Monday, September 19, 2011
Is Meeks next to go?
From the NY Post:The e-mail was flagged “Importance: High.” A top executive at the Stanford Financial Group wanted an answer.
“Have we an update on Antigua?” demanded Lionel C. Johnson, a senior VP.
“Greg Meeks and Ed Ahmad have both called again this afternoon inquiring about the status of Ahmad’s VIP-box invitations.”
The Feb. 19, 2008, e-mail, obtained by The Post, was addressed to Yolanda Suarez, chief counsel for the company run by now-disgraced billionaire banker Allen Stanford. It and other insistent messages during that period show Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks was determined to get his pal, Edul Ahmad, invited to a Caribbean cricket match so he could meet another Meeks buddy, Stanford.
The urgent pleas were made a year after Ahmad handed Meeks $40,000.
Stanford would also throw cash at the congressman a few months later -- hosting a lavish fund-raiser in St. Croix in July 2008, complete with Cristal champagne and caviar, that raised at least $13,800 for Meeks’ campaign committee.
Now the circle of friends threatens to become a circle of felons.
Stanford, 61, is awaiting trial on charges he engineered a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Ahmad, 43, was indicted this summer in New York, accused of falsifying $50 million in loan applications. And Meeks, 57, is under investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for the $40,000 Ahmad payment and is at the center of a separate federal probe for his role in a Queens nonprofit that allegedly stiffed Hurricane Katrina victims.
Meeks, an eight-term congressman, has a penchant for hobnobbing with shady characters and had few qualms about accepting their cash -- or doing them favors.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Parks needs more sensitive contractors
September 13, 2011
Commissioner Liam Kavanagh
NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
The Arsenal, Central Park
830 Fifth Ave
New York, NY 10065
Dear Commissioner,
Members of the Kissena Park Civic Association, Flushing and the greater community have been asked to be stewards of Kissena Park - and so we alert you of some disturbing behavior by a NYC DPR tree contractor and their DPR management supervision.
On Saturday, September 10 a day after torrential rains that left the grassy landscape wet and soggy Dom's Tree Service and Wood Resource Recovery (Ocala FLA) staged a tree damage clean-up effort upon wet and soggy tree occupied soils. This operation occurred with authorization and supervision by Kissena Park M&O management. The attached photos reveal impacts not just to lawn area but compaction of soils and damage to the wide spreading and unseen root zones by heavy equipment. The trees impacted are several Samuel Parsons heritage trees and other current tree species. We are concerned because established mature trees growing in open landscapes have root systems that extend large distances beyond the tree drip-line and that the compaction of those root occupied soils will have a negative impact to whole tree health. We are reminded here of the 2004 NYC DPR Capital Kissena Park Lake Reconstruction project where DPR engineer(s) allowed a DPR contractor to utilize lawn areas for staging and storage of equipment and materials resulting in needless damages to parkland trees.
Despite hearing that the protection and preservation of public trees is a paramount concern by New York's Greenest, we continue to see a blatant disregard for those very trees (under the jurisdiction by NYC DPR) that we have placed such high value and regard. What is disturbing is the incorrigible behavior by DPR management who show poor judgement when it comes to our public tree assets. A park manager with a sound skill set would have simply directed this operation off of the lawn area.
To address the long-term health concerns of the heritage trees and to mitigate the damages by heavy equipment, remediation of tree root zones is duly needed. With the tree care technology currently available the KPCA wishes to see the root zones of these trees restored by pneumatic air-spade (to reduce the negative health impacts from soil compaction) followed by soil amendment, Rhizofuel, mulch and irrigation. This action should be performed by vetted certified arborists with supervision.
We acknowledge the potential by the Agency to do the right thing here and await a response with an effective plan of action from New York’s Greenest.
Thank you.
Kissena Park Civic Association
DOE forcing kid to wear uniform
From Fox 5:
Over the past few years, public school uniforms and dress codes have become more common than not in public schools. The New York City Department of Education says wearing uniforms promotes better learning, student performance and conduct.
But that same DOE also gives parent a choice to opt out if you don't want to follow the dress code.
