Queens Borough President Donnie Richards hires Transportation Alternatives lobbyist as "liaison" for transportation

 

 Queens Chronicle

Laura Shepard, chair of Community Board 2’s Environment, Parks and Recreation Committee, as well as an outspoken member of the Transportation Committee, announced her resignation at last Thursday’s board meeting.

Shepard is moving up to Queens Borough President Donovan Richards’ office, to serve as a transportation and parks liaison.

“I’m really going to actually miss serving with all of you,” Shepard said, reminiscing on her four years as a board member. Shepard, a former Queens Chronicle contributor, started as a reporter, sitting on the sidelines watching the board meetings, before making her way to the microphone for public comment and finally joining the panel.

“I just want to thank you all for your hard work and dedication to the community,” Shepard added. “And, going forward, I want to see you all at celebrations, not vigils.”

Y'all remember her. She was the one yelling along with other TransAlt minions at Vickie Paladino who were sabotaging the DOT's fake workshop to induce a bike lane in a mostly commercial traffic corridor. She and her pals were also calling her and the community against it "white supremacists" People should also be aware that the Queens DOT offices just happen to be inside Queens Borough Hall. If only Donald Manes was alive to see this.

 

Roy Wilkins Park recreation centers are falling apart from neglect and unaccountability

 

 Queens Chronicle

There was tension in the air at the Robert Ross Johnson Family Life Center in St. Albans on Monday.

It quickly became standing-room-only as nearly 230 people filed in for the Southeast Queens Parks Update meeting, which became contentious as accusations were lobbed from elected officials and some members of the crowd about the existing and planned Roy Wilkins recreation centers, located at 177-01 Baisley Blvd. in St. Albans.

“I love to speak facts because the numbers speak for themselves,” said Borough President Donovan Richards. “We don’t do rhetoric, we do results. There has been a lot of misinformation disseminated around Roy Wilkins, but we are not just going to stay there tonight. We are going to make sure that we speak about the progress being made in Southeast Queens.

“Tonight is not about revisionist history. All of you are ambassadors for your parks. The parks are lungs in our community.”

As Richards told the crowd to join park friends groups and advocate on behalf of their specific green spaces, James Johnson, the advisory chair of the Southern Queens Park Association, the predominantly Black stewardship group responsible for programming at the existing center, accused the elected official of kowtowing to the Parks Department.

Johnson shouted that the sprinklers and fire panel at the existing center were not working, resulting in one member in the crowd asking if the facility is safe for children who attend summer and afterschool programs there.

“We heard that it is a major fire hazard,” the crowd member said on a postcard that was read aloud by a staff member from Richard’s office.

On whether it is safe, “Yes, yes, yes,” said Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue. “The children are safe. The facility is safe and we would not run — we could not run a facility that was not safe. ... We have to get permits by the Department of Buildings. There is no way we could run a center if it was not safe. It is our top priority always in all of our centers that they are safe for children and families.”

Donoghue said there are fire guards in place at the center and there are such personnel at 12 other centers across the city, which meets Fire Department code, and the sites are FDNY-certified because of that.

A source from SQPA, who wished to remain anonymous, said their organization was receiving fines meant for the Parks Department because of issues related to the fire safety and a staff member had to go to court to address the matter.

A source from Parks said the fire alarm is currently functional and is monitored by fire guards. Also, as part of Parks’ upcoming capital needs assessment, the agency will determine the work needed to have the sprinkler system repaired and have the fire alarm system registered with the FDNY.

According to the SQPA, the sprinklers have been out since 1986.

The FDNY was not available for comment as of press time.

Driving malfeasance

 

 White Collar Fraud

Welcome to New York City’s most impressive disappearing act yet. Following our previous exposés of fiscal acrobatics and car service extravaganzas, we present something remarkable: $4.2 billion of taxpayer money that’s simply vanished from public view.

In what could be called innovative municipal recordkeeping, New York City has classified an astounding $4,201,873,479.51 under the vendor code “N/A (Privacy/Security)” in 2023. Of this impressive sum, $4,131,414,624.59 lists its purpose as “blank” – presumably because even “N/A” felt too specific. The remaining $70,458,854.92 gets the slightly more descriptive purpose of “N/A,” for those times when someone felt compelled to write something.

A sum of $4.2 billion is almost too massive to comprehend, let alone cover in a single post. So, let’s start small – with our borough presidents, whose modest contributions to this trend are particularly telling. After all, if routine expenses like office supplies and travel can be deemed too sensitive for public disclosure, what hope do we have of understanding the billions classified elsewhere? These smaller examples reveal a culture of opacity that has trickled down from the highest levels of city government to the most mundane of expenses.

 Borough President Antonio Reynoso leads with $135,827.35 in classified spending. His office’s signature move? Converting $124,515 into “Professional Services Other” – a category that explains nothing while saying something. They’ve also managed to make $5,388 worth of books disappear from public scrutiny.

 Vanessa Gibson’s office presents $30,680.41 in mysterious expenditures, including $13,618 in travel expenses to undisclosed locations. The destinations remain as mysterious as the purposes.

Under Donovan Richards Jr.’s watch, Queens contributes $13,345.20 in classified spending, featuring $9,100 in “Temporary Services.” The nature of these temporary services remains, appropriately, temporary.

 Mark Levine keeps it modest with $6,358.10 in classified expenses, including an intriguing -$3.50 credit. Even refunds, it seems, can be confidential.

These are the hypocrites who want to abolish parking mandates.

 

But these borough-level activities are merely a prelude to the city’s larger production. Consider $4.2 billion – enough to fund significant public works – simply marked as confidential. More impressively, they’ve managed to make the purposes disappear as well.

When the purpose of $4.1 billion of spending is classified as “blank,” it raises questions about the very nature of public disclosure. The remaining $70 million marked “N/A” almost seems quaint in comparison.

 

Donnie and the City Of Yes gets fed their brunch

Today, I testified before the Queens Borough President to make it clear that I am totally opposed to the City of Yes Housing Opportunity proposal. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/2WMeFNnwb2

— Robert Holden (@BobHoldenNYC) August 8, 2024

Donnie Rich made sure an elected official would not be seen making a case against the most dangerous housing plan ever concocted in New York City. But the woman here made the most of her opportunity to describe what a obligatory ruse this hearing was and what these officials are.

I listened to the ⁦@QnsBPRichards⁩’ public hearing today for the City of Yes. A solid 80%+ speakers are opposed to this plan. I hope ⁦@NYCMayor⁩ ⁦@NYCCouncil⁩ ⁦⁦@NYCPlanning⁩ are taking note and reading the room.#NoToCityOfYes pic.twitter.com/rrwZprVvU4

— Jean (@queens_parents) August 8, 2024

City Of Yes time again

That process is running through Queens this week, as my office will be hosting a public hearing on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity on Thursday at 10am at Borough Hall — all are welcome to come testify.

You can also testify via Zoom by clicking here: https://t.co/UQaGWeFruj https://t.co/ehfQ1BvSF7

— Queens Borough President Donovan Richards (@QnsBPRichards) August 5, 2024

QBP Donnie Richards (and all the yimby moles in his staff) decided to have his City of Yes public hearing at 10 a.m. when most of his constituents who are homeonwers like him will be at work. But you can make it on zoom via this link. Hope it gets lit up like the last one with NYC Planing Dirty Dan Garodnick. Maybe Don will allow clapping at this one.

BP Richards Creedmoor of Yes gets resistance.

  

Queens Chronicle

Seventeen Eastern Queens civic leaders reiterated their opposition to the state’s redevelopment plan for much of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center property last week after Borough President Donovan Richards touted it as a “community-led effort” in a newsletter.

Area civic groups oppose the plan because, they say, it will be too dense for the region, with buildings that are too tall and lack adequate parking, and that it will be too great a strain on existing infrastructure including roads and sewers.

