Pols Respond To L&B Spumoni Gardens Co-Owner Murder
Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams and City Council Member Vincent J. Gentile (Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights) today will respond to the fatal shooting of 63-year-old Louis Barbati, co-owner of famed Gravesend pizzeria L&B Spumoni Gardens.
Barbati was killed at about 7 p.m. last night, which coincided with the last night of Gun Violence Awareness Month in the state, outside of his home in Dyker Heights.
Adams and Gentile will address the community impact of this tragedy at 10:30 a.m. this morning at L&B Spumoni Gardens, 2725 86TH Street in Gravesend.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Bill Colton (Bensonhurst, Bath Beach) urged all, including the media, to refrain from idle speculation involving Anti Italian stereotyping during this time of grief and mourning.
“In time of tragedy all of us should join together in offering our support and sympathy to those close to the family and friends of the victim. It serves no purpose to deepen the pain of the loss by invoking old anti-Italian stereotypes, which shows a lack of respect to the family and to our entire neighborhood,” said Colton.
“Rather we should allow the family the privacy to grieve their loss while our professional police officers conduct a thorough investigation into this terrible crime and those who may be responsible for this senseless killing,” he added.
Greenfield Provides Funds For New OHEL Community Center
City Councilman David G. Greenfield and a cohort of supportive city council members, yesterday, announced that the OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services will soon be able to begin construction on a new community center in Flatbush, thanks to council funding.
OHEL, an organization that has served Brooklyn’s communities with individual and family support since 1969, will receive $1.6 million in the coming fiscal year for the new community center.
“OHEL is a wonderful community service organization that does truly outstanding work with limited resources. I am proud that the city will continue to fund this organization so that it can continue to benefit Brooklyn communities,” Greenfield said.
Among the other council members that fought for the funding were Manhattan Councilman Mark Levine, Chair of the Council’s Jewish Caucus and Mark Treyger (Coney Island, Bensonhurst).
“OHEL offers residents all kinds of integral support services, and the Council should be proud of providing this organization with the resources they need in order to continue helping some of our most vulnerable New Yorkers,” said Treyger.
Specific services OHEL offers include preventive care, foster care, adolescent residential programs, domestic violence counseling, substance abuse and addiction programs, sexual abuse programs, school-based mental health services, a Helpline, and numerous other programs to support communities that are too often neglected.
In addition to the funding for OHEL, Greenfield also won funding for a number of other important community organizations. Examples include Hatzolah, which will receive $300,000 in the new budget for ambulances, and Maimonides, which is receiving over $800,000 for ultrasound system upgrades and other improvements.
Squadron Funds Giant Slide For Governors Island
State Senator Daniel Squadron (Northern Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan) yesterday celebrated the upcoming opening of “the Hills” on Governors Island, including “Slide Hill” for which he allocated $450K in state funding.
Governors Island is in the New York Harbor spitting distance away from Red Hook across the Buttermilk Channel, and a short ferry ride away from Brooklyn Bridge Park.
At nearly 40 feet tall, Slide Hill will include four slides set into a climbable hill, with panoramic views of the city. Slide Hill will also reportedly include New York’s longest slide, at 57 feet long and three stories tall.
“Before the summer season at Governors Island slips away, come enjoy the debut of Slide Hill,” said Squadron. “Slide Hill will bring the city’s longest slide to our Harbor Park – a Central Park for the center of our city.”
Squadron has long advocated for Governors Island and active recreation throughout New York’s Harbor Park. Squadron helped negotiate the city and state agreement to preserve Governors Island’s future in 2010, and has also been a strong proponent of expanded and free ferry access to the Island. The Hills are scheduled to fully open to the public on July 19.
Gillibrand Urges DEA To Remove Medical Marijuana Barriers
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, along with a group of bipartisan federal lawmakers, yesterday sent a letter urging acting Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Chuck Rosenberg to remove barriers to research on medical marijuana to facilitate new medical research on cannabis and its derivatives.
The Senators and Representatives are also requesting a meeting with Administrator Rosenberg if he does not take action on medical marijuana.
Citing documents showing that the information from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which has already determined that medication naturally derived from the cannabis plant has a medical use, the Senators and Representatives are urging DEA Administrator Rosenberg to remove cannabis from the list of Schedule I controlled substances, reserved only for those substances with no “accepted medical use.
Currently, more than half of U.S. states have passed laws allowing medical use of the cannabis plant and 42 states allow the medical use of some substance derived from cannabis. Yet, federal policies continue to hinder medical researchers’ ability to study the benefits of cannabis, particularly as a therapy for conditions which are resistant to other forms of treatment. The two greatest administrative barriers impeding scientists are the research restrictions created by the Schedule I classification of cannabis and the artificial limitation of a research supply.
Williams, City Council Celebrate Caribbean Heritage
City Council Member Jumaane D. Williams (Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood) this week co-hosted the Council’s 2016 Caribbean Heritage Celebration in the Council Chambers of City Hall.
Other Brooklyn council members joining in the celebration were Mathieu Eugene, Robert Cornegy Jr. and Inez Barron.
The event, which was open to the public honored Caribbean Americans who have made an impact in their community and careers. Honorees include:
- Patrick Maitland, publisher and editor in chief of Street Hype newspaper
- Herman Hall, publisher of Everybody’s Caribbean magazine
- Bharati S. Kemraj, founder and CEO of Bharati Dance Academy
“It was an honor for me to share in celebrating Caribbean Heritage with the honorees and all the attendees,” said Williams.”From the diversity of the people to the richness of the culture, music and food, there is so much to appreciate and celebrate about the Caribbean. I’m proud of my Grenadian heritage and all that it means to be Caribbean American.”
NYPD Seeks Community Input On Body Cameras
The NYPD wants input from the communities it serves on an important NYPD policy before it is finalized: our body camera policy.
The NYPD will be equipping 1,000 officers in 20 precincts throughout the city with body-worn cameras. In partnership with the Policing Project at NYU School of Law, the NYPD is seeking input from the people who live, work or go to school in New York City into the policy that will govern the use of these cameras through an online questionnaire.
The questionnaire can be completed in minutes, is mobile-friendly, and can be submitted anonymously. It is designed to get community input on important policy issues, including the types of events that should be recorded and who should be allowed to see the body camera footage.
The questionnaire may be found at www.nypdbodycameras.org.
This website contains a summary of the proposed policy, the full draft of the proposed policy, and the confidential questionnaire.
The site will remain open until July 31, 2016. NYU will collect the responses and comments and provide them to the NYPD for the NYPD’s consideration in drafting the final policy.
Please give us the NYPD your input, and please forward this email to other members of your organization or community. We want to hear what New Yorkers think.
KCP wants to give a special thanks to Democratic District Leader Olanike Alabi for forwarding this information.