In Queens, one grandmother says her grandson wasn't given that choice. And she says instead of going to class with the other kids, he sits in a room by himself for the day.
Jackson Heights says early goodbye to play street
From the Daily News:
A play street that a park-starved Jackson Heights community fought long and hard to open up to the neighborhood this summer has come to a premature end.
The city reopened the stretch of 78th St. between 34th Ave. and Northern Blvd. to traffic unexpectedly last week at the request of a private school that borders the temporary open space.
The move left elected officials and community leaders scrambling to come up with a solution.
The road will revert back to a vehicle-free play street on Friday nights and weekends, a Transportation Department official said.
But that wasn't good enough for local leaders, who have been lobbying for more park space in the neighborhood for years.
"We are working closely with the Garden School and the Department of Transportation to come up with a solution that is acceptable to all," City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said.
This isn't the first time the private school has come under fire on the issue of open space.
Garden has taken heat from community leaders and residents who would like the school to sell its yard to the city for parkland - a process that could take longer and be less lucrative than accepting an offer from a developer.
Still no clues about Hillside Avenue arboricide
From the Wall Street Journal:
In Floral Park, the tree-cutting episode has exposed racial tensions in a community that has developed into a "Little India," with an influx of Indian immigrants and businesses shaking up the old order.
The block where the incident took place includes Masala 2 Wok, Mumbai Xpress, an Indian astrologer and the forthcoming Balaji Super Bazar.
On the aptly named "Queens Crap" blog, comments quickly devolved into blaming "animals" who want "nothing to do with America."
The underlying assumption among some was that the owners of the new supermarket must have had something to do with it. The trees blocked the store's façade and a fourth tree on the block was conspicuously left standing.
As the scene this week, I asked Mr. Castellano if anyone had spoken to the grocery store's owner. He had not.
But minutes later, out came Rakesh Kumar, the owner, hand extended and eager to talk. Mr. Kumar called the tree cutting "very bad." He said his landlord had also condemned the act.
"People are pointing fingers at us," said Mr. Kumar. "First day it happened I said, 'It's a small tree first of all and it doesn't bother us.'"
He continued: "We know the rules and regulations of this country," noting that if they wanted to take the tree down they know they would have had to get city approval. He is now offering to plant new trees and to pay all the associated costs.
"According to our custom, we worship the trees," he said.
Mr. Kumar has his own theory about what might have happened. "We have a lot of competitors around here, our supermarket competitors," he said, rattling off the names of nearby Indian supermarkets.
And so the speculation continues.
Like so many arborcides, the Floral Park ones may never be solved.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all
From DNA Info:Broadway’s new pedestrian plazas are being overrun by homeless people flocking there to sleep, driving some fearful residents to avoid the street.
“It gets filled with homeless people, the whole entire length,” said Scott Bowen, 48, an accountant who’s lived in the neighborhood for nearly 20 years and said the situation between 34th and 42nd streets has grown so bad he now avoids Broadway altogether at night.
“I no longer feel secure walking this route after dark,” he wrote in a letter to Midtown’s Community Board 5, urging them for help.
Broadway’s pedestrian plazas were intended to serve as peaceful oases along bustling Midtown streets, giving locals and tourists a place to sit down, people watch and relax.
But instead they’ve served as an oasis for the city’s growing homeless population, creating an eerie nighttime tableau of people sprawled on benches between pink flowers and giant potted plants.
On multiple visits to the plazas in the middle of the night this week, DNAinfo spotted dozens of men and women camped out, slumped in chairs, leaning against tables and sprawled out along the ground.
City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was surprised by the growing number of homeless people using the plazas to sleep.
Avella eyes open space in Whitestone & landmarking in College Point
From the Times Ledger:
Over the past week, state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) has taken steps both to bring new recreation options to Whitestone and preserve a historic building in College Point.
Support is growing within the Whitestone community for a proposal to convert six vacant acres there into a community space with possible features such as a sports field and a clubhouse.