Richards, who regularly speaks of the need for more housing in Queens and touts the projects slated to produce it, included an item headlined “A New Day is Dawning at Creedmoor” in a newsletter his office said was mailed to tens of thousands of homes across Queens last week. The missive was timed to follow his April 12 State of the Borough address.

“The largest community development project in the history of Eastern Queens is on the horizon in the form of Borough President Richards and Empire State Development’s draft Creedmoor Community Master Plan,” the piece says. “The community-led effort aims to redevelop 50 vacant acres of state land through the creation of more than 2,000 units of housing, with 55 percent being designated for homeownership.”

Empire State Development, the agency planning the project, has proposed 2,873 units of housing on 58 acres of the Creedmoor campus. The plan includes 813 elevator co-ops in buildings of six to eight stories, 536 walk-up co-ops in buildings of three to four stories, 186 triplexes in three-story structures and 98 semidetached two-family homes of two stories. There would be 377 senior homes, 431 supportive housing units and 432 apartments deemed affordable and granted by lottery, in buildings of six to eight stories.

The civic leaders said in a letter emailed to Richards on April 19 that they object to his calling the project “community-led,” since area neighborhood organizations do not support the plan and saw their own proposals for the property overridden.

They want a maximum of 1,000 units of two to three stories, and note that Community Board 13 passed a resolution to that effect.

“The plan by Empire State Development is not acceptable,” the civics’ letter says. “The layout is primarily four story, six story and eight story buildings, which are not compatible with our communities. In fact, except for one six story apartment building at 259th Street you will not find anything on the Hillside Avenue corridor from Winchester Boulevard to the city line higher than two stories.”

 

City of God

 

 Queens Eagle

Mayor Eric Adams made a trip to Queens on Friday to announce a faith-based housing initiative that would allow houses of worship to more easily build affordable housing.

Adams, alongside South Queens clergy members and other elected officials, unveiled the plan, which he says will make it easier for faith-based organizations to add new housing on their property and generate income for their organizations through zoning law changes.

The initiative is included under the mayor’s expansive City of Yes housing program, which proposes zoning changes that would add “a little more housing in every neighborhood,” but has received some pushback from suburban areas in Queens and other boroughs from residents who are resistant to building up housing density in residential neighborhoods.

Highlighting one aspect of the plan on Friday, the mayor said the zoning law changes would allow faith campuses, which are typically large lots with multiple buildings on them, to create new housing on their available land.

“We cannot let old, outdated zoning rules keep us from building new housing and our mission driven, faith-based and community organizations can play a special role in this entire process,” said Adams from Antioch Baptist Church. “So, we say, ‘Yes, in God's backyard,’ today.”

As the city deals with an ongoing affordability crisis as well as an overcrowded shelter system, the hope is that programs like the one announced on Friday can open the door to more affordable housing in New York City neighborhoods, the mayor said.

“We're throwing open the door to new solutions and new housing that would help us solve the crisis by working with our churches, our synagogues, mosques and other faith organizations to build more housing and reclaim our city,” Adams said.

In Queens, Borough President Donovan Richards called the lack of affordable housing a “state of emergency.”

“We have 40,000 migrants in our care in this borough, but let me also add that we had a compounding issue with homelessness for a long time in our city as well,” he said at the church on Friday. “So, you add those two things together, and we are in a state of emergency – but there are some great signs of progress in the borough.”

Richards spoke in support of the faith-based housing plan, as well as City of Yes proposal more generally.

“This rezoning really gives us the opportunity to not just talk about the housing crisis but to get to be a part of the solution,” he said.

“I've heard from many of our leaders who want to be a part of the solution who want to do God's work, but who are really prohibited from doing it because sometimes…we have challenges in financing,” he added. “But one way to ensure we can move many of these projects forward is to do what God has called us to do and that is to take care of the least amongst us.”

The plan also aims to help the houses of worship. as well – a group that largely supported Adams’ bid for mayor – by allowing them to make revenue from the program.

“We have to have more flexibility,” Adams said. “We have to live in the real world. The ideal cannot collide with the real, and these faith-based leaders have been talking about this over and over again. They want to deliver more housing and we want to give them the opportunity to do so.”

