Mayor de Blasio does a humane thing for once and extends hotel stays for tenants displaced by apartment building fire

 

 Queens Post

Families who have been provided with temporary hotel accommodation since a fire tore through their Jackson Heights apartment building in April are being given extra time to stay.

The hotel stays were set to expire by June 20, but families are now eligible to stay longer if they submit an application with the New York City Housing Preservation and Development, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a tweet on June 17.

“The families displaced by April’s fire in Jackson Heights are our neighbors,” de Blasio said. He added that the temporary housing will continue to be provided no matter a person’s immigration status.

It is unclear how long the extension will last.

The families were left without accommodation after an eight-alarm blaze damaged two buildings, located at 89-07 and 89-11 34th Ave., on April 6. There were no casualties but 21 people – 16 of whom were firefighters – were injured.

Temporary hotel stays were initially provided by the Red Cross before the city stepped in to offer hotel accommodation.

The extension comes after members of 89th Street Tenants Unidos Association, a tenant association representing those affected by the fire, accompanied by elected officials held a rally on June 10 to demand that their emergency hotel stays be extended.

This sure is quite a turnaround by the Blaz after what he said a week ago. Apparently, the state's input wasn't necessary and he didn't need that worm Brian Lehrer to protect him from the tenant organizer's leader after all.

 

A tale of two Heights@WNYC @BrianLehrer purposely hung up on a caller speaking for 500 residents made homeless from a massive fire in their apt building in Jackson Heights when he pleaded @NYCMayor to extend their stay at hotel shelters for time to move back to their town pic.twitter.com/NPZltSaldU

— This machine kills fauxgressives (@ImpunityCity) June 12, 2021

First bike boulevard forced onto community will be considered today.

 Queens Post

The open street is currently closed to through traffic from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on most days. Local traffic, however, is permitted access for parking, deliveries and drop-offs at all hours.

The DOT plans to reduce vehicular traffic on 39th Avenue to prioritize it for cyclist usage by reducing speed limits, diverting cars to other streets and making some cross streets one-way as part of the bike boulevard proposal.

The agency also hopes to connect the bike boulevard to existing bike lanes and signed routes. For instance, workers plan to install shared bike lanes on Barnett Avenue and 43rd Street to connect to the Skillman Avenue bike lane.

The DOT aims to transform the five selected streets into bike boulevards by either November or December this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio previously announced in May.

The agency will first present proposals for each bike boulevard to local lawmakers and community boards like Queens Community Board 2 in the coming weeks.

The Queens CB2 meeting Wednesday starts at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. It is unclear what time during the meeting the DOT will make its presentation.

Lisa Deller, chairperson of the community board, said the board has yet to weigh in on the plan.

 

Curtis Sliwa locks up Republican nomination for Mayor

 

 SI Advance

 Curtis Sliwa has declared victory in the Republican mayoral primary Tuesday night.

It’s one of the first races to have a winner in this primary season, because with ranked-choice voting and only two candidates appearing on the ballot, the counting process was easier than some of the more crowded races.

Sliwa, originally from Canarsie, has been a presence in the five boroughs for more than 40 years. He founded the Guardian Angels patrol group in 1979, and has been a talk radio presence since the 1990s — his program has been on hiatus since March due to his mayoral run.

At 11 p.m., Sliwa led opponent Fernando Mateo, a business owner and activist, with 69% of the vote, according to tallies from the New York City Board of Elections (BOE). More than 40,000 votes had been counted with 88% of precincts reporting.

On Staten Island, 10,727 votes were counted for Sliwa by 11 p.m., and 4,425 for Mateo. Those more than 15,000 votes were the most cast in any borough for the Republican mayoral primary.

Sliwa will face off against the winner of the Democratic mayoral primary, and Staten Islander Bill Pepitone, who is running on the Conservative Party line.

With all the shit talking that's going to go down between Sliwa and likely Adams combined with the continued rise of felonious crimes, this is going to be the most volatile #SummerofNYC of all time.