Avella convened a meeting Monday evening with Alfredo Centola, president of the Malba Gardens Civic Association; Marlene Cody, a vice president of the Greater Whitestone Taxpayers Association; and Debra Markell, president of the Waterside Estates at Cresthaven Homeowners Association in Whitestone, in order to gauge their opinions on the possible plan and to discuss their next steps.
Avella’s office is working to determine who owns the site, which is in foreclosure and bounded by Powells Cove Boulevard, 6th Avenue, 150th Street and Waterside Estates.
Centola said the meeting was short but constructive.
In an unrelated matter, Avella took the rare step of writing the city Landmarks Preservation Commission Sept. 9 to implore the group to grant landmark status to a five-story College Point building currently being converted by a developer into a mixed-use project.
Architect Raymond Chan has plans to redevelop the site of the former Gelmart building, at 20-07 127th Street, to include a boutique hotel, restaurants, retail stores and a rooftop cafe. Slated to be completed early next year, the development will cost more than $7 million, Chan said.
But Avella wrote that it was constructed by the 19th century’s noted German immigrant and resident Conrad Poppenhusen as the first manufacturing building in the College Point area and therefore should be protected.
Hefty lefty happier with Happy Meals
From the NY Post:McDonald’s fiercest critic on the City Council is becoming as soft as a sesame-seed bun when it comes to the hamburger conglomerate.
Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) stood shoulder-to-shoulder with McDonald’s execs yesterday at the chain’s outpost in Cambria Heights, Queens, to tout the latest version of the Happy Meal, which comes with apple slices, fewer fries and less calories.
The portly politician, whose wife said he weighs around 335 pounds, said the move by McDonald’s to slim down the Happy Meal means his threat to ban fast-food joints from giving out toys in children’s meals worked.
“You know, it was never an absolute ban. It was more of an encouragement for people to do better,” Comrie said.
“McDonald’s is taking the lead, but we have other service restaurants that we’re still looking at.”
Whitestone West Nile source?
From CBS New York:
An elderly Whitestone man is the latest victim of West Nile virus and his family says it’s because they’re living next to an abandoned property that has become a breeding ground for insects and rodents.
Giuseppe Totino, 86, was hospitalized for nearly two weeks and diagnosed earlier this month with the West Nile virus, said his family physician, Dr. Joseph Mollura, of Whitestone.
Totino’s son, Dominick, got the call from the doctor Wednesday that his father tested positive for West Nile. He said he immediately thought the mosquito must have come from “this jungle next door,” — an abandoned house and overgrown lot [at 151-20 18th Ave] that neighborhood residents say they’ve been complaining about for years.
Quite a bit of money owed in fines on that house!
To whom should the finger of blame point?
So whose fault was the Weprin loss?
Barack Obama
Joe Crowley
The Parkside Group
My guess is all of the above, plus the candidate himself.
And who is the biggest loser in the whole Dem debacle? The Forum says it's Crowley.
True News from ChangeNYC.org has this to say:
In addition to the Democratic Campaign Committee taking over the election the last week and sinking over $600,000 in the dummy Weprin campaign, the local consultant group Parkside was mostly responsible for the poorly run campaign. In addition to making over $2 million last year from the State Senate Democrats for losing control of the senate, Parkside, who is joined at the hip with corrupt Boss Crowley, has more power to make money from government than any dictator anywhere in the world.
The good news for all of them is that the 2 hacks that were chosen for vacant assembly seats both won in landslides and that Allen Jennings was beaten back again.
Photo from Capital New York.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Will participatory budgeting be fair?
From the NY Times:
Four City Council members, intrigued by experiments begun in Brazil to let ordinary citizens determine how government uses tax dollars, say they plan to allow their constituents to decide how $4 million is spent next year.
Through a process known as participatory budgeting, constituents in each of the four Council districts will be enlisted to develop and choose among proposals for local capital projects like street repairs, new parks and public artworks. The money — $1 million in each district — will come out of the council members’ discretionary funds. (Among the city’s Council districts, discretionary funds range in size from $1.5 million to $6 million.)
Three Democrats, Brad Lander and Jumaane D. Williams of Brooklyn, and Melissa Mark-Viverito of Manhattan, and one Republican, Eric Ulrich of Queens, are taking part.
