Seddio Lights Up Christmas Season
Kings County Democratic Party Chair Frank Seddio yesterday lit up Canarsie with his annual Holiday lights display in front of his former family home and current law office in a family tradition that stretches back several generations.
Seddio said the tradition dates back to 1963 and he remembers as a small boy helping the family put together the light display, the largest in Brooklyn, starting with the youngest family members screwing in light bulbs. Today that tradition continues as family members and volunteers ready the over 500,000 lights starting at the beginning of November.
This year’s festivities a live Santa, elves and a dozen costumed characters. Public School 115 chorus, the choir of Mary Queen of Heaven and the “Pan Fusion” Steel Band provided live entertainment.
Among the borough’s elected officials in attendance were Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who represents Canarsie, Borough President Eric Adams, City Council Members David Greenfield, Stephen Levin, Alan Maisel and Vincent Gentile, and Assembly Member-elect Roxanne Persaud.
Cornegy Confronts Bed-Stuy Gun Violence
Bed-Stuy City Councilmember Robert Cornegy last week at Restoration Plaza kicked off an initiative in his district to combat gun violence with wooden silhouette cutouts of recent victims of gun violence within his district.
The initiative comes as Cornegy and others continue to confront alleged police misconduct towards young men of color, which has taken on national protests. Some have criticized elected black leadership for not confronting violence in their own neighborhoods – a view that Cornegy and others dispute.
“It is a misconception that black leaders not dealing with issues in our own community,” said Cornegy. “The issues are not mutually exclusive. If you stand against police misconduct and police wrong doing it doesn’t mean we don’t look at gun violence in our community. We can deal with both.”
Hikind To Meet With HRA Commish over Food Stamps
Assemblyman Dov Hikind will meet this week with the city’s Commissioner Human Resources Administration Steven Banks to address numerous issues regarding food stamps, and in particular constituents’ difficulties in receiving re-certifications on their food stamp applications in a timely manner, The Yeshiva World reports.
Hikind noted that his office has received many complaints of late from constituents with food stamps re-certification problems. Currently this process allows for re-certification by phone, and Hikind said the complaints center around recipients getting a date and time for a HRA call that never comes. Then the Food Stamps Office then closes their cases claiming that the recipients of the services were unavailable.
“Food stamps are a vital government program that many New Yorkers rely upon,” Hikind told the news website. “If they are entitled to these benefits, people need to be able to rely upon the system and the people who run it. They shouldn’t have to fear loss of benefits and an inability to feed their family because of a breakdown in the system. I’m looking forward to my meeting with Commissioner Banks who I am certain will set things straight quickly.”