Andrew Yang: Loser

 

MSN News

 Andrew Yang appeared in front of his supporters Tuesday night to deliver a concession speech.

Although there won't be an official winner in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary for several weeks, initial returns showed Yang in fourth place.

Unofficial results from in-person voting put Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in first place, with the former NYPD officer holding a commanding lead of more than 50,000 votes as Yang delivered his speech.

"You all know I am a numbers guy, I'm someone who traffics in what's happening by the numbers, and I am not going to be the next Mayor of New York City, based upon the numbers that have come in tonight," Yang said.

"I am conceding this race, though we're not sure, ultimately, who the next mayor is going to be. But whoever that person is, I will be very happy to work with them to help improve the lives of the 8.3 million people who live in our great city."

Yang entered the race in January with a highly produced announcement video, and lead the early public polling for the next several months.

Adams overtook Yang in some polls by May, and Yang eventually slipped to third and fourth place in other surveys.

Ahead of Yang in the early returns were former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley.

Garcia would need second choice votes from the rest of the field to push her ahead of Adams, along with a potential boost from absentee ballots.

Yang was the first candidate in the primary to concede on Tuesday night.

o·ver·con·fi·dent / (adjective) excessively or unreasonably confident.

The result:

Caption unqualified comptroller candidate Cojo

 

Desperate White politician ruins underattended Juneteenth festival even more

 

 Micheal Tracey

 Juneteenth is officially a federal holiday, and inaugural celebrations are being held across the country this weekend. As always, elected officials never let a good parade or festival-type scenario go to waste. Yesterday, I went to a first-annual Juneteenth event in Jamaica, Queens which attracted the likes of Chuck Schumer, Bill de Blasio, Grace Meng, Gregory Meeks, and other NYC-area politicians who wanted to let everyone know how committed they were to “doing the work” — much of which, naturally, is yet to be done.

Even though this event was organized by a New York State Assemblywoman and, in theory, could’ve been an exciting post-COVID outdoor celebration marking a new federal holiday, the attendance was pretty paltry. I’m not sure if that was due to lack of interest, or poor promotion, or what. Nothing against the vendors and food booths and such — those were all fine. But when Schumer et al. were up on stage yesterday afternoon, they were speaking to a crowd of maybe 50 people. (Although the crowd did grow somewhat after the politicians left, with the arrival of various child dance troupes.)

It’s a bit strange when office-holders who belong to the party which overwhelmingly dominates New York City and State governments, and controls the Presidency and Congress, present themselves as quasi-revolutionary dissenters. But that’s exactly what happened at this soiree, hosted by Democratic Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman. “I just love Southeast Queens, we have the best elected officials ever,” the emcee said, further stating that these elected officials were in the process of “fighting the power.” Her words were uttered while Schumer, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, was posing cheerfully on stage.

After the speeches, Schumer strutted around in his brand new Juneteenth t-shirt in search of the piddling few attendees who recognized him and wanted to talk. He happened upon a father who instructed his young boy to take a photo with the Senator, because having a photo with a Senator is considered impressive. Schumer boastfully corrected the father, reminding him that his proper title is in fact “Majority Leader.” A smiling Schumer repeated this correction more than once. The boy didn’t appear to understand what “Majority Leader” meant, but Schumer’s boast conveyed the message that he was an extremely important person.

 Curiously, none of the NYC mayoral candidates — the election is on Tuesday — appeared at this portion of the event, perhaps because none wanted to be caught dead with incumbent mayor Bill de Blasio. At a recent mayoral debate only one candidate, Andrew Yang, indicated that he would like to receive De Blasio’s endorsement. For kicks, I asked De Blasio if he’d decided who he’s voting for in the election. “Nope,” he replied. Asked when he planned on making up his mind, he said, “by Tuesday morning.” ...OK.

de Blasio and the EDC are playing down the capability and spread of the Delta Variant

 

Progress New York

 Two days after the de Blasio administration released the findings of its recent weekly COVID-19 variant sequencing study, showing that the prevalence of the dangerous new strain known as the Delta variant had fallen from 8,4 per cent. to 6,7 per cent., a London newspaper, the Financial Times, published a report, estimating the prevalence of the Delta variant in the U.S. at 31 per cent.

