Queensboro Or Kochboro?
It was only a City Council hearing, but it seemed more like a reunion of former Mayor Edward Koch’s ex-staff members as they along with friends and fans turned out in support of a bill renaming the Queensboro Bridge in his honor. The official name change would be the Edward Koch-Queensboro Bridge. Among the speakers was former Borough President Claire […]
Queens Man Arrested In Netherlands
District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced on February 22 that a former city hospital worker who allegedly fled abroad in 2006 when he was facing charges of attempting to kidnap three children from an Astoria park and sexually assaulting one of them, a nine-year-old girl, was arrested on Feb. 21 at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on an arrest warrant charging him […]
Queens Facing $167 M Cut In Fed Aid Under Republican Plan
Congressmember Anthony Weiner slammed a Republican budget proposal issued last week which would slash more than $167 million in aid to Queens. Under the proposal, Weiner said, Queens would lose millions of dollars in funding for cops, education, transportation, infrastructure and health and human services. Speaking at Queens College in Flushing on February 13, Weiner added, the GOP spending plan […]
Congestion Pricing Should Stay The Table
The words “congestion pricing” first appeared in this newspaper in an article on Nov. 16, 2005. From then to today, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011, the term has come up 88 times (this editorial brings the total to 89). We wrote seven editorials (this is number eight), at least three op-eds were submitted to us about the plan and we saw […]
Letters to the Editor
Reduce U.S. Deficits To The Editor: The Obama administration is spending our money at unprecedented levels and it is projected to continue for years into the future. Our annual federal deficit is approaching 1.5 trillion and will probably hit $2 trillion before long. Our national debt is projected to go from $14 trillion now to $25 trillion in five to […]
On the brief side…
A Bipartisan Vote Vs GOP Budget Cutting Frenzy At a time when the Republican majority in the House is steamrolling spending cuts left and right, there was a rare moment when a bipartisan mixture of lawmakers joined to push through a $298 million restoration appropriation that will allow 1,300 cops to remain on their jobs. Savoring the moment, as 158 […]
Astoria Businessman Testifies At Washington Hearing
This week, Gus Prentzas, who owns Pavilion Florals and Life Health & Fitness in Astoria traveled to Washington to testify before a hearing of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. Congressmember Carolyn Maloney (D-Queens, Manhattan), the ranking member and former chair of the subcommittee, welcomed Prentzas to Washington and introduced him before the subcommittee. Prentzas’ […]
I.S. 227 ‘Underutilized’ Designation Alarms Marshall
The Louis Armstrong School, I.S. 227 in East Elmhurst, is dear to Borough President Helen Marshall’s heart. “I am one of the people who organized I.S. 227,” she said at the February meeting of Community District Education Council 30. Next month, the city Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) will vote on significant changes affecting the utilization of more than two […]
Simotas Responds To Report On ER Wait Times
Assemblymember Aravella Simotas renewed her call for an expanded, modernized community hospital in Astoria after a report by Press Ganey, an organization that conducts hospital surveys, found that patients in New York state emergency rooms wait an average of nearly five hours for care. This statistic ranks state ERs in a tie for 46th in the nation. The report follows […]