By Bob Harris
His ability to interact successfully and be respected by various ethnic communities in New York is rooted in his love and respect for all ethnic groups of people. He received his master's degree from St. John's University in the late 1980s in government and administration and began to reach out to the new American immigrant communities in New York, helping them integrate and assimilate with the citizens of America.As president of the Sikh American Friendship Foundation, Inc., he has always emphasized, in particular to the new immigrants, that together with certain acquired rights through their citizenship status they also owe certain duties to their new motherland, such as getting out to vote; serving in the armed forces; participating in school boards; filing taxes; working hard and in harmony with their neighbors in close cooperation; obeying the laws of the land; and respecting quality of life matters.Borough President Helen Marshall appointed Singh as a member of Community Board 8 in 2003, where he enjoys the trust and confidence of his colleagues and as one of the founding delegates (now alumni) of the Queens General Assembly, for which he was recently honored by her. He was the most active delegate in the Anti-bias (Hate-Crimes) Committee in the Queens General Assembly. He often worked with victims (usually the Sikhs for mistaken identity) and helped calm the situation in the locality between the affected communities.He has been honored by many elected officials for his active community service. He is on the boards of many civic organizations, all of which are oriented towards community service and local concerns of the residents. He is an advocate of quality of life issues and environmental concerns. He is on the board of directors of the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Conservancy and together with his colleagues is acutely concerned with issues that affect or protect environmental and natural habitat settings.He believes strongly in performing his civic duties, such as in participating annually in the organization of the country's largest Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade.He actively participated in the New York City Charter Review Commission hearings over the last two years and frequently gave testimonies. His involvement in helping obtain governmental approval for the expansion of the Hindu Temple in Queens in 2004 is deeply appreciated by several thousand Hindu devotees.He has been acknowledged by the Jamaica Muslim center for his assistance and cooperation. He served as senior executive in the UN peacekeeping mission in East Timor where his display of management and humanitarian skills earned him the love and admiration of the local population. Before joining the UN in 1969, Singh served in the Royal Malaysian Police Force for 10 years in the Criminal Investigation Department.Good and bad news of the weekI was recently walking along 75th Avenue and noticed a man with a large dog on the center mall. When the dog stopped to relieve itself I noticed that the man was not moving to clean up after his dog. I hesitated to say something because such encounters, like the one I had a couple of years ago when a man drove out of his block the wrong way, can become a confrontation.I then noticed an NYPD van moving slowly past me. It stopped at the next corner and seemed to wait. The man with the dog suddenly started to pat his pockets looking for something with which to pick up his dog's droppings. He spied a circular in a plastic bag near a house a ran to pick it up.As I moved to the corner I walked over the NYPD van and made a comment about being glad they had driven by. We exchanged a few comments and I then moved onward toward Union Turnpike. This is why police cars should be on our streets as often as possible. This was a quality-of-life issue, not a life-and-death issue, but in Fresh Meadows it is the quality-of-life issues which are important to the residents since we have very little violent crime.