 

Caption Donnie and Danny

 

QBP Richards lied about education chairperson's removal

 

Queens Chronicle

Adriana Alicea, a Community Education Council 28 member appointed by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards who came under fire for posts on her social media, is still serving on the panel despite both Richards and the Department of Education saying her seat had been vacated.

The borough president expressed concerns about the handling of her status on the CEC in a Jan. 3 letter to schools Chancellor David Banks.

“I am writing concerning an individual whom I had previously appointed to Community Education Council 28, Adriana Alicea, and the lack of clarity in your agency’s position regarding her current status as a member of the CEC,” Richards wrote at the start of the letter, which was sent via email to the chancellor.

In the letter, obtained by the Chronicle, Richards wrote that he sought Alicea's resignation after reviewing her social media posts. Some on her personal X page contained hateful, pro-Palestinian and anti-white rhetoric regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

“While all are entitled to their personal opinions regarding this horrible conflict, after reviewing these statements, I concluded that several of them fundamentally were incompatible with her duties as an appointed public servant, including an explicit defense of Hamas and a justification for students targeting a Jewish teacher at Hillcrest High School on November 20, 2023,” Richards told Banks.

According to the letter, on Dec. 5, Richards’s general counsel spoke with Alicea, informing her of the borough president's request for her resignation. Richards wrote that Alicea “indicated that she acceded to this request.” 

Separately, Alicea also told the Chronicle at the time that she was being stripped of her appointment. She could not be reached again for comment.

“But later,” Richards wrote, “Ms. Alicea contacted members of the Family and Community Engagement team to either dispute or attempt to withdraw that resignation, instead characterizing what occurred as a removal. My office’s position has been and continues to be that this seat became vacant on December 5.”

Of her attendance at the following calendar meeting, Richards wrote, “On December 7, 2023, Ms. Alicea attended the CEC 28 meeting, and amidst the confusion that body’s president stated that absent a written communication from my office clarifying her status he would continue to recognize Ms. Alicea as a member. The controversy dominated that meeting at the expense of important business.”

To address the matter, Richards said his general counsel then met with senior members of the FACE team on Dec. 8, according to the email. FACE advised Richards to send written communication to the CEC 28 president, clearly stating the borough president's position and to appoint a new member to fill the vacant seat.

“On December 13, we submitted to FACE the name of my preferred new nominee and on December 15 I sent a letter to the CEC 28 president, copying FACE, clarifying my position that the seat was now vacant and that I would be appointing a new member shortly,” Richards wrote.

“On the evening of December 15, FACE notified my office that my preferred candidate had cleared their vetting, and then I formalized that appointment on December 19 by notifying the nominee as well as FACE.”

However, according to the letter, on Dec. 21, a representative from the DOE’s intergovernmental team informed Richards' office that Alicea's refusal to provide a written resignation would hinder the appointment of a new member. 

“My concern is that the conflicting messages from your agency to my office regarding this matter has hindered our shared ability to move forward in the best interests of the students and families of District 28 and generated unneeded confusion and controversy,” Richards wrote. “I look forward to working with you to resolve this matter.”

The Borough President’s Office on Friday told the Chronicle that it had not yet received a written response to the letter.

 

Caption Borough President Richards

  

Makes Mike Dukakis look like General Patton

Caption these fauxgressive elected officials

 

AOC could have been a queen bee in politics, but instead is an establishment drone.

Bad Pander's costume is apt, being how he's controlled by non-profit group and real estate donors.

Donnie Richards looks more like a 7/11 breakfast burrito wrapper than an astronaut.

And Shekar Khrisnan wins the costume contest by correctly going as a trash politician.

Queens gets the reefer: Pot shop opens across the street from Queens Borough Redundancy Donnie Richards' office

 

 NY Post

An illegal pot shop has brazenly opened up across from Queens’ civic hub — including its borough hall, DA’s office and state courthouse — and a store worker says the locale is totally awesome for business.

The site, which still has an old COVID-testing-center awning over it, opened about a week ago, the employee told The Post on Sunday — just a few months after Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature approved a tougher law to crack down on such illicit shops.

