TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | APRIL 1 - APRIL 7, 2022
MAYOR ADAMS LIFTS MASK MANDATE
FOR KIDS BETWEEN AGES OF 2 AND 4
27
BY ETHAN MARSHALL
The Bell Court Civic Association
made its public debut during last weekend’s
Bayside St. Patrick’s Day Parade
on Bell Boulevard. The organization,
founded in 2018, is dedicated to safeguarding
the character, history and
charm of Bell Court and its homes.
According to Roseann Foley Henry,
president of the Bell Court Civic Association,
the organization was founded after
she and a group of residents in the area
began talking about how sad they were
to see some of the changes to the neighborhood.
Classic old homes were getting
torn down and replaced with oversized
ones that violated zoning limits.
“We’re looking to save charming older
houses,” Foley Henry said.
Additionally, she emphasized the
importance that homes being built or
renovated in the area meet the zoning
requirements. According to Foley
Henry, these include “buildings meeting
no more than the maximum allowable
height, ratios for square footage
(50%), front walls not extending beyond
those of the neighbors and not paving
over one-third of the green space on a
property.”
The organization is also against
multifamily houses in single-family
zones and houses that don’t match their
building permits. “We know that scale
is one of the things that has made our
community so wonderful over the past
100 years, and we are dedicated to preserving
that quality,” Foley Henry said.
As an organization focused on preserving
historical buildings, the civic
association has an entire section of
their website dedicated to the history
of Bell Court. In addition to preserving
the history and beauty of Bell Court,
the Civic Association aims to bring the
community together. One way in which
the organization intends to help with
that is by translating their materials
over the summer and fall into different
languages.
One project the organization is currently
working on is beautifying the
area on Bell Bell Boulevard where Walgreens
once stood. They are working
with the property owners to include signage
about Bell Court as well. The group
is currently in the process of finding a
landscaping company that can get the
job done within their price range.
The civic association ultimately has
five missions, including fostering a
sense of community among residents,
protecting the neighborhood’s scale
and charm, safeguarding legal singlefamily
zoning, encouraging cooperation
between residents, regardless of their
background and advocating for the community’s
common interests.
While the civic association was born
out of concerned neighbors, those within
the organization have emphasized
they’re not there just there to complain.
They encourage architectural work that
respects the history of the neighborhood.
The organization has spotlighted some of
the classic Bell Court homes on its website.
Some of them remain as originally
designed while others were updated.
In addition to President Foley Henry,
other key cogs within the organization
include Vice President Paul DiBenedetto,
Secretary Dolores Stimitz and
Treasurer Barbara Delfyett Hester.
DiBenedetto is also one of the heads
of the zoning committee, along with
Manuel Mergal. Irulan Budabin and
Katheen Davidson run the membership
committee, Donna Delfyett White and
David White lead the bylaws committee
and Alexandra Tarasko runs the audit
committee.
BY ETHAN STARK-MILLER
Mayor Eric Adams today announced if
COVID-19 case numbers hold steady, children
between the ages of 2 and 4 will no
longer be required to wear face masks in
school and daycare settings come April 4.
“We are continuing our serious moment
of peeling back the masks off the faces of our
people as we continue the process of getting
our city really back to a level of normality,”
Adams said. “We want to see our baby’s faces;
I’ve said this over and over again. And
our children want to see the faces of their
loved ones.”
Parents will still have the option to have
their children between 2 and 4 continue to
wear masks in school and daycare.
Adams said that after removing masks
for K-12 students two weeks ago, the administration
wanted to wait two more incubation
periods before removing the mandate
for 2- to 4-year-olds.
“It’s now been two weeks since we removed
the mask mandate for K-12 public
school children, and our percent positivity
in schools has, thankfully, remained
low,” Adams said. “Each day, we review the
data, and if we continue to see low levels
of risk, then, on Monday, April 4, we will
make masks optional for 2- to 4-year-old
children in schools and daycare settings.
This will allow us sufficient time to evaluate
the numbers and make sound decisions
for our youngest New Yorkers. We must get
this right for the health of our kids, and I
refuse to jeopardize their safety by rushing
a decision.”
However, Adams said, the decision is
contingent on where COVID case numbers
are in two weeks. Dr. Ashwin Vasan, the
city’s new health commissioner, said they’ll
carefully watch the numbers over the next
two weeks and may have to adjust if they
are higher than current levels before or after
April 4.
In response to a reporter’s question
about why the decision to lift this mask
mandate is being made now, as the new COVID
BA.2 subvariant is on the rise, Vasan
said they’re currently not seeing evidence
that severe illness from the variant is tied
to any age group.
“At this point, we’re very concerned about
the long-term effects of COVID in everyone,”
Vasan said. “We’re concerned about the longterm
effects in our children, and we’re constantly
monitoring them. Right now overall
risk remains low. Overall cases in children
remain low. Hospitalizations in children remain
low, which is giving us comfort to make
this decision at this point.”
Adams emphasized that while many
parents will be happy to see the mask mandate
go by the wayside, others will insist he
continue to keep it in place.
“It doesn’t matter what decision you
make on this, you’re going to have vociferous
people on all sides of the conversation,”
Adams said. “And so, we can’t go by the
noise, we have to go by the science. And we
have to go by the safety of our children. Every
call that I receive, from parents of children