Town Hall on stimulus package

Residents of southern Queens were able to find out last week how the federal stimulus package money will affect them directly.
“We want to tell you how this money will affect you on your block,” Senator Joseph Addabbo said at a Town Hall meeting on April 15 with Congressmember Anthony Weiner.
After their brief opening speeches, Weiner and Addabbo opened the floor to residents’ questions.
There was applause after the first resident asked if there was any money in the stimulus plan that would keep the Q56 bus, which runs down Jamaica Avenue, running.
“There are too many seniors that can’t climb up the stairs to the “J” train platform,” the resident said.
Maria A. Thomson, Executive Director of the Woodhaven Business Improvement District (BID), agreed with the residents about the transportation issue.
“Taking the buses away from Jamaica Avenue is also bad for the small businesses,” Thomson said.
Addabbo encouraged the residents to write letters to the MTA, which will be holding a public hearing in Manhattan on April 28, about these issues.
“The more people write, the more we may get somewhere with this,” Addabbo said. “We’re strength in numbers.”
Another resident asked if any money would be allocated to offset the two most recent hospital closings in Queens, St. John’s Queens and Mary Immaculate hospitals.
Addabbo noted that the stimulus money is “not meant for the two hospitals.”
“What we really need to do is fix our health care,” Weiner said. “We are never going to be a healthy economy until we have great health care.”
Weiner then explained to the audience the three things that Congress is trying to accomplish with the stimulus bill:
“We need to give back to the state so they don’t slash programs, we need to create jobs and we need tax cuts so people have money in their pockets to go out and spend,” he said. “We want to make sure that the middle class in Queens walks away with something.”