The store — steps away from the busy Kew Gardens Union Turnpike subway stop serving Queens Boulevard’s E and F lines — was serving up such cannabis-infused goodies as cherry limeade “Punch Gummies” on Sunday.

“We get customers from the DA’s office, from the court — I mean, I don’t know for sure, but they come from that way in suits, where else would they be from?” said a worker named Moe, who didn’t give his last name but added that his uncle owns the shop.

“We get people who have to go into court. If someone has court, they’ll go there and come here after to de-stress,” said Moe, adding that he moved to the city from Detroit to work at the shop, which has been doing brisk business and which his uncle claimed it was fully licensed.

 he employee boasted about the shop’s ideal location as he nonchalantly allowed photos to be taken of its displays of cannabis edibles, flowered marijuana and other THC-infused products.

“If you're near transportation, you'll do good. We’re near two bus stops, two train stations. I’m the first [pot shop] people see when they get off,” Moe said. 

He said he texted his uncle to see if he would respond to questions from The Post. The owner declined, Moe said.

There are 26 licensed cannabis shops in the Empire State, including 11 in New York City — and not one of which is located at the Queens site.

Another tell-tale sign that the weed dispensary is unlicensed is that all of its packages up for sale had a California stamp. Legal weed products sold in New York are manufactured here and must have an official New York stamp.   

“Nobody cares anymore,” lamented Alex Najjar, who owns the All Star News Stand next to the unlicensed pot shop.

“They just call it a ‘smoke shop,’ get the license for cigarettes and then sell whatever. Nobody checks. Nobody enforces it,” said Naijar, who has owned his newstand for 16 years.

He said he pays a hefty annual fee to sell cigarettes at his stand and that it bothers him that a shop can just shrug off the law.

“It makes me feel like, why should I pay my fee for the year when I can just sell anything I want and no one cares?” Naijar said.

The fact that the weed store kept the covid testing site sign up considering what a big pharma vaccine and vaccine mandate shill Donnie was is the most delicious irony of all. 

 

Queens Borough President for sale

 

Running an office that has no real function or reason to exist doesn't come cheap. For a guy who likes to drop the word equity every minute, these prices doesn't indicate any presence of the average working class Queens resident at this gala.

Ooh don't forget that the working class residents of Queens will still be donating money anyway because of the easy to manipulate matching funds law.

 

The World's intake center

NY Post

 Queens is bearing the brunt of the Big Apple Migrant Crisis, with more settling in the borough than anywhere else in the city, immigration court data shows.

At least 39,131 migrants listed a Queens address on their initial paperwork upon entering the country this fiscal year through through the end of August, edging out Brooklyn, where at least 36,579 migrants planned to settle, according to stats tracked by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonprofit at Syracuse University.

At least 18,910 and 16,151 migrants indicated they would be staying in the Bronx and Manhattan respectively, and 2,462 said they were headed to Staten Island, the data shows.

Meanwhile, the number of incoming migrants coming to Queens and Brooklyn are surging, with nearly 10,000 declaring their intention to move to Queens, and just under 9,000 heading to Brooklyn, in July and August alone.

“I don’t see it slowing down as much as people think it will,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. said. “This problem is not going to go away anytime soon.”

“Before we saw this we were dealing with a housing crisis, so we had 40,000 New Yorkers in shelters, and of course with this crisis it just exacerbates that issue,” he said.

 

 

Community board kept from community workshops for Creedmoor housing conversion

QNS 

As of the afternoon of July 11, nearly 1,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for the Creedmoor Property Development project to be halted in its current form.

According to organizer Carin Bail, the purpose of the petition to try and get Queens Borough President Donovan Richards to receive more input from the residents in the area to try and address some of their biggest concerns.

Bail, who is a member of the Hollis Hills Civic Association, brought up multiple concerns she and other community members share about the Creedmoor Property Development potentially being transformed into housing units. While Empire State Construction is still in the process of developing the master plan for the project, many residents in the area are worried that a large influx of people for the developed property will cause overcrowding, creating more traffic in the area and making parking significantly more difficult. Additionally, there is concern over the environmental effect such a project could have, like its impact on the sewage system.

