BENSONHURST'S PREMIER NEWS BLOG

From Councilman David Greenfield’s office:

Councilman David G. Greenfield is thanking Mayor Michael Bloomberg for finally instituting a gas rationing plan to help alleviate the ongoing gas crisis, something he called for nearly a week ago. Yesterday, Greenfield publicly took the Mayor and Governor to task for not doing enough to solve the gas crisis. Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that gas rationing goes into effect at 6 am Friday, November 9, 2012.

“I am glad that the mayor has recognized the severity of this gas crisis, especially in areas like Brooklyn, where it has become the biggest issue for many residents. This situation has quickly gotten out of control over the past week, making it imperative that government take immediate action to reduce lines at local gas stations. While this decision to institute gas rationing in New York City should have come days ago, it is a relief that the mayor is finally taking much needed action on this issue,” said Councilman David G. Greenfield.

As of today, if you have a license plate with an odd number you can fill gas on an odd day and vice versa. So for example, today is November 9th. Nine is an odd number, so you can only fill up tomorrow if the last number on your plate is odd, Greenfield explained.

Source: Mattes via Wikimedia Commons

Students and staff at P.S. 48 in Mapleton received accolades for their environmental initiatives to conserve energy, increase recycling and reduce their carbon footprints.

The project, called the Green Cup Challenge, is an annual student-led competition to measure and reduce school-based electricity use for one month. The competition, which ran from March 2 to the 30, was created by the Green Schools Alliance (GSA), a nonprofit organization of public and private schools whose aim is to meet the Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC target of cutting carbon emissions 30 percent by 2017, according to a release by the Department of Education.

“My hat goes off to our students and staff this year for a terrific job preserving our natural resources and reducing the carbon footprint for future generations,” Chancellor Dennis Walcott said. “I also want to thank our city agencies and non-profit partners for helping to cut energy use in school buildings-which, as a whole, consume 25 percent of the electricity used in New York City public facilities.”

P.S. 48 was able to reduce their electricity by 28 percent. They received a $4,000 grant sponsored by the Department of Education and the City’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services for their hard work.

Less tickets with roll-over parking minutes

Brooklyn drivers may finally get a reprieve from parking tickets with a bill aimed at clarifying the issue of roll-over paid minutes at muni-meter spots, something that local Assemblyman William Colton has been working towards for some time.

The bill states that drivers who purchase time from a muni-meter parking spot can keep the receipt and use remaining time on another muni-meter spot in the city. The transferred receipt must be for spaces that are equal or lesser value than the original paid spot.

Colton attempted to introduce  similar legislation in February but it did not go far because the City Council wanted a crack at leading the initiative.

Residents had already thought that roll-over minutes were allowed, but received parking tickets when they attempted to use leftover minutes, as previously reported by the Bensonhurst Bean.

The bill has the backing of Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg. Quinn told the NY Post that the bill is “plain and simple. You buy the time, you get to use it.”

Colton said that he’s “pleased the council is finally responding to concerns many of my constituents have been raising for some time.”

While the phrase, “a rising tide lifts all boats” has often been used in defense of tax cuts for those with higher incomes, a newly released report concludes that a slight increase in income for New York’s lowest earners could add a significant boost to the state’s economy. Continue Reading »

At his State of the City address on Jan. 12, Mayor Bloomberg announced several measures that were seen as targeting the Teachers Union. (Photo Credit: City & State via PBS)

In Mayor Bloomberg’s State of the City speech last Thursday, the mayor touted a plan for the City Department of Education that would include $20,000 bonuses for teachers rated “highly effective” for two years in a row, and pink slips for up to half the teachers at 33 struggling schools.

According to website City and State, it was precisely the kind of education initiative that reformers love and the teachers union loves to hate.

