DOE claims it chooses the students by lottery it seems implausible that every kid within CB5 would be so unlucky.

Has this happened at high schools in any other community or is this another form of retribution from de Blasio?

Housing lotteries discriminatory: lawsuit

From the NY Times:

A federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday on behalf of three black residents accuses New York City of perpetuating residential segregation by reserving as many as half of the subsidized apartments planned in the city for applicants already living in the neighborhood where the units are to be built.

The city doles out new affordable housing to low- and moderate-income households through lotteries that have been drawing tens of thousands of applications in the tight housing market. Applicants must meet strict income requirements, and, in addition to income, the new buildings look for tenants with preferential status under lottery rules, including residents in the community district where the new housing will go.

City officials have said the preference helps preserve neighborhoods. But the lawsuit, filed by the New York nonprofit Anti-Discrimination Center in United States District Court, alleges that the preference also denies equal access and serves to keep racial and ethnic minorities out of mostly white areas in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act and the city’s Human Rights Law.

Scratch off lotto ticket proposed to fund not-for-profits

From Bayside Patch:

State Sen. Tony Avella is calling on the state to adopt legislation he proposed that would create a new Lottery scratch-off game through which proceeds would be dedicated to a community grant fund.

In the past two years, the executive branch of the state has eliminated discretionary funds to fund local programs in legislators' districts, which has placed the burden on local groups that previously relied on the funding.

Avella, D-Bayside, said he wants the state to raise money for a community grant fund through a Lottery scratch-off game.

"Youth groups, senior centers, cultural organizations and Little Leagues provide essential services and rely on discretionary funding to survive," the senator said. "These groups certainly are not pork. With declining sources of funding, these groups need a dedicated community grant fund. My legislation is an innovative way to provide these groups with the funding they desperately need."

Billboard that collapsed was illegal

From NY1:

The slogan for the New York Lottery is "Hey, You Never Know," and only part of it remained early Saturday morning as crews worked to remove a collapsed billboard in Brooklyn.

The sign was atop 421 Meeker Avenue. It came crashing down Friday afternoon on the westbound side of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, sending debris flying through the neighborhood and onto the BQE.

A car and nearby buildings were damaged. Officials at the Department of Buildings say advertisements at the location are illegal.

DOB officials say the city has been cracking down on illegal billboards since 2009, but it hasn't been easy since many are old enough to be exempt from new restrictions.

So the State was advertising on an illegal billboard? How appropriate.

Bloomberg after welfare recipient's Lotto winnings

From Eyewitness News:

There is an update on a story Eyewitness News brought you more than a year ago about a former welfare recipient who won the lottery, only to have half his winnings taken away by the state.

Not only did he recently gain a major court victory in his battle to get back his prize money, his case could result in millions of dollars being returned to others.

Last time we heard from Walter Carver, he was taking on Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city's team of attorneys.

He is suing the city for taking half of his $10,000 in lottery winnings to reimburse the state for money he received years ago while on welfare. Under New York law, the state is entitled to half the winnings of any welfare recipient. That, plus taxes left Carver with a little more than $1,000 the day he went to claim his prize.

Carver says the state and city have no right to his lottery winnings, since during the three years he was on welfare, he worked 36 hours a week for his checks, washing floors on the Staten Island ferries. He sued, arguing that taking his winnings is a a violation of the Fair Labor act.

The U.S. District court ruled he had no case and moved to dismiss it. That's when the former sergeant in the Vietnam war and his attorney fired back by filing an appeal.

A few weeks ago, Carver and his attorney found out they won the appeal. The U.S. Circuit Court ruled that the lower court's dismissal was in error.

Eyewitness News has learned that since 2002, the state has intercepted $33 million in lottery winnings from welfare recipients, many of them having worked for their checks just like Carver. It is for them, he says, that he continues his David and Goliath battle against the city and state.

Big payday for Flushing vet

From the Queens Courier:

A Vietnam War veteran from Flushing cleaned up a cool $1,000,398 from the New York State Lottery recently.

On Wednesday, June 16, Bobby McLeod had a $472 “Take 5” lottery winner in his pocket when he went into the Flushing News Island newsstand on Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue.

McLeod’s New York Lottery Black – Series 2 ticket was a $1 million winner. He’s been playing Lottery games for 25 years – because he likes "the thrill that comes with knowing this could be the big one."

He decided to share the big thrill by surprising his girlfriend of 30 years – meeting her at her subway stop later that day. “She looked at me standing there and got all panicked thinking something was wrong because I've never done that before,” recalled McLeod. "I told her I had some news that couldn’t wait.”

Genting is last bidder standing

From the Daily News:

In a stunning move, the State Lottery has disqualified two of the three bidders for the ill-fated Aqueduct “racino” project.

SL Green and Penn National Gaming were rejected only seven days after submitting their applications in the latest round of bidding for the long-delayed project.

That leaves just Genting New York in the running.

Genting “appears to conform with all requirements of the bid submission process and will continue to be evaluated,” the Lottery said in a statement.

If Genting ultimately is not approved for the Aqueduct project, the bidding process will have to start again. A recommendation from Lottery is due to Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders by Aug. 3.

Lottery officials said Penn National and SL Green, which was partnering with Hard Rock International and Clairvest Group, did not conform with the set criteria. Both failed to submit signed copies of the mandatory bid requirements.

Instead, the two bidders offered “altered versions” containing numerous changes they wanted.

