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From the
Observer:
Peter Vallone Jr., who served as Astoria’s city councilman for 12 years, was nominated for a civil court judgeship this morning, he confirmed to the Observer. Term-limited out of office in 2013, Mr. Vallone had taken a position with the Cuomo administration.
Mr. Vallone is now the Democratic nominee in a judgeship election that will be decided in November. Judicial races are rarely competitive and the Queens Democratic Party’s decision to nominate Mr. Vallone could be tantamount to him winning the election.
As a civil court judge, Mr. Vallone can serve a 10-year term and earn $159,000 annually.
From
The Wave:
For the past week or so, natural gas has been flowing underneath Rockaway’s beaches through a massive 26-inch diameter pipeline.
The activation of a new 3.2-mile pipeline on May 15 allows for liquefied natural gas to flow through the Rockaway Peninsula and into Brooklyn to satisfy the growing demand of 1.8 million customers in Queens and Brooklyn.
The fracked-gas transmission pipeline called the Rockaway Delivery Lateral has been controversial among anti-fracking activists and environmental groups since the inception phase in 2009.
The additional pipeline, which began construction on June 9, 2014, extends from the existing Lower New York Bay Lateral, which is in the Atlantic Ocean, running parallel to the coast of the Peninsula.
The Rockaway Delivery Lateral runs across Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis Park – wetlands and recreational areas – to a facility used to meter and regulate the flow of natural gas, located on Floyd Bennett Field in an abandoned airplane hanger, within the Gateway National Recreation Area.
Williams Partners’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC’s (Transco) pipeline project increases the compression at three existing Transco facilities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and provides 100,000 dekatherms more per day to be transferred to the new meter and regulating station on Floyd Bennett Field.
“That’s the point where we kind of hand off the gas,” said Williams Spokesman Chris Stockton. “It measures how much gas flows through the line and it also regulates the pressure.”
In total, 647,000 dekatherms per day can be be transmitted through the new Rockaway Pipeline to the National Grid distribution system. From there, the National Grid Pipeline takes the natural gas up Flatbush Avenue and into other communities.
From
WPIX:
When it comes to litter, Alexandra Larger says she understands how candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and empty soda cans end up on the street, but seeing chicken bones and rubber gloves littering the blocks near her home in Bed-Stuy just never made sense.
So now she’s started documenting the sightings on her blog “Streets of Brooklyn.”
“I can’t recall ever seeing anyone eating a fried chicken thigh in the middle of the street – can you? And as far as the rubber glove situation … I don’t even want to know,” Larger writes on her blog.
Larger says she never notices garbage like this popping up in wealthier neighborhoods around the borough. So she decided to start snapping pictures of the unusual sightings and posting them online.
From the
Queens Courier:
Residents living near the Bayside Jewish Center rallied with state Sen. Tony Avella on Thursday against a proposed high school planned for their neighborhood.
Around 75 people showed up at the intersection of 32nd Avenue and 204th Street and largely complained of overcrowded traffic and buses due to the existence of several other schools in the nearby vicinity, including a number of elementary schools and Bayside High School, which serves a student body of more than 3,000 only four blocks away.
While the protesters agreed that new schools should be built for local students, they did not think that their community could accommodate a school with a planned capacity of between 800 and 1,000 students.
Avella said the School Construction Authority (SCA) has systematically chosen school sites without the support of residents and elected officials, citing an unsuccessful 2013 outcry against an elementary school being built on 48th Avenue. He is introducing legislation which would amend education law to require detailed analyses to be made available upon the proposed construction of a new school in a city of over a million in population.
Councilman Paul Vallone, however, indicated that while compromises with the community will have to be made in the process leading up to the school’s construction, he looks forward to seeing a new school in his district, whether it is installed at the former Jewish center or at an alternative site.
From the
Queens Chronicle:
Paperwork dated March 28, 2014 says another proposed detail is a perimeter wall of 34 feet in height.
There are also DOB applications, most filed on July 30 of last year, to demolish existing structures on 11 sites in the mansion’s vicinity and construct two-story buildings; most have a representative from Caliendo Architects and either Loria or Lucchese listed. In some cases, such as at 18-30 42 St., 18-36 42 St. and 18-27 41 St., the same Steinway Mansion owners are not listed, but someone appearing to be of the Loria or Lucchese family is.
The owners listed for the proposed new buildings record the same address as that listed on the paperwork for the Steinway Mansion, while the business names are not identical.
The Friends of Steinway Mansion, which advocates for placing the building at the heart of a potential cultural district, speculated on its Facebook page that the warehouses could be rented.
Lucille Hartmann, district manager of Community Board 1, said that they have been receiving calls from residents asking, “What’s going on?” but stressed that the board knows nothing. She noted that as the mansion, while beloved, is a private property, owners are under no obligation to share with the public.