The normal critique of good teacher/bad teacher programs like these is that the city is essentially punishing teachers in bad schools with a lack of leadership, institutions often located in poor neighborhoods. Continue Reading »

Source: WarmSleepy via Flickr

Governor Cuomo reached a last minute deal with lawmakers yesterday over a bill that would allow livery cabs – colloquially known as car service – to pick up street hails in the outer boroughs and upper Manhattan. The 6,000 new street hail licenses, as well as 2,000 new yellow taxi medallions included in the bill are expected to bring billions in revenue to a cash-strapped city government. Continue Reading »

If the livery-hail bill ever gets passed, the sight of someone hailing a cab in Brooklyn could become more common (Source: WarmSleepy via Flickr)

A bill that would allow outerborough residents to hail livery cabs has been stalled due to a political fight over the proceeds from a major health insurer.

The city is currently fighting New York State over a percentage of the profits from when Emblem, the colossal company created by the merger of GHI and HIP, becomes a for-profit firm. Continue Reading »

Protesters march across Brooklyn Bridge yesterday while below, commuter traffic flows freely (source: Michael Yam via NY Times)

The following is a press release from the office of Rep. Michael Grimm:

WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Michael G. Grimm (R,C-NY) issued the following statement on the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street: Continue Reading »

It looks like the Occupy Wall Street protesters won’t be getting kicked out after all.

The above video, posted on YouTube by karinmoveon, captures cheers as the crowd learns that Brookfield Properties, the company that maintains Zuccotti Park, called off the cleaning that would have prompted police to clear a section of the park.

Unfortunately, all the exuberance following the announcement led to some clashes between demonstrators and police.

Are you for OWS, against it, or maybe somewhere in between? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

After protesters brought in a cleaning crew yesterday to prevent an eviction by Mayor Bloomberg, Rep. Jerrold Nadler released the following to the press:

Nadler to Mayor Bloomberg: Protecting 1^st Amendment Rights of Occupy Wall Street and Safeguarding Community Needs Are Not Mutually Exclusive

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), representative of Lower Manhattan and the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, responded to news that, on Friday, Mayor Bloomberg plans to evict Occupy Wall Street activists from their base at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan.

 He issued the following statement:

“I am very concerned by Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to remove Occupy Wall Street activists (OWS) from Zuccotti Park tomorrow morning. I believe that protecting the rights of OWS and the needs of the Lower Manhattan community are not mutually exclusive. This situation can and must be resolved in a manner that addresses the concerns of local businesses and residents without violating either the First Amendment or New York’s long tradition of respecting public protest. It would be unfortunate, precisely because it is unnecessary, if this matter were not resolved in an amicable manner. Continue Reading »

(image by Galasso/North Jersey Media Group via Daily News)

The Daily News says that the latest round of school budget cuts are hitting some areas worse than others, and that middle class neighborhoods like ours are being spared the deep cuts facing poorer school districts.

The News reported last Friday that close to 800 non-teaching public school employees, such as school aides, in the largest round of layoffs for any one agency since Bloomberg became mayor.

Under the plan, The upper Manhattan neighborhoods of Harlem and Washington Heights stand to lose close to 8% of school aides.

In Brooklyn, East New York, Brownsville and East Flatbush public schools would have their non-professional workers cut by 4.4%.

Meanwhile, Districts 20, 21 and 22 – covering the middle class areas of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, Midwood, Dyker Heights, Mill Basin, Sheepshead Bay and Marine Park – would only have to do without around 1% of aides.

From Daily News:

Those who could lose their jobs are some of the lowest-paid workers in the city and overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. School aides, the biggest group targeted, average about $11,000 a year for part-time work. Even with health insurance and pension costs factored in, the city pays about $27,000 annually for each of these workers.

“We’ve been trying for weeks to meet with Chancellor Dennis Walcott, and each time they canceled . . . at the last moment,” said Santos Crespo, president of Local 372.

“On Monday, they just called us in and hit us with these cuts,” Crespo said. “They didn’t even want to discuss ways we could cooperate to reduce costs.”

At a time when the school system is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for more outside contractors and consultants, it’s crazy to cut the most vulnerable workers.

While a Board of Education spokesperson insists the final decision on who to let go were made by principals on a school-by-school basis, principals point back to BOE budget officials who they say encouraged cutting the number of school aides.

Juan Gonzales, the article’s author observed that those districts which face the worst cuts are, in many cases, the same neighborhoods where city council members have been vocal critics of Mayor Bloomberg.