For weeks, Progress New York has published reports, which have raised questions about the accuracy of the weekly variant sequencing studies. These reports initially focused on the plunge in the sample size used in the studies. The de Blasio administration responded by changing the presentation of the variant study results. Then, last week, some data was restated almost wholesale.

It is unknown how Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) will explain the divergence in the variant data. The press office supporting Mayor de Blasio refused on Sunday to admit that the administration was presenting unreliable variant study data.

There’s little transparency to the methodology used by the laboratory to sequence the COVID-19 variants.

Many critics are coming to the fore about the de Blasio administration’s lack of transparency about its weekly variant sequencing studies. One critic, known as @BWMosher on the Twitter social media platform, published some analysis of the latest sequencing study, noting some of the restatements to the data underpinning the weekly studies. In that review, it was noted that the laboratory used by the de Blasio administration to conduct the variant studies, the Pandemic Response Lab, was a creation of the City’s controversial arm that intervenes in the free market system to provide subsidies to large corporations.

The lab, also known by the mnemonic “Pearl” for its initials, or PRL, was created in the summer of 2020 by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, or the NYCEDC, first to conduct tests for COVID-19, according to City Hall information. At some point, PRL began to sequence for variants. That the NYCEDC is behind PRL presents a conflict of interest, because the chambres of commerce in New York City have been pressuring Mayor de Blasio to reopen the economy, so that workers can return to office buildings that still remain largely empty. To that end, the titans of industry have been pressuring for the full reopening of public schools from mere months into the pandemic, so that working families could rely on schools as day care. The reliance on public schools as day care for working families was noted in a mid-year budget report issued in 2020 by the Office of the Comptroller of the City of New York Government. “If public schools don’t reopen, parents of up to a million school children will have to provide their own childcare on at least a part-time basis, inhibiting many parents’ ability to return to full-time work,” the report noted.

Were PRL to report prevalence rates for the Delta variant that mirrored the Financial Times model, then businesses, office buildings, and public schools would face pressure to delay, or cancel, their reopenings. It is not known whether the unreliable sequencing data is a result of the appearance of a conflict of interest for the NYCEDC.

 

Driveway Jimmy

Talking to voters at the early voting site in Middle Village. Great response in the blazing sun! Thanks to Ashton Potter for holding it down for #TeamJVB! pic.twitter.com/VSrYoqRULN

— Jimmy Van Bramer (@JimmyVanBramer) June 20, 2021

Jim is one step away from squeegee wiper

Y'all are pathetic

Early voting complete! Day 9
•Manhattan - 60,649
•Bronx - 20,590
•Brooklyn - 65,516
•Queens - 35,361
•Staten Island - 9,081
Total Number of Early Voting Check-Ins 191,197
*Unofficial and Cumulative as of close of polls

— NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 20, 2021

NYC's feckless officials finally help NYC's homeless services...workers

 

AMNY 

With homelessness one of the most pressing issues in the 2021 mayoral race, it’s more important than ever that those on the street have somewhere safe to sleep. Oftentimes, that means a non-profit shelter. Yet many of the private security officers who work at these shelters are paid so little they can barely afford health insurance  – and are even in danger of homelessness themselves.

Now the New York City Council and Mayor Bill DeBlasio are moving to change this, committing 40.5 million dollars to ensure that these essential workers are paid fair, livable wages.

“For over 4,000 working families – their lives are going to change, this year,” said Mayor DeBlasio at a press conference this afternoon. A group of working people, each wearing union shirts, stood behind him. “You can’t ask someone to help solve one of the most challenging problems in society, but not give them enough to put food on their tables, or pay their rent, or take care of their families.” 

