Council Mum On School Overcrowding Failure  

As members of the Queens City Council delegation pat themselves on the back for what they boasted as substantial restorations to Mayor Bloombergs FY 03 budget, word has crept out that the 14 local legislators failed to preserve a single dime for what many consider the boroughs most critical need building schools.Council Mum On School Overcrowding Failure
 
After two days of prodding for capital budget details from reticent Councilmembers, and nearly a week after the passage of one of the most contentious City budgets in decades, The Queens Courier has learned that the Council did not restore any of the $693 million in building funds that Bloomberg proposed cutting this past February.
As a result, at least 7,000 seats that were scheduled as recently as December to be added to the boroughs drastically overcrowded schools will likely be delayed until at least 2007.
Both Terri Thomson, Queens representative to the Board of Education, and Borough President Helen Marshall called the news "devastating."
"How was the budget signed without this being known is a wonderment to me," said Marshall. "What kind of message are we sending to New York City schoolchildren? Its a tremendous hole."
Since the Mayor asked Schools Chancellor Harold Levy to slash nearly $700 million from the Board of Educations five year capital plan earlier this year, parents and others have been speaking out against the cuts at public hearings and at protests on the steps of City Hall.
"I think the parents and children have been betrayed," said Eleanor McNamee of Jackson Heights, who has two children attending Queens high schools. "We went down to tell the City Council how the overcrowding crisis has turned our children into cattle. They promised us that education was their top priority but then sold us out behind closed doors."
For the past five days, both Thomson and the Courier canvassed several local Councilmembers about the status of the capital budget.
But they either feigned ignorance or were genuinely uninformed about the boroughs most pressing issue.
"It seems that most of the councilmembers were not even aware that the budget cuts went through or of the significant impact it would have on the children of Queens," said Thomson.
David Weprin (D-Hollis), head of the Councils Finance Committee, said that the Councils failure to secure the money for school construction "was not a question of being lackadaisical."
He said that the Council was focused on restoring the Citys expense budget instead of money in the capital plan "that is not really there.
"We werent going to hold up signing the budget for this," he said. "That would have not been responsible."
Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) said his colleagues non-responsiveness is a product of their being "embarrassed to admit it.
"Im not embarrassed, I think we did everything we could," said Comrie. "We proposed a commuter tax to pay for school construction but we knew that the governor wouldnt sign it. The shortage of schools is Governor Patakis fault."
Three sites in District 24, the Citys most overcrowded district in Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, Elmhurst, Corona, Glendale, Woodside, and part of Long Island City will either lose or have the addition of more than 1000 seats delayed indefinitely. District 27, which includes such neighborhoods as Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Baisley Park, Richmond Hill, Howard Beach and part of Jamaica will have a 400-seat school and a 120-seat addition to an existing school delayed.
District 30, in Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City, Jackson Heights, Corona, and East Elmhurst will see a 1,200-seat middle school delayed.
With Queens population growing at a record pace, the overcrowding crisis is rapidly approaching its boiling point. Even if Bloombergs cuts hadnt stripped away a single proposed seat from the current capital plan, Queens schools will be 18,800 seats short by 2005 and 20,500 seats short by 2010.
"It appalls me that in this city we are short 60,000 seats in our schools and that our children are learning in substandard environments," said Thomson. "If we dont make this a priority we are going to lose another generation of children."