Goldfeder not running again

From NY1:

Queens State Assembly Member Phil Goldfeder will not seek re-election when his term ends at the end of the year, his office confirmed Thursday.

Goldfeder said he will not be seek a fourth term as the 23rd District's representative in Albany, a district that includes the Rockaways, Ozone Park, Howard Beach, and Broad Channel.

Speaking to the newspaper The Wave, Goldfeder said he is leaving office to spend more time with his family.

A lot of Sandy damaged homes are still not repaired

Forgotten-NY recently visited Broad Channel and stumbled across this house. Many others are sill in disrepair, years after Sandy. Electeds are blaming the DOB.

MTA is now securing the copper

From the Times Ledger:

NYC Transit President Carmen Bianco has announced new measures to secure the A-train line in Howard Beach and improve the transit agency’s contingency plans.

He acted after a May security breach and infrastructure theft stranded commuters for hours and prompted a subsequent call for reform from state Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Howard Beach). Thousands of Rockaway commuters lost subway service because of a copper cable theft that left the A-train line completely shut down.

In a letter to Goldfeder, Bianco wrote that the transit agency has re-secured three locations where holes were cut in the fence separating the A-Train tracks from the street near the Howard Beach-JFK Station. These holes, the agency contends, allowed individuals to gain access to steal copper cables and cut service to the line on the evening of May 26. To prevent future theft, the areas are now being closely monitored by transit personnel and the NYPD, Bianco said.

Pols want airport employees to park at the airport

From the Times Ledger:

Two Queens legislators have appealed to John F. Kennedy International Airport officials and airlines to help local residents regain the ability to park in front of their own homes, which has been limited due to employees from JFK who have overrun residential parking spaces.

State Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Howard Beach) and City Councilman Eric Ulrich, (R-Ozone Park) sent letters of concern to 10 freight and passenger airlines expressing concern and announced a forthcoming meeting with officials of the federal Transportation Security Administration to consider possible solutions to the problem.

“Our middle-class families work hard and deserve to enjoy the community they invested in without having to spend their days and nights circling the block looking for parking space,” said Goldfeder. “I urge the major airlines and other employees at JFK to be good neighbors and put the brakes on this practice.”

In letters to major airlines at JFK, Ulrich and Goldfeder called on the carriers to respond to reports of employees parking in Howard Beach, Ozone Park and adjacent neighborhoods to commute to the airport via nearby AirTrain stations.

“TSA and other airport employees should be parking their vehicles on Port Authoritry property, not in front of homes in Ozone Park and Howard Beach,” Ulrich said.“Hopefully, they will take action to alleviate this problem to free up much-needed parking for homeowners”.

Southern Queens is very buggy this year

From CBS News:

Beach areas in Queens hit hard by Superstorm Sandy and still recovering are dealing with a new issue this summer.

As CBS2’s Meg Baker reported, some residents are scratching their heads over a lack of action against what they call a pest explosion.

“Right around sunset they come out and overwhelm you,” Hamilton Beach resident, Christopher Jones said.

“The mosquito problem down here is insane,” Michael Hussey added.

Residents said the only way to combat mosquitoes is to stay inside. Bug spray and citronella candles don’t work.

“Candles don’t do anything,” Jones said.

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder walked the neighborhood on Bayview and Broadway with CBS2’s Baker and explained that conditions were ripe for breeding.

“In southern Queens we are surrounded by Jamaica Bay, Sandy damage still not repaired, we are a target for mosquito breeding and West Nile,” he said.

Goldfeder is pushing the Health Department to spray the area of Hamilton Beach, Howard Beach, and Lindenwood.

What to do with abandoned gas plant site?

From the Forum:

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Rockaway Beach) this week presented recently appointed National Grid President and Executive Director Dan Seavers with a community-drafted proposal for repurposing a manufactured gas plant (MGP) in Rockaway Park.

Prior to its descent as a derelict area in the community landscape, the Rockaway Park MGP, in operation from the 1880s to the mid-1950s, served as a successful gas production site and storage facility governed by the Long Island Lighting Company. The site subsequently went through a series of changes in ownership and in 1998 was transferred to KeySpan, a New York City-based natural gas distributor. Shortly after the site’s acquisition, it was named a DEC State Superfund Site and was added to the State’s Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites, designated as class 2 , meaning that it is considered a substantial threat to public health and/or the environment and requires remedial action to dispose of toxic waste and polluted substrate.