His description was borne out by a number of speakers. Homeless shelters can be rife with violence; yet many security officers are paid minimum wage, barely enough to sustain an individual, let alone a family.  “We cannot afford to live in the city we work,” said Shaquille Sheppard, a private shelter security officer who himself grew up in-and-out of shelters. “Private security jobs are poverty jobs.” Kyle Bragg, president of Local 32BJ, a chapter of the Service Employees International Union, substantiated this, saying that, “while helping the City’s most vulnerable, many of these workers struggle to afford things themselves,” and, “may even find themselves homeless.” 

Impunity City 

 

Mayor de Blasio, who promised to end the tale of two cities, and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and his Democrat majority City Council Cronies waited 8 years to finally do something about the homeless crisis by finally allocate funding for a long overdue wage hike for security guards. Sure there’s nothing wrong with wanting to give the people more money especially when tasked to supervise the city’s notoriously violent and decrepit homeless shelters. But there are a bunch of conflicting problems with this.

First, why haven’t the non-profit providers of these city shelters who are already receiving city funding already gave these security guards the living wages they needed?

 

Trustafarian City Council candidate caught with his nips clamped

 NY Post

 It’s a late-breaking case of electoral bondage.

Zack Weiner, 26, a City Council candidate running in Manhattan, has found his campaign tied up after video of him enjoying a sadomasochism session found its way onto Twitter.

“My magnificent domme friend played with Upper West Side city council candidate Zack Weiner and I’m the only one who has the footage,” reads a tweet from the anonymous account which posted the video last week.

The footage — flagged to The Post by Weiner’s own campaign manager — shows a gagged Weiner, unable to speak, subjecting himself to various abuses by a leather-bound woman who pours wax on him and clips his nipples with clothespins.

The footage was filmed at Parthenon studio in Midtown — which is known for its high-quality BDSM dungeons.

In a call with The Post, Weiner confirmed it was him in the video and said the footage was made about 18 months ago with a former girlfriend he met during a Halloween party in 2019.

“I didn’t want anyone to see that, but here we are. I am not ashamed of the private video circulating of me on Twitter. This was a recreational activity that I did with my friend at the time, for fun. Like many young people, I have grown into a world where some of our most private moments have been documented online.” Weiner said in a statement.

“I am a proud BDSMer. I like BDSM activity,” Weiner told The Post. He refused to name the woman in the video and said he had no idea how on earth the footage surfaced.

“It’s definitely a violation of trust,” he added.

 Weiner has a professional background in film production and is the co-founder of Stag Pictures, an independent film production company. Zack’s father, Eric Weiner, is a co-creator of the popular children’s television show “Dora The Explorer.”

Kingmaker Van Bramer

 

  LIC Post

 Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer has endorsed Amit Bagga from a sea of candidates vying for his seat in the City Council.

Van Bramer announced his endorsement in the midst of early voting and less than a week away from Election Day.

“In a crowded field, which includes several terrific candidates, I was proud to rank Amit Singh Bagga #1 when I went to vote this past Saturday,” he said in a statement. “Amit is smart, thoughtful, progressive, and has experience in government that will make him effective on day one.”

Van Bramer chose Bagga — the former deputy director of the NYC Census 2020 — out of 15 Democratic candidates on the ballot for the District 26 seat representing Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and parts of Astoria.

The council member said he would be announcing the names of five other candidates who he believes would be qualified to take his position in the coming days, but wanted to make it clear that Bagga is his top choice.

Van Bramer, who is running for Queens borough president, was previously tight-lipped on who he would endorse as his replacement. However his longtime chief of staff Matt Wallace endorsed Bagga in May and the candidate was spotted at a backyard fundraising event for Van Bramer’s borough president campaign the same month.

 

Developers clean up in a matter of days

Queens Post 

 City officials and local lawmakers celebrated the start of the environmental cleanup of Willets Point Wednesday — which paves the way for the redevelopment of the area.

Six acres of land near Citi Field is being remediated to prepare for the construction of three buildings that will include 1,100 affordable apartments, retail and community facility space. There will also be a stand-alone school and public open space.

