De Blasio, Menchaca Strike Deal
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration last week struck a preliminary deal with City Councilman Carlos Menchaca over the development of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The deal ends a three-month impasse between the mayor and the Sunset Park lawmaker about oversight of the long-vacant waterfront 72-acre site.
De Blasio originally wanted the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) to manage the site, while Menchaca wanted more local community oversite.
The new deal calls for the EDC to manage the site, but allows for a 39-year lease and creation of a Sunset Park Waterfront Planning and Jobs Task Force, an advisory group that will provide community input and job training to surrounding neighborhoods.
“All we were calling for was just a pause to discuss and include community voice and really think through this together,” Menchaca told the media outlet. “That’s the kind of respect this community deserves, and that’s what we got. This was a very different second chapter.”
Nadler Praises Obama’s Call To End Conversion Therapy
Brooklyn Waterfront Congressman Jerrold Nadler, yesterday, gave full support to President Obama’s recent call for an end to “conversion” therapy for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth:
“As President Obama has said, sexual orientation change efforts – colloquially known as ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapy – have been widely discredited by nearly every major medical and mental health association across the nation, as not only unable to accomplish their stated goals, but harmful to youth,” said Nadler.
“I believe that licensed mental health professionals should be prohibited from engaging in these deceptive and damaging practices. I am proud that President Obama has added his voice to the effort to end ‘conversion’ therapy nationwide,” he added.
Obama called for the end of conversion therapy after learning about the suicide of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender youth, who threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy.
While Obama isn’t proposing federal legislation on the issue as he believes it’s a state issue, he did start a WhiteHouse.gov petition to ban the therapy.
DOT’s Plan For Second SBS Draws Protests
Department of Transportation (DOT) officials came under fire from Bedford-Stuyvesant residents at a Community Board 3 meeting Monday after announcing proposed changes to the busy commuter intersection where Utica Avenue, Malcolm X Boulevard and Fulton Street meet, DNAInfo reported.
The changes are in anticipation of the B46 Select Bus Service (SBS), which would run on the Utica Avenue corridor from North Brooklyn to Marine Park.
If instituted, the B46 SBS would be the borough’s second such service joining the B44 SBS that runs along Nostrand from Sheepshead Bay to Williamsburg, and which was instituted in 2013.
The MTA, DOT and transportation alternative advocates are making a big push for SBS service, which they say will unclog streets and bring better public transportation to parts of Brooklyn that are further away from the subway.
However, the MTA, DOT and these advocates have yet to release a study on how well the B44 SBS is actually working in reducing commute times or unclogging the busy thoroughfare. Instituting SBS is expected to pave the way for instituting a toll on all East River bridge crossings.
James & Central Bklyn Pols Expected Rally To Save Community Center
Public Advocate Letitia James and Central Brooklyn elected officials are expected at a second mass demonstration today to save a beloved and long running community center at 966 Fulton Street.
Below is the notice:
