Foot Dragging On Blvd Of Death
High School Lawsuit Is Arrogance
By Thomas Butler

On May 2, 2001, the owners of Stevens Appliance in Woodside, Sipos Realty, sued the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA) and the New York City Board of Education for, among other things, dragging their feet since December 1999 on a decision as to whether the SCA would build the "Boulevard of Death High School" on the Stevens site at Queens Boulevard and 50th Street. The city had 20 days to respond to the lawsuit.

In typical fashion, the city asked for an extension, which Sipos granted until June 11, 2001. Now it is the city "suing" Sipos for, of all things, more time. It seems that for the city’s lawyers, The New York City Corporation Counsel, with a 2,300-member, full-time legal staff, including 650 lawyers, time is not of much consequence.

Most ironically, one of the very reasons the Stevens family sued the city is that for the last 18 months the Board of Education and School Construction Authority bureaucracy have prevented it from doing business at the store or on the property it has owned for more than half a century. Now the family is being rewarded with even more foot-dragging.

What is the city’s claim? It needs another 30 days to prepare to answer basic charges in the May 2 lawsuit from Sipos.

"In order for the city to sue us for more time, one of the city’s attorneys had to take the time to sit down and prepare that lawsuit, which they did instead of answering the charges in the May 2 complaint," Howard Taub, owner of Stevens said. "This is typical. It seems the city just has no regard for the little guy and does not care about the wishes of residents in this community. The community said it was unsafe to put any school on the Boulevard of Death, but the city is dumb, deaf and blind to the residents’ concerns. It is arrogance, I tell you."

As the city continues to stall, it becomes more and more apparent that noses are being thumbed—at the safety of children, at the wishes of the community and at free enterprise.

Is that the lesson that we want to teach our children, regardless of the location of the school in which it is taught?

Thomas Butler is a community activist.