The ceremonial groundbreaking follows nearly 15 years of wrangling over the fate of the area that has long been occupied by autobody shops and junkyards. The remediation work begins as the city looks to recover from the economic fallout caused by the pandemic.

“A recovery for all of us is happening right here in Queens,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio at the groundbreaking. “Willets Point represents the best of our comeback – new units of affordable housing, more school seats for our children, adding public space and detailed infrastructure improvements.”

The environmental remediation will remove contaminated soil in the brownfield-designated area and replace it with clean fill. Workers will also raise the ground so that the future buildings and infrastructure will be above the floodplain.

The remediation efforts will be completed in 2023. Infrastructure construction is expected to begin in 2022, followed by the construction of the apartment buildings and school in 2024.

The cleanup and first phase of construction will lead to more than 800 construction jobs, according to the city. Upon completion, nearly 200 permanent jobs will be created.

“The environmental cleanup is a critical step in the first phase of the Willets Point project,” said Council Member Francisco Moya, who noted that New York has been dealing with an affordable housing crisis and overcrowding in schools for some time.

“Today we are taking another critical step forward in tackling these issues,” he said.

Queens Post 

 A large development company has purchased the vacant lot next to St. Sebastian’s School in Woodside for $5.5 million.

United Construction and Development, which has a portfolio of mixed-use buildings throughout Queens, bought the vacant lot from St. Sebastian’s Roman Catholic Church on March 25.

The company confirmed that it purchased the 39-53 57th St. site under the name Woodside 57 Street Realty.

United Construction, located on Northern Boulevard in Corona, is a major player in several large developments in Queens.

It is part of a consortium of developers behind the 68-story Skyline Tower in Long Island City, the tallest building in Queens. It also is the developer of the Justice Avenue Tower in Elmhurst, near the Queens Place Mall.

The Woodside site, once a playground for school children at St. Sebastian’s, is large with a frontage on 57th and 58th streets. The property is 1/2 an acre in size.

On June 8, United Construction filed plans with the Dept. of Buildings calling for the site to be subdivided into 8 tax lots. The company has yet to file building plans.

Brooklyn Bridge cancels vehicle lane for bike lanes

Gothamist 

One of the Brooklyn Bridge's car lanes will officially start its transformation into a dedicated bike lane on Monday, June 21st.

The new two-way protected bike path is expected to be completed this fall, at which point the crowded promenade will become pedestrian-only. The plan was previously announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio during his final State of the City address in January.

"The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the nation’s most beloved structures, will this year celebrate its 138th birthday," Department of Transportation Commissioner (and Transportation Alternatives marionette) Hank Gutman said in a statement. "Over that long history, the bridge has changed with the times – as horse-drawn carriages were replaced with trolleys, which were then retired with the advent of car lanes.  In the coming months, we are going to transform this bridge we all love once again – this time with new bicycle lanes that invest in the bridge’s more sustainable future."

This isn't going to work. And what will happen when unlicensed motor scooter riders take over the lanes (another thing that de Blasio thinks will solve itself, even after a woman got killed by one of them in a hit-and-run).

 

Back to the gold house

 

Impunity City 

Nobody's doing it

 

 

NY Post 

The fiercely competitive primary races for mayor are not galvanizing voters to rush early to the polls, according to the city Board of Elections.

Voters have the option to cast ballots during nine days of early voting offered at more than 100 polling sites ahead of next Tuesday’s primary election.

Through the first four days of early voting, more than 64,200 voters cast ballots in the first citywide ranked choice primary election.

There are more than 3.6 million active registered Democrats and 500,000 Republicans eligible to vote in the primary races for mayor and other offices — or more than 4.1 million voters combined.

That means less than 2 percent of eligible primary voters have cast ballots thus far.

AOC's manufactured AOC wasn't vetted well.

 

 

Politics NY

The progressive darling city council candidate to succeed term-limited Robert Cornegy Jr. in Bedford-Stuyvesant continues to receive backlash and anger over a series of derogatory Tweets he made against the Muslim and Christian faiths as well as women.

As first reported in the New York Post, Candidate Chi Ossé, 23, issued the following on his campaign Twitter feed:

“Bro…your girl smells like a halal cart”.  

In another 2019 tweet, Ossé wrote that “rumor has it” that then-15-year-old British actress Millie Bobbie Brown can “fit 37 pistachios up her ass.”

He also tweeted, “Knocked over one of those Jesus worshippers on the subway this morning…feeling random and sinful”.

The district is home to the Masjid At-Taqwa, one of the largest and most prominent mosques in the borough, and has numerous Arab-owned businesses. Additionally, there are dozens of Churches – mainstay institutions in Black-American neighborhoods – in the district.

When the Post contacted Ossé about the missives he blamed youthful indiscretions and condemned the Tweets before taking them down. PoliticsNY has also received a half dozen other Tweets, also taken down, where he issues derogatory comments against the LBGTQ+ community, police and people suffering from mental illness, among others.

His campaign did not return emails from PoliticsNY seeking further comment.

Ossé is the only candidate in 36th City Council District race to receive the endorsement from U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s Courage to Change PAC as well as from progressive Comptroller Candidate Brad Lander, the Working Families Party and numerous other stalwart progressive organizations.

Prominent Arab-American activist, Dr. Debbie Almontaser, the CEO of the Bridging Cultures Group – an organization formed to dismantle stereotypes through training and consultative services – found the revelations deeply offensive. 

“The tweet found by the NY Post is outrageous! Though you explained you were young and now condemn it, that is not enough! You owe the American Muslim community an apology,” Almontaser tweeted. “A prominent mosque in NYC is in your district. Shameful.”

de Blasio is about to kick homeless people out of hotels where they were sheltered in place during the pandemic...which is still continuing

 

Eyewitness News

  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that it is time to move homeless residents who have been housed in hotels during the coronavirus pandemic back to shelters, pending action from the state.

"Everything is ready to go," de Blasio said. "Obviously, the situation is greatly improved. All of our planning is in place. We know exactly what shelters we are going to bring people back to. We are ready to go. What we need is authorization from the state of New York."

 When the pandemic started, the city moved more than 12,000 homeless people out of crowded shelters and into more than 60 hotels to keep them safe and socially distanced.

 However, concerned neighbors have said that while the city fixed one problem, it created another -- including huge quality of life issues in the surrounding neighborhoods.

De Blasio said the city asked for authorization from the state on May 18 but has not yet received it.

"We have not yet gotten that sign off from the state of New York," he said. "Obviously given yesterdays announcement, in particular, it is time to get that clear signoff from the state to move forward."

Taxpayers have been footing the bill of roughly $1 million per night to house the homeless.

Eyewitness News 

 The CDC is now calling the Delta variant, which was first detected in India, a "variant of concern."

The new label raises the profile of the variant significantly. Before, the agency marked the variant as one "of interest."

An alarming rise in infections attributed to the strain inside the U.S. is a warning to communities with low vaccination rates, and recent estimates are that 10% of infections in the U.S. are caused by the Delta variant - a more than 60% increase in this month alone.

CDC reserves the label for variants when there is "evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease, significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures."

The good news is that the vaccines have been shown to be effective against the variant, but much of the population remains ineligible for the vaccine and people who are immunocompromised also remain at risk.

 

Campaign manager larps as random hard worker family person in his candidate's campaign ad

We're exactly one week away from changing the course of history in District 30. It's an honor to run to represent you in the City Council and I look forward to being your Democratic nominee.

Share this video far & wide and I'll see you at the polls! This one is for you 💪 pic.twitter.com/NHxndSFYRJ

— Juan Ardila (@JuanArdilaNYC) June 15, 2021

 

If you plan on deception to get residents to vote for your groomed client Derek, at least find a different pair of shades to wear.