Early Christmas gift for Jackson Heights Lotto winner

From the Daily News:

A Queens construction worker who just won $1 million in the New York State lottery plans to use the cash to bring his wife and eight children here from Ecuador.

"This is the best Christmas present," said Florencio Guaman, 64, of Jackson Heights, who hasn't seen his family in 15 years.

"I just remember their faces vaguely," he said during a ceremony at Trump Wollman Rink in Central Park Monday. "I even began forgetting about their birthdays. I left them behind when they were children and now they are grown men and women.

"Some of them have children of their own," he said.

As soon as Guaman won the scratchoff New York Black on Nov. 23 during a stop at the K&L Dairy Farm store on 37th Ave. in Flushing, Queens, he knew right away what he would do with his winnings.

"I scratched the ticket and showed it to my friend, the clerk and we both started jumping around," he said. "I began dreaming. Maybe I don't have to just speak on the phone anymore."

Guaman left his native Azogues in Ecuador when his oldest children were teenagers. Now, they are in their early 30s.

"It has been very difficult for me, to be so far away," he said.

Guaman's immigration documents do not allow him to leave the country, so he said he will bring his family here soon for a visit on tourist visas.

Queens visitor hits jackpot, pays most of it to taxman

From the Daily News:

No joke: visiting your mother-in-law can really pay off!

Just ask Pennsylvania resident Mi Hyun Moon, who bagged a $5 million jackpot while in Queens with her husband to see his mother.

She chose to receive a lump-sum payment of $2.8 million or $1.8 million after taxes.

So she gets less than half of what she won.

This state is so sad...

Sometimes lightning strikes twice

From the NY Times:

Sometimes Bharat Patel buys New York Lottery tickets, but never at the store he manages on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. He does not want his customers to think the fix is in.

They might see fit to wonder. Twice in the last eight weeks, the store, the Shiv Convenience Store, has sold lottery tickets with big payoffs. First there was the $133 million Mega Millions jackpot won by Aubrey Boyce, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority collection agent from Kew Gardens.

Over the weekend, the store sold another winning ticket, for the Take 5 drawing on Sunday. That ticket — the only first-prize ticket sold for that drawing — was worth $66,053.

FBI shuts down illegal lottery

From the NY Post:

The FBI busted nine people yesterday for allegedly running an old-fashioned numbers racket that drew in hundreds of postal, transit and sanitation workers and raked in millions.

Players plunked down $20 to take part in the game, which paid out a $100,000 prize based on results from official State Lottery drawings, the feds said.

The outlaw gambling enterprise dates to at least 2005, and operated out of the FDR Post Office on Third Avenue, where monthly "lottery books" listing the players and their numbers were distributed in the men's locker room, according to a Manhattan federal-court complaint.

Two cooperating bettors helped the feds crack the case, with undercover surveillance revealing ring members picking up the half-inch thick books at a print shop in Maspeth, Queens, and stashing them at a storage facility in Brooklyn.

Total proceeds of the scheme were at least $10 million, and an indictment handed up Wednesday against a suspect in a related case says he raked in $9.2 million.

The lottery books, listing players' names and the six numbers they chose, were distributed to the ring's customers by numbers runners.

The winner was the first player to have all six numbers chosen in the state Lotto game.

The nine defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to conduct a gambling operation, which carries a maximum penalty of five years behind bars and a fine of up to $250,000.

Running a lottery: only legal if you're the government.

Queens Lotto winner comes forward

From the Queens Courier:

One Kew Gardens man had a whole ‘lotto’ luck on his side as he came forward as the winner of the $133 million winner of the July 7, Mega Millions jackpot.

MTA collections agent Aubrey Boyce, 49, took home the second largest Mega Millions jackpot in New York State history electing to take the lump sum, which after taxes means that he will receive about $54.7 million.

“I was in deep shock; I couldn’t believe I was the winner,” said Boyce, who spoke softly at a news conference that took place at Grand Central station on Tuesday, July 28.

On the morning of July 7, Boyce purchased $2 in Quick Pick numbers from the Shiv Convenience story on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica. Later that night, he watched the drawing on TV, and he remembered seeing some of the numbers on one of his tickets. He checked it again, and he told his wife Francis that he had the winning ticket.

“She thought I was joking,” Boyce said.

Apparently, earlier reports that the winner was female were incorrect.

Queens woman hits the jackpot

From the Daily News:

Lottery officials and a crew of convenience store workers are keeping their eyes peeled for the person holding a Mega Millions ticket worth $133 million.

"No one has come to make a claim yet," said Patel Dilip, 35, who works at the Shiz Convenience Store on Hillside Ave. "As far as I know it was a woman and she is really lucky."

There was only one ticket that matched all six numbers in Tuesday's drawing, officials said. The winning numbers were 25, 27, 35, 38, 39 and the Mega ball was 28. Friday's jackpot reverts to a mere $12 million.

Man wins lotto by playing Madoff's number

From the Times Ledger:

A 50−year−old Glendale man may be one of the few people in the five boroughs to win money, rather than lose it, from Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Ralph Amendolaro, a construction worker who lives in Glendale, recently won the state Lottery’s Numbers game by playing the last three numbers of the disgraced investment adviser’s inmate number.

Amendolaro was inspired to play the last three digits of Madoff’s inmate number — 054 — after seeing his picture and number on the cover of a daily newspaper. He said he placed a $3 bet on the number for three days in a row, beginning March 13, and found out that he won $1,500 on March 15.