In 2008, National Grid assumed cleanup efforts when it purchased KeySpan, and has been working to restore the integrity of the plant site since. However, due to deteriorating bulkheads at Beach 108th Street, these efforts were suspended indefinitely. Now, with the repairs on the Jamaica Bay bulkheads nearly finished, the last phase of cleanup up at the MGP site is set to begin.

In anticipation of the site’s decontamination, Assemblyman Goldfeder conducted an online community survey last year inquiring from residents what they thought the fate of the MGP should be. Survey participants were eager to share opinions and sent in hundreds of ideas ranging from commercial development to cultural centers, which Goldfeder presented to National Grid.

They don't want the LNG project

From the Queens Courier:

A proposal to build a massive natural gas terminal, called Port Ambrose, just 17 miles off the southern shore of Long Island was met by angry opposition from hundreds of residents from Queens and surrounding counties last week during a public hearing near Kennedy Airport.

“Our families in southern Queens and Rockaway have been devastated by Superstorm Sandy and have seen first-hand what torturing our environment can do to us if we don’t take the proper precautions for the future,” Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder said. “Approving Port Ambrose and bringing dangerous liquefied natural gas to our communities is simply unacceptable.”

The facility, proposed by Liberty Natural Gas, would create a deep water terminal where liquefied natural gas would be imported by supertankers. The new site would receive the shipments, vaporize the gas, and deliver it through underwater pipelines to the coast with a capacity of about 400 million cubic feet of gas a day, according to a report in Capital New York.

Goldfeder, along with other elected officials voiced their concern about safety risks posed to residents on the coast by the presence of the deep-water gas port and the “highly combustible liquefied natural gas it would store.”

“The bottom line is that LNG is unsafe,” concluded Goldfeder. “It’s unsafe for the ocean, it’s unsafe for environment, and, quite frankly, it’s unsafe for the tens of thousands of families in southern Queens and Rockaway.”

Nassau Expressway is in sad shape

Photo from Newsday

From the Forum:

The Nassau Expressway (Route 878) is a heavily commuted roadway that connects Southwest Nassau to Queens. Every day, approximately 40,000 vehicles travel along the expressway, which results in heavy traffic conditions, especially during rush hour. The roadway also serves as a storm evacuation route for some 400,000 people, designated as the route for the ambulance, fire vehicles, and police cars during emergencies, as well as residents that must evacuate during flooding or other natural disasters.

The expressway is currently in need of major repairs, given its significant number of potholes, exposed gravel, and poor drainage. Large puddles and flooding of the roadway occur with even minor rainfall. Although it was used as an evacuation road during Sandy, it flooded severely during the storm.

Repair projects along the expressway have been delayed for decades; most recently, in 2012, New York State delayed the project because engineers had concerns over soil and nearby tidal wetlands. As of now, design work is not expected to begin until at least 2023 and completed in 2025.

Senator Charles Schumer and State Assemblyman Phillip Goldfeder this week called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to jumpstart a storm-surge protection and repair plan for expressway...

Noise monitors coming to Broad Channel and Bayswater

From the Forum:

In a continuing effort to effectively monitor noise caused by planes flying in and out of JFK Airport, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has agreed to install additional sound monitors in Bayswater and Broad Channel, Queens. Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Ozone Park) was aggressive in his pursuit of these monitors and wrote a letter to the FAA and Port Authority in September.

Beyond the additional monitors, the Port Authority offers a tracking system on its website, so that residents can monitor the paths of aircraft and see for themselves the specific decibel levels being recorded. It has also increased staffing to handle noise complaints.

Lots of trips could be made on a new subway line

From AM-NY:

Half a million trips a day could be made on a piece of abandoned railroad track in Queens if the MTA decides to ever reactivate it, according to a new study form Queens College released Monday.

The report's analysis of the 3.5-mile stretch of rail, known as the Rockaway Beach Branch, said residents would make trips between the Rockaways and southern Queens neighborhoods and transit hubs to the north and west part of the borough and midtown and upper Manhattan.
Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder, a supporter of reactivating the rail, said the study bolsters transit advocates' arguments against a rival proposal for turning it into a park.

"Rail would bring more people on that line in three days than any other idea would in a year," Goldfeder said. "It shows that there's a need for increased transit access. It would give a historic connection to northern and southern Queens that we currently don't have."

The community is also split on the options before them, according to the study's survey of 363 residents and 44 businesses. With a 5.2% margin of error, 33.9% respondents preferred reactivating the rail line and 28.1% backed the QueensWay park.

And the rest of the respondents don't know or don't care since neither of these projects will ever come to pass.

