Cops Belong In Park
BY RICHARD GENTILVISO

Calling attention to the crime report covering 2006, Monserrate, a former cop, stated: "These numbers translate into real fear among Queens residents to use their largest, most popular park. We can no longer afford private safety resources only after the fact...."

The Queens City Council delegation is calling on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to fund a police facility in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Councilmember Hiram Monserrate said at the March meeting of Community Board 4 in Corona.

The delegation has sent a letter to Bloomberg and Monserrate is asking for all concerned citizens to join in with letters of their own to the mayor asking for a police facility to be built in the park.

"There are two ways to reduce crime [in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park]. One is with [NYPD] police officers and the second is with PEP officers," said Monserrate. "Right now, they're working out of a bathroom in the Olmstead Building, I kid you not."

Monserrate said the facility would be permanent and a hybrid," meaning it would serve both New York Police Department officers and Parks Enforcement Police (PEP) officers. Currently about five PEP officers are assigned to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, along with an unspecified number of NYPD officers from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst. PEP officers do not carry guns.

"The 110th Precinct does a pretty good job with limited resources, but let's be realistic, it's a pretty big park," said Monserrate. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, at more than 1,200 acres, is bigger than Central Park. "We have millions of visitors in the park and a lot of great things happening in it," Monserrate said. "There is a very big need to maintain safety. If Central Park can have a [police] precinct with about 120 police officers assigned to it, why can't Flushing Meadows- Corona Park, which is larger, have one?" Monserrate said a disproportionate number of PEP officers are assigned to Battery Park in Manhattan. "This points to a very Manhattancentric administration," he said.

"We need to ensure a permanent police presence in the park, we want to be proactive in deterring crime," Monserrate said. A police facility in the park is among the recommendations submitted by Community Board 4 for the upcoming city budget.

In another action, the board unanimously voted to support an increase in the city budget allocation for veterans. Monserrate, a former Marine, chairs the Veterans' Committee in the City Council.

Monserrate said the city currently allocates $204,000 per year out of its $56 billion budget for veterans. "Half of it comes from the state," he said. "That's actually $102,000 to provide whatever services the city does provide to vets, which is next to zero."

"We have to do more now that another 20,000 soldiers are going to Iraq," he said. Monserrate supports establishing resource centers for vets throughout the five boroughs and said the federal government is not doing the job.

In other business, the board recommended denying a variance to permit a four-story mixeduse building that would extend into a mapped but unused portion of 44th Avenue at 43-17 104th St., while it approved renewal variances for Food Bazaar, 97-27 57th Ave., and White Castle, 89- 03 57th Ave. It also denied a 421-a tax exemption at 81-15 Queens Blvd.