Despite the fact that Richards and Empire State Development announced back in January that a series of community visioning workshops would be held on the matter, Bail questioned the amount of input that truly came from the community during those that have since occurred. She said many living near Creedmoor weren’t aware of these sessions for quite a while, and feels these people should have their voices heard since they will be greatly impacted by it. Still, these offices have been in constant contact with several local civic associations in eastern Queens to keep them updated.

“I’m a civic president in a neighboring community and I wasn’t even aware of this until someone in my community asked if I was going to the Zoom meeting, which was back in April,” Bail said. “I have almost 1,000 people who are not in favor of this because they didn’t even know that this was happening.”

Forget it Jake, this is the "City of Yes"

 

Pizza rat

NY Post

Don’t slice me up!

The lawmaker responsible for passing the 2015 law requiring pollutant-spewing coal-and-wood-fired pizzerias to dramatically curb emissions said Mayor Eric Adams should enforce the controversial edict. 

That would be Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who was then a councilman who authored the bill.

“Tell the pizza lobby please don’t slice me up. I’m not trying to take their dough. I want them to be able to roll longer,” Richards quipped.

More seriously and lost in the furor, he said, is that pizzeria workers and owners — as well as pie-loving customers — are breathing unhealthy particulate matter every day.

“We’re talking about the wildfires and bad air from Canada? Workers with these coal-and wood-oven fired pizzerias are breathing in a wildfire every day,” Richards said.

He said the City Hall and the Department of Small Business Services should help impacted pizzerias comply with the rule, which requires the installation of air filtration devices to slash particulate emissions up to 75%.

“We’re not trying to take away a slice from the business. We’re not trying to put people out of business,” Richards said.

Buffalo gets a big new stadium, Queens gets a little new ER

 

Queens Chronicle

Five hundred guests attended a groundbreaking ceremony Friday to celebrate the $150 million expansion of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center’s Emergency Department, which will double in size to accommodate more than 150,000 patients annually.

The funding is a grant from the Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program.

Despite having to attend a funeral later that day of a former first responder who died because of a 9/11-related illness, Gov. Hochul made a keynote speech at the Level 1 trauma center in Richmond Hill because she wanted to emphasize that the time of disinvestment in Southeast Queens has ended.

“This is a day of a new beginning,” Hochul said at the June 16 event. “For so many years and decades ... people thought that the people of this community didn’t have political clout to make real transformative changes. That time is over, my friends. With this new beginning, we say that this community matters. This hospital matters.”

Hochul thanked the doctors, nurses, staff and other healthcare workers for their efforts in saving the lives of people who suffer from mental health issues, along with those who fall victim to fentanyl and opioids or contract Covid-19.

“We are going to enhance our psychiatric services, because my God, people are going through so much right now,” Hochul said. “All the work to save lives from overdoses ... we are doing that in real time. We have so much more to do.”

The governor said that the new facility was delayed a bit because of the pandemic, but the commitment of the hospital to get the expansion done while taking care of patients during the height of the spread of coronavirus further highlighted the need for safety-net hospitals.

“There were a lot of hopes and dreams and then in the middle of it all there was a pandemic,” she said. “This demonstrated the compassion and incredible resiliency of this organization and so many of your members, from nurses to doctors to the people who worked in the kitchens, the custodial staff, the doulas and everybody else [who] pulled together to save this community.”

Bruce Flanz, JHMC’s president and CEO, said the hospital was at the epicenter of the pandemic, but with the new funding it will be able to serve more people.

“When completed, the Emergency Department will double in size,” Flanz said.

The hospital will go from having one trauma bay to four major trauma bays, from one isolation room to 22, and the number of treatment areas will nearly triple, he said. There will also be two new intensive care units: a 12-bed neuro-ICU and a 10-bed ICU.

“When the project is complete we will have a total of 48 intensive care unit beds,” Flanz said. “The project will also add much needed space to our mental health program and to our CPAC,” or chest pain center.

