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Brooklyn Daily
To the editor,
Would you vote for a Republican who thinks climate change is a farce? How about a Republican who first raised your transit fare and then cut bus and subway services? Seeking new blood, I don’t want to see anyone who worked for a prior city council’s staff running for the same position. To me, that person will be a clone and a do-nothing politician like his former boss. Many bad decisions led to over development in areas like the bungalow districts and high-rise condos in Brighton Beach.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some excellent council people, but when many voted for a third term, even we the people voted twice not to extend term limits. Now who do you really trust running for office?Jerry SattlerBrighton Beach
Traffic qualms
To the editor,
Councilman Steve Levin (D–Greenpoint) is to be commended for having the Department of Transportation put in two new lights on Kent Avenue when a speed demon driver killed an entire family by going 60 miles per hour in March. This is, however, hardly more than an aspirin for cancer.
Wouldn’t it be preferable if the city council enacted an ordinance that exists in Los Angeles where the driver must yield the right of way to the pedestrian and stop? Or one that exists in Phoenix, Ariz. where if the driver is at fault he will be fined and if the pedestrian is at fault he will be fined?
Why does the city have to wait until somebody gets killed before a new light is installed? I must admit that New York City at least is more liberal than Miami, Fla. where three people have to be killed by a car within 10 years before a new light is put in. But why can’t the traffic commission work to prevent these accidents from occurring in the first place? Think of the grief and money it would save.
Elliott Abosh
Brighton Beach
Not neighborly
To the editor,
The Aldi grand opening on Nostrand Avenue attracted the usual band of ribbon-cutting suspects — posturing politicians whose relentless heroic efforts brought a grocery store to beleaguered, undeserving Sheepshead Bay consumers.
In reality, grandstanding and pandering politicians do nothing other than pretend they care about constituents. The Waldbaums-Pathmark-Aldi scenario exposes the business model. When an existing supermarket or fast food establishment closes, the site is always vacant for at least two years because it is more profitable for the property owners and former businesses on that site to garner depreciation write-offs, tax abatement, and other financial maneuvers I won’t pretend to fully understand.
But I do know that the site always remains unused for two years or more. On this very Aldi site, a Waldbaums closed in 1996 and a colony of homeless derelicts blighted the area until a Pathmark opened in 2000. That closed a decade later, plunging the area into another pernicious cycle of filth and neglect for a few years.
The former Waldbaums on Coyle Street closed in the late 1990s and tons of garbage blighted the area for years until Food Basics claimed the site. I could provide dozens of examples and challenge anyone to provide an example where this two-year vacancy didn’t occur.
All too often it is a foreign company (Aldi is German-based) or multinational global conglomerate (Waldbaums was taken over by a European conglomerate in the 1990s) with a short-term maximization of profit model that leaves American neighborhoods undeserved. The commitment is to global shareholders, not local consumers.
I will continue to shop across the street at Silver Star, a business founded by an American family that shares my culture and values. Lest you think I’m advertising for Silver Star, I could point out dozens of complaints with their operation. The reason they’re outlasted so many other food stores, however, is their long-term perspective and commitment to providing good quality food. They also have a commitment to the neighborhood. After a snowfall they completely cleared the snow in front of their store. The former Pathmark cleared a narrow path that made it impossible for two carts to pass.
When Silver Star takes out a full-page ad in this newspaper they are supporting an enterprise that delivers an informative and entertaining publication to thousands free. Also, the ad is valuable in my food shopping planning. An excellent feature of Silver Star is that they have cyclical sales on needed items like milk, butter, chicken, juice, fish, etc. That helps a customer stock up on necessities. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t see any Aldi ads in your publication. Probably doesn’t fit into their European business model. Plus, Aldi charges 11 cents for each plastic bag, but doesn’t provide any signage.
To all of you conservative, American exceptionalism patriots who exhort: “Buy American!” This is an opportunity to put your food money where your mouth is.
Joseph McCoppin
Sheepshead Bay
Not so secret meeting
To the editor,
In your story about the Lightstone development (“Activists: Housing on Gowanus Stinks,” Aug. 16), you mentioned a meeting convened by local elected officials to start organizing an inclusive community planning process for the Gowanus Canal area that will launch this fall. That meeting was not “secret,” as you called it, but was simply closed to press. About 40 people attended, including representative from almost every group actively involved in working on the Canal. (Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Friends and Residents of Great Gowanus, Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development, Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation, Save Gowanus, and several members of the Superfund Community Advisory Group and Community Board 6.
We plan to launch the process this fall. As we have tried to open up the budget process through “participatory budgeting,” this will be an effort to open up the planning process so that community residents, business people, and community groups can work together to shape a vision for the area around the Gowanus Canal rather than have decisions made by developers, the city, or by elected officials. We will have public meetings, as well as other opportunities for input online and in small groups. Everyone will be invited to participate. This early-stage meeting was to start organizing for that process so that we can make it as inclusive and effective as possible.
With the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to clean up the Canal due out in final form this fall, with the knowledge that we have about the very real dangers of flooding from Hurricane Sandy, and with the change in administration at City Hall, this is an important time for community members to come together and do our best to shape a consensus vision for the future of the Gowanus Canal area. We believe that residents overwhelmingly want a vibrant, genuinely mixed-use, sustainable for Gowanus that builds on what’s best about out neighborhoods. That won’t be easy, of course, as people have very different ideas about exactly what that looks like. But it is worth trying.
Anyone interested in being involved should reach out to my office and we’ll make sure you are on the list for an invitation as the process gets started this fall. And yes, we’ll even invite press.
Councilman Brad Lander
(D–Park Slope)
All of a sudden
To the editor,
Why, eight months after Washington announced it was going to make available billions does Manhattan Borough President, former mayoral candidate, and current comptroller candidate Scott Stringer propose a municipal tracker system to monitor the expenditures of Hurricane Sandy relief funds? Is it because he now has a real primary race for comptroller? Stringer was missing in action when the municipal scandal involving $1 billion in federal aid unspent by the Housing Authority was exposed. How has the city managed the $20 billion plus in post 9-11 aid as well as the billions of other dollars from Washington every day?
The same also applies to billions in yearly state assistance from Albany, along with billions in locally generated tax revenues. Does the city submit grant applications on time? Are current federal- and state-funded programs being completed on time and within budget? What is the justification for carrying over unspent funds year after year? Is there waste, fraud, or abuse? Are all change orders for construction projects fair, reasonable, and documented?
Stringer appears to be just another career politician looking for a headline to swap one public office for another.
Larry Penner,
Great Neck, N.Y.
Young love
To the editor,
On Aug. 4 Bryan Hochman, of Sheepshead Bay, asked my daughter, Jaimie Lebovic, to marry him on top of the Wonder Wheel in Coney Island. They were in a white car (stationary) and Bryan got down on one knee and proposed. The sun was setting, the view was gorgeous, and it was an experience that Jaimie said they will never forget.
What a wonderful setting for a young couple to begin their future together. Coney Island is a place of dreams — a place where the future is bright.
Nancy Lebovic