BK Lawmakers To Hold Emergency Town Hall on Housing Crisis
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, East New York, Canarsie, Mill Basin, Coney Island, and South Ozone Park and Howard Beach in Queens), State Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D-Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, Sunset Park), Assembly member Tremaine Wright (D-Bedford-Stuyvesant, Northern Crown Heights) and City Council member Robert Cornegy, Jr.(D-Bedford-Stuyvesant) will hold an emergency Town Hall on the Housing Crisis in Brooklyn.
The meeting will give local residents an opportunity to voice their concerns on housing issues including affordable housing options among other concerns.
At the meeting will also be representatives from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Office of the New York State Attorney General and NHS Brooklyn and Brooklyn Legal Services.
The event is slated for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., today, Oct. 22, at the Billie Holiday Theater, at 1368 Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Deutsch Applauds DA Gonzalez’s Decision To File Hate Crime Charges In Jewish Attack
City Council member Chaim Deutsch (D-Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach, Homecrest, Midwood) applauded Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez last week for his decision to present a hate crime charge in a case involving an attack on an elderly Jewish man.
Earlier this month, a 62-year-old man at 46th Street and 13th Avenue in Boro Park was violently attacked by 37-year-old Farrukh Afzal, who beat the Jewish man down to the street in the middle of an intersection after chasing him down in broad daylight. According to initial reports, the victim, Lipa Schwartz, is an Orthodox Jew who was walking to a synagogue for prayers when he was attacked.
Deutsch alongside other elected officials last week, united over a series of bias attacks against the Jewish community. At the event, the South Brooklyn lawmaker announced his plan to introduce two new bills into the city council.
The first bill would require the five New York City District Attorneys to report to the council on the motives of hate crime perpetrators. The second bill would direct the New York Police Department (NYPD) Hate Crimes Task Force to initiate an educational unit, particularly to educate young people across the City about the impact of hateful symbols and internalized bigotry.
“I was pleased to be notified this afternoon by the office of Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez that he has chosen to present a hate crime charge to the grand jury in the case against the assailant in Sunday’s attack in Boro Park. It is important that the perpetrator faces full accountability for his crime, and I am grateful to the Brooklyn DA for taking witness accounts and the victims testimony seriously,” said Deutsch.
BP Adams Calls On NYCHA To Launch CompStat Tech System To Address Building Issues
Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams will call on the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) today to immediately issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to deploy a real-time tracking system to accurately and efficiently track all building repairs across all public housing developments.
Adams is calling for an immediate implementation of the technology system to fix long-standing problems in New York City’s public housing. The Borough President is hoping the creation of the system will: monitor and evaluate NYCHA funding to ensure the housing agency’s spending is appropriate to tenant and facility needs, hold workers and supervisors accountable to ensuring maintenance complaints and requests are handled accordingly, prioritize tenant needs, and provide transparency for residents in the form of real-time, digitized data that can be easily accessed and tracked.
Adams previously called on the city’s housing authority to create a CompStat system last winter during the boiler crisis at the Gowanus Houses in Boerum Hill.
The technology was first implemented by former New York City Police Department (NYPD) Chief Louis R. Anemone, one of the architects of the highly successful CompStat crime data collection system, which revolutionized policing in the city.
The event is slated for 12-noon, today, Oct. 22, at Walt Whitman Houses – Willoughby Senior Center, at 105 North Portland Avenue in Fort Greene.
Lander To Hold Ribbon Cutting Ceremony For New Green Playground
City Council member Brad Lander (D-Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington) will open a new “green” playground at P.S. 282 today in Park Slope.
The playground improvements include a turf field, running track, spray shower, drinking water fountain, basketball hoop, and benches.
The new playground also features the addition of green infrastructure and trees that have the storage capacity to capture nearly 1 million gallons of stormwater annually that will help to improve the health of the Gowanus Canal.
The event is slated for 10:30 a.m., today, Oct. 22, at P.S. 282, at 180 6th Avenue (enter from Berkeley Place or Lincoln Place) in Park Slope.