Flanz said the improvements are not just necessary to the community, but to its uniformed officers, who say JHMC is their preferred choice for treatment.

Officer Brett Boller, who was shot earlier this year in Jamaica, shared the sentiment.

“I had multiple surgeons and multiple teams work on me,” Boller told the Queens Chronicle. “They communicated well to my family about what was going on and the recovery process. They made me and my family comfortable.”

Lindsey Boller, the officer’s sister, told the Chronicle she was grateful for the care her brother received.

“I’m studying to be a nurse one day and it was just really inspiring to see how great all the nurses and all the doctors were to him,” said the aspiring healthcare professional.

NYPD Chief Kevin Williams, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Queens South, shared their sentiments.

“I’m grateful for their care and the services for our members in the service,” Williams told the Chronicle. “When they come to get treated it’s first-class and we appreciate it.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-Jamaica) said it was a 10-year journey to get here.

“I want to say thank you to all the providers,” Meeks said. “What do we have in life if we don’t have health?”

Meeks’ 700,000 constituents look to JHMC for treatment, said the congressman.

“If it wasn’t for the members of the state Legislature doing their part, this wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman (D-Springfield Gardens) told the Chronicle that Springfield Gardens doesn’t have a hospital so the constituents in her area look to JHMC for help.

“I don’t have any hospitals in my district,” Hyndman said. “While growing up, everyone knew if you had a car accident, if you were hurt on your bicycle, if there was a shooting, this is the place to come. The chances of you surviving was high because this is a Trauma 1 Center.”

Hyndman’s godson, who was wounded after falling through shower glass, was treated at JHMC.

Borough President Donovan Richards, who was born at the hospital in 1983, was also in attendance.

“We’ve been talking for many years now about the need to invest in healthcare especially coming out of this pandemic,” Richards said. “Today we are changing that. Like the congressman said, it’s about ensuring that no matter what your socioeconomic status is, no matter who you love, no matter what your immigration status is, at Jamaica Hospital, you are welcomed.”

 We could have built 4 more hospitals with the money that went to that Bills stadium.

Donovan Richards Great White YIMBY Hope

 

 

This is Brandon Zwagerman, a gay resident of Ridgewood and new member of Community Board 5. He's a bike zealot and a big fan of Citibike and wants the failing bike share to usurp more parking spaces in the district. Donnie Richards appointed, make that anointed this guy to the board over a civic leader who also lives in Ridgewood and who is also gay and has been a resident longer.

But there are obvious reasons Donnie Rich is enamored with this gentrifier, Zwagerman also has done some meddling in Soho and East New York to lobby for more overdevelopment of luxury and incremental affordable housing, so he's all a part of that "city of yes" doctrine to approve rezonings while undermining community voices against them. He also donated money to multiple fauxgressive elected officials who are notoriously agency captured by "advocacy" lobbyists for the anti-car and YIMBY luxury public housing agenda, which includes the most notorious one of all, Juan Ardila, assuring his ascendance to his assembly seat and who is currently under investigation for two sexual assaults on women he took advantage of while they were intoxicated. 

Caption Donovan Richards

Civic activist demands return to CB5 for being right about the COVID-19 lab leak

NY Post

A member of a New York City community board ousted for referring to COVID-19 as the “Wu-Flu” in a January meeting is demanding he be reinstated — saying he’s been “vindicated” by a classified US intelligence report that said the deadly virus most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards removed longtime Glendale community activist and CB5 member Richard Huber after fielding complaints that the “Wu-Flu” comment was anti-Asian and racist and violated the code of conduct for board members.

“I was cancelled,” Huber told The Post Monday.

“But I have been vindicated. Just look at the front page of the NY Post.”

The Post’s front page story highlighted the US Energy Department claim, as the FBI had previously, that the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans and 6.8 million people worldwide likely originated in a Wuhan lab.

He said friends texted him The Post cover with smiley faces.

Huber said his use of the shorthand for Wuhan was not anti-Asian — nor was it intended to be.