Graffiti toy pulled from shelves

From the Forum:

In response to a letter written by Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D – Hamilton Beach) to Toys “R” Us urging the removal of Kidffiti brand graffiti stencils kits from toy store shelves, the national retailer informed the Assemblyman that it will stop selling the product at its nearly one thousand stores nationwide.

“With this announcement, we’ve sent a strong message to our children about the value of caring for the community and keeping it clean and graffiti-free,” said Assemblyman Goldfeder. “I’d like thank Toys “R” Us for being a responsible community partner and agreeing to no longer stock this distasteful product on store shelves.”

Last month, Assemblyman Goldfeder wrote to Toys “R” Us C.E.O. Antonio Urcelay to urge the children’s toy retail chain to stop selling the Kidffiti product. In his letter, the Assemblyman wrote that the product taught local children how to vandalize their neighborhood and encouraged more dangerous criminal behavior. The Assemblyman’s request came in response to concerns raised by local residents, civic leaders and law enforcement officials over alarming increases in graffiti and vandalism in the community.

In a letter to the Assemblyman dated October 14, 2014, Toys “R” Us Vice President for Corporate Communications Kathleen Waugh wrote that the company appreciated the Assemblyman’s efforts in maintaining clean neighborhoods in the community. She added that Toys “R” Us plans to clear their shelves of the product and that they will no longer sell it going forward.

Rockaway homeless shelter nixed by DHS

From Capital New York:

One day after Councilman Donovan Richards asked the de Blasio administration to reconsider opening a men's homeless shelter in his Rockaway district, the Department of Homeless Services said it has scrapped the plan.

“After hearing the special concerns of Rockaway residents, D.H.S. will not be siting a second shelter on the peninsula,” Chris Miller, a spokesman for D.H.S. said in a statement.

In a letter to the administration this week, Richards cited concerns over the proposed shelter’s proximity to three schools. More specifically, he said his Queens district's “food, transit and infrastructure desert” did not have the resources to serve an increase in population.

From the Daily News:

The city had sought to transform the former Rockaway Manor on Beach 8th St. into a shelter for 100 adult men, but the proposal infuriated local officials who pointed out a new shelter was just been opened on the peninsula.

The former Daytop Center in Arverne started taking in homeless families over the summer.

Queens elected officials, including Borough President Melinda Katz, Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder and City Councilman Donovan Richards, met with Mayor de Blasio and aides at City Hall to discuss the proposed homeless shelter and the Rockaway ferry, which is slated to make its last run.

“We are extremely disappointed at the decision to discontinue ferry service to the Rockaways,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for a ferry that the Rockaways deserves and need to connect the peninsula to lower Manhattan. We are, however, very thankful that Mayor De Blasio has decided to withdraw plans to place a homeless shelter on Beach 8th Street.

So a couple of rookie pols got a homeless shelter in their district nixed, while in Glendale and Elmhurst, the pols who have decades of experience between them can't (or more likely won't) do the same for their constituents?

Very interesting!

Goldfeder wants SI Ferry charge to subsidize Rockaway ferry

From AMNY:

The Staten Island Ferry's fare-free service is seen as both a critical transportation link that brings transit-starved residents to a paid subway ride and as an unfair freebie to its critics.
Now, there are calls to hit tourists with a $4 fare to fund transportation in the city from Queens advocates trying to keep ferry service in the Rockaways past October.

"Staten Island is already receiving a generous subsidy, while Rockaway is still desperately in need of permanent ferry service and better transportation options," Queens Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder said in a statement.

Just 15% of ferry riders in Staten Island live outside of the city, according to a recent Independent Budget Office analysis of the idea. The city paid an average of $5.75 a passenger this year.

Charging for rides could generate $35.5 million in net revenue over 15 years with a stand-alone fare system; letting riders pay with a MetroCard would generate $67.4 million over the same period if the MTA paid the city for each swipe of an unlimited-ride.

Goldfeder asks for sewer cleanouts

From the Queens Courier:

Southern Queens is the home of the highest concentration of odor complaints in the borough, according to 311 data, which prompted one local elected official to try to clear the air on this issue.

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder is urging the Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, Emily Lloyd, to step up efforts and remove debris from catch basins the area, many of which are now leaving foul odors around the neighborhoods.

“Our families shouldn’t have to hold their breath waiting on DEP to clean our sewers,” said Goldfeder. “Debris left by Sandy continues to clog our catch basins and sewers causing standing water and foul odors.”

The report was compiled by the website, BrickUnderground and apartment data site AddressReport, and included a list of the 10 smelliest and 10 least smelly neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan by using data from odor-related complaints that 311 has received.

