Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. (D–Astoria) strongly criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration’s disclosure at the blizzard hearings on January 10 that neither he nor his deputy mayor were called about the decision not to declare an emergency during the post-Christmas snow storm’s bungled clean-up. “All the major decisions and major mistakes were made without even consulting the mayor or […]

 A 31-year-old Jackson Heights man last week was charged with failing to register his electronic identifiers, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. Luis Ortiz is the first man to be charged under the 2008 Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, Brown said. Brown said in a prepared statement, that Ortiz reported on numerous registration forms submitted to the […]

 Recently released NYPD crime statistics show a sharp rise in robberies in Queens in 2010. NYPD Compstat numbers show a 2.4 percent increase in robberies last year, 119 more as of December 26, compared with the same period in 2009. The statistics show a decrease borough-wide in six major crime categories including murder, rape, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and […]

The Queens babysitter charged with shaking a three-month-old boy to death during last week’s blizzard admitted to detectives that she shook the baby because he wouldn’t stop crying. Ana Delarosa, 26, of Corona, told police at the 115th Precinct that little Addison Reynoso-Xoyatla began crying at about 11 a.m. on December 29. “I fed the baby and put him down,” […]

What is a brownfield? It could be an empty lot on a block that has been that way for years. But under a new city initiative, that lot might soon be developed into a park, community facility or affordable housing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the New York City Brownfield Cleanup Program last August, describing brownfields as “areas contaminated, often many […]

As a result of extensive negotiations over the past six weeks, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Finance Committee Chair Domenic M. Recchia Jr. (D-Brooklyn) last Thursday announced that the council and the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg reached a budgetary agreement on the Fiscal Year 2011 financial plan. The agreement will achieve the same level of spending reductions […]

Police last week arrested a Queens shop teacher, George Zola, 58, a licensed aviation mechanic,  who has taught at the Aviation Career & Technical Education H.S. in Sunnyside for 22 years, after he was accused of fondling the girl’s breasts, buttocks and private parts and rubbing against her during several sessions at the school. Queens prosecutors said Zola touched the […]

104th Precinct Lawsuit In Nag-Toss A 46-year-old Forest Hills pharmacist who broke her arm while on a horseback ride is suing a Queens stable for putting her on what she called an “ill-tempered” horse. An attorney for Laurie Koffler filed the lawsuit in Queens civil court, charging the owners of the Dixie Dee Stables at the Forest Equine Center put […]

Thomas R. Gaines II, of Douglaston, New York, died on November 15, 2010 at North Shore Hospital following a lengthy illness. He was 63 years old. Gaines was born into the fourth generation of a New York family. Beginning in 1974 he worked with the prestigious Panfield Nurseries in Huntington which specialized in landscaping using native plant species. While at […]