Dear Victoria Schneps-Yunis,
The Woodhaven Business Improvement District would like to convey to you our best wishes in your joining forces with the New York Daily News. This new access through your two newspapers will afford our organizations additional exposure and will surely be of benefit to all of our small Queens Commercial Strips.
Our Woodhaven Business Improvement District wishes you much success in this new joint venture.
My best personal regards.
Maria A. Thomson
Executive Director
Need checks and balances
We know as concerned and responsible parents, what our children need to achieve academically and obtain a balanced education, which, by the way, plays no part in “complete mayoral control.” Parental input is constantly provided and assumed wanted, but for the most part never utilized.
The Department of Education (DOE) is about to roll out a $15 billion dollar budget with revisions to school and pupil funding while completely reorganizing the structure of the public school system and all of this will occur without a formal public hearing effective July 1. Didn’t the DOE just reorganize a short three years ago?
We can praise the efforts Mayor Bloomberg and his administration to say good has come from the change six years ago because we now have a completely funded five year Capital Plan and new schools will be built in the city. However, the current test scores and citywide graduation results of the last few years do not reflect significant high school improvement, and most of our NYC intermediate schools need improvement to prepare our students for high school. It is no secret that our system of 1 million-plus school children (almost half of the State’s entire student population), is in need of a checks and balances system to educate our children. We know this type of system is in place everywhere else, so why not in the educational system?
We as parents strongly believe that our State Legislature should revisit the concept of complete mayoral control so the balance of real power can be shared by other responsible members of society in 2009 and not just the Panel for Educational Policy whose members make up the majority appointed by the Mayor. Parents call your State representative today and tell them this has to stop!
Dmytro Fedkowskyj
Parent, CEC D24 Member and Advocate
for Public School Education
Pro Landmarking
For too long, the four boroughs have been assigned a back seat by the city in terms of getting Landmark designation for worthy buildings and neighborhoods.
It is vital that we preserve these important places for future generations. They are what make our communities special and unique. Contextual rezoning is important and helpful in controlling overdevelopment but it usually does not prevent the demolition of noteworthy buildings. Landmarking is the ultimate protection.
Owners of landmarked structures need to get approval from the Landmarks Commission for any planned exterior changes to those structures. Many people find this concept threatening. I would think that a review by experts would be helpful and beneficial in insuring that the structure maintains its historical significance and financial value.
New development in our community is important to our economy and our growth. However, when we look around our neighborhood today, many of the new buildings constructed lack the style, beauty and individuality of the buildings they have replaced.
There is still time and still structures and neighborhoods to preserve through Landmarking. Community integrity and stability depend on what we can accomplish over the next few years. We need the help and cooperation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the outer boroughs to achieve these goals.
Henry Euler
Bayside
Boulevard of Hope
Because of all the pedestrian traffic fatalities that occur there, Queens Boulevard has become known as the “Boulevard of Death.” But I have a different name for it.
Every day I take a morning walk on Queens Boulevard, from 71st Avenue in Forest Hills to the Long Island Expressway in Rego Park and back. During my perambulations, I typically observe many seniors with walkers and canes making their way along the busy thoroughfare.
Some of the seniors that I see are in wheelchairs and others are hunched over, barely able to put up one foot in front of another. However, they all have one thing in common. They are out and about - away from their houses and into the day. Moreover, because they are on the street, and because they refuse to just sit at home and lament over their various disabilities, I have come to think of Queens Boulevard as the “Boulevard of Hope.”
Martin H. Levinson
Forest Hills
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