Five of the borough’s top 10 sites were in southern Queens and included the neighborhoods of Lindenwood, Neponsit, Howard Beach, Bayswater and Broad Channel.

Goldfeder wants online food stamp purchases authorized

From The Forum:

Grocery shopping is very different for shoppers using food stamps in the Bronx.

There, a select number of zip codes have the option of ordering groceries online, which has served as a lifeline especially for senior citizens. State Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Rockaway Park) called out the United States Department of Agriculture this week, asking why the same did not apply to southern Queens.

“Buying groceries should not be a nightmare for seniors with limited mobility,” Goldfeder said. “No senior should have to rely on friends and family when technology allows for an easier option.”

The assemblyman fired off a letter to USDA head and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, calling on the agency to use its power administering food stamp benefits at the national level to provide online grocery delivery services to zip codes in southern Queens and Rockaway. The service has been part of a pilot program the USDA launched this year to allow for online purchases of groceries using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, which shoppers use to make purchases with their SNAP benefits – or food stamps. Goldfeder’s letter said southern Queens and Rockaway were home to a large senior population, and allowing residents to use their EBT cards to order groceries online would be a great relief to seniors unable to make it to the supermarket.

Goldfeder wants flying swastikas banned

From CBS New York:

After a banner featuring a swastika soared above city and Long Island beaches over the weekend, a state assemblyman is looking for the government to prevent it from happening again.

The sky banner wasn’t meant to be anti-Semitic. It was paid for by the International Raelian Movement, a religion based in Switzerland whose followers believe life on earth was created by a species of aliens, WCBS 880′s Alex Silverman reported. They are trying to rehabilitate the swastika, which the group said had a meaning of peace and love before it was adopted by the Nazis.

Regardless, Assemblyman Phil Goldfelder, D-Queens, told Silverman he is asking the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs to look at regulating swastikas in the sky and other offensive ads, which he thinks can be done without opening a constitutional can of worms. He’s also considering introducing legislation.

The Raelians, however, say the sign should be protected under the First Amendment.

Yeah, I think our local electeds need to be reschooled in the Constitution. And in message context.

Mold a problem at foreclosed homes in Rockaway

From CBS New York:

Some Rockaway Peninsula residents say a house damaged by Superstorm Sandy and then left abandoned is posing a health hazard in their neighborhood.

The former owner of the dilapidated home abandoned it immediately after Sandy, leaving everything behind. HSBC took over the house after it went into foreclosure.

The city’s Health Department received complaints and asked the bank to clean up the home.

HSBC told CBS 2 it is looking into the matter.

Photos taken last week showed that nothing had been done.

Ferry fail

From Capital New York:

A Seastreak ferry ran aground in Jamaica Bay this afternoon, forcing the fire department to remove all 29 passengers, none of whom were injured, according to an FDNY spokesman and news reports.

The ferry was not part of the regular Rockaways service, but was a private ride organized by a local ferry advocate to explore ways of expanding service, possibly to JFK Airport.

The ferry ride included, among others, representatives from the offices of Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder and Queens borough president Melinda Katz.

"There was no big thump," said Goldfeder, who wasn't on the boat, but spoke to people who were. He said passengers didn't even realize they were stuck until they tried moving.

Goldfeder said the incident shouldn't be used to paint ferry service as unreliable or prone to delays.

Like it or not, here they come

From CBS New York:

Your neighborhood might be getting greener as the city continues its program to plant 1 million trees.

But as CBS 2′s Maurice DuBois reported, some homeowners don’t want the trees, and despite their objections the city plants them anyway.

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder said the Parks Department should consult first with homeowners, and he has a bill the would require them to do so.

“For any agency to dictate is just wrong,” he said. “This is a no-brainer. The Parks Department should want to engage the community.”

On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio stopped short of endorsing the legislation.

“I want to see the bill before I comment, but I certainly want to make sure we’re doing everything that we can do to communicate with homeowners,” the mayor said.

Goldfeder wants more $ for Aqueduct

From CBS New York:

A Queens lawmaker has introduced a measure that would require the New York Racing Association to pony up more funding for Aqueduct Racetrack.

As WCBS 880′s Jim Smith reported, New York State Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder is not happy with the current conditions at the racetrack.

“Aqueduct is downright disgusting,” said Goldfeder. “The building is falling apart, there’s facade issues. As has been reported multiple times, there’s been a tremendous amount of security issues.”

On Monday, Goldfeder announced legislation to require NYRA to use its share of casino money earmarked for capital projects only at Aqueduct.