Bill proposed to make you think you have input on new shelters

From the Queens Courier:

Communities will now have the chance to hear plans for proposed social service facility sites before they appear in their neighborhoods.

The Senate recently approved legislation co-sponsored by Senator Joseph Addabbo requiring a more transparent process when it comes to locating homeless shelters or other social service facilities in communities throughout the city.

Under the new legislation, social service providers would be required to notify community boards and the City Planning Commission (CPC) within 45 to 90 days of selecting a location for their facility. The CPC would then have to hold public hearings to gather local input on the proposed facilities.

Within 60 to 90 days of the public hearings, the CPC would have the final authority to approve, deny or modify the community-based programs.

Community boards may also request hearings be held within the same time frame if a provider is planning on renewing its lease. This allows for local input in cases where questions have been raised about the operation of the facility.

(In other words, they'll be forced to listen to you before they proceed without caring.)

What to do with an ugly construction fence

From DNA Info:

One Long Island City resident has found a way to jazz up one of the city's most ubiquitous eyesores: construction scaffolding.

Chris Carlson was looking for a way to make his surroundings a little more cheery after a wall of scaffolding was erected a little over a year ago, next door to his home on 47th Road, where a developer is building a new apartment complex.

The 43-year-old said he first got permission from construction workers at the site to paint the scaffolding a vibrant blue, and then took to regularly decorating the plywood with posters and funky art.

Crime on the rise before summer kicks off

From DNA Info:

Serious crime increased in three-quarters of the city's neighborhoods last month as New York heads into a summer that may be long, hot and violent, DNAinfo New York has learned.

Fifty-seven of the city's 76 NYPD precincts reported spikes in serious crime during a four-week period ending May 24 compared to the previous four weeks, according to NYPD statistics compiled on a new DNAinfo crime mapping system.

The other 19 precincts reported overall crime remained steady or declined during the period, compared to the previous month.

While it has long been police lore that crime rises with warmer weather, the trend is even more disturbing because it is not confined to the two eye-catching categories — murder and shootings — that Mayor Bill de Blasio and police brass have blamed on localized gang activities.

Serious crime includes rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft.

Copper theft an inside job?

From Crains:

Insurance claims for metal thefts across the country have skyrocketed from about 13,000 from 2006 to 2008 to about 25,000 from 2009 to 2011, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which tracks such thefts, though not specifically for rails. Nearly 96% of the more recent claims were for copper.

Along New York City's 840 miles of subway tracks, there have been a dozen such rail thefts in the past year.

In the May 26 heist in the Howard Beach section of Queens, the rubber-shrouded cable had an estimated combined weight of 1,500 pounds that could fetch about $4,500.

New York transit police would not speculate on whether the caper could have been an inside job, but it appeared to have been pulled off over at least a couple of nights by people who had enough knowledge of the system to avoid getting caught or "fried."

They targeted a stretch of track not covered by security cameras, next to a parking lot. Investigators found a hole in the fence they believe the thieves may have used to enter the tracks, then to flee. The culprits also apparently tampered with a nearby electrical box.

Sgt. Kevin Cooper, a veteran investigator on the case, said trains didn't stall immediately because redundancy in the power system allows them to keep moving for possibly another day after copper is removed.

There are other risks. If electrical current can't complete a circuit, it will seek another route, sometimes damaging the signal system. And if a train's brakes go into sudden emergency mode, riders can suffer injuries.

While police seek suspects, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that runs the subways is installing more high-intensity lighting and surveillance technology in vulnerable locations.

Construction accidents are on the rise

From the NY Times:

Eight people have died in construction-related accidents this year, according to the city’s Buildings Department, as many as in all of 2014; the year before, three died. Not since 2008, during the height of the last building boom, has the number of construction accidents been so high, when a rash of episodes, including two falling cranes, claimed 19 lives.

The number of accidents has also been on the rise, with 231 in 2014, up 24 percent from the year before. (Accident figures for 2015 were unavailable.)

Most in the industry agree that there is a simple equation at work: The more construction, the more danger.