The process will begin this fall, with neighborhood assemblies at which constituents can suggest needs in their communities and ideas for projects.
The most active volunteers will meet over the fall and winter to discuss the suggested ideas, determine their costs and then present the options to the public; residents at least 18 years old will then cast ballots on which projects they want to see financed. Those projects will then become part of the city’s 2013 capital budget.
Is this legit or just another tweeding effort? "The most active volunteers" come up with the list? Who determines who they are?
Gridlock gold
"Walking south along the east side of Main Street, I had to wait, wait and then wait some more....until the pathway was finally clear enough for me proceed along without risking bodily harm. Notice the two cars trying to simultaneously exit the underground garages (on the left) at "New World Mall" onto Main Street. At the same time a northbound bus was attempting to negotiate (in heavy traffic) so it might reach its assigned stop near Duane Reade.
Of course....we always have Flushing's bustling humanity overcrowding its far too narrow sidewalks to up our game as you can see. Now I ask: can this be a pleasant shopping experience?
Downtown "Flush" is not my destination of choice for anything anymore if I can help it! Where is all of that BID money going to? Apparently not to improving the business district from the looks of things!
And where is DOT, NYPD and the FDNY? You can't rush to a fire in this tangled mess!
And it isn't any better looking in the direction of the #7 subway entrance either."
THE FLUSHING PHANTOM
'Roid rage?
From the Daily News:
A hotheaded Queens bodybuilder killed his dog by tossing it out of a third-floor window - then played dumb, telling cops he was asleep the whole time.
Milan Rysa, 30, hurled Brooklyn, a Chinese Shar-Pei weighing about 50 pounds, out of his apartment on Steinway St. in Astoria as he played thumping dance music about 8:30 p.m Monday, police and witnesses said.
Witnesses said Rysa looked out the window, saw a crowd gathering near Brooklyn's broken body, then shut off the music and the apartment's lights.
Cops, not sure what they would encounter inside the apartment, armed themselves with a battering ram and bulletproof shields, witnesses said.
But Rysa eventually opened the door and claimed he was just catching some shut-eye, a witness said. He was booked for aggravated animal cruelty and reckless endangerment, and taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Are Bronx and Queens strays out of luck?
From the Daily News:City health officials are promising to renovate a small Bronx animal receiving center and relocate a Queens facility for stray and homeless animals.
But it's little comfort, advocates say, for the only two boroughs lacking full-service animal shelters.
The City Council is weighing a bill that pumps more money into the budget-ravaged New York City Animal Care & Control in return for repealing part of a law that requires full-service shelters in all five boroughs.
That would boost the AC&C budget to over $12 million by fiscal year 2014, a 77% increase over current funding, said Daniel Kass, deputy commissioner at the Health Department.
But that's not sitting well with some elected officials.
"This seems like a form of extortion," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) said at a hearing last week on the bill. "I can't allow the animals and the people in the Bronx and Queens to be treated differently."
The new bill is especially painful for Vallone. His father, Peter Vallone Sr., sponsored the law it would partially repeal.
Kids think turnstile jumping is ok
From the Daily News:Alicia is among some 500,000 students who get a free student MetroCard from school, but she still hops the turnstile when she can get away with it, she admitted, as she stepped onto an F train at Seventh Ave. and Ninth St.
"To save the fare," she said with disdain for having to explain the obvious. Student MetroCards are programmed with three fares - or three trips - each weekday.
Theoretically, that allows one trip to school, one to an after-school activity and one final trip back home. Still, the amount of fare-beating jumps between 3p.m. and 4 p.m., when dismissal bells ring across the city - and students are to blame, MTA analysts have found.
Alicia gave the delinquents' rationale. There's more to life than school and three trips a day often are not enough. You might want to go downtown - as in downtown Brooklyn. Or go see a friend. Maybe a movie.
Each time you enter the subway without using your student MetroCard, you save one extra ride to take legally, and safely, later that day - especially if a cop happens to be near the entrance.
"The cops, the MTA, they're all going to get paid whether I pay or not, whether I hop or don't hop. I could put the money I save aside into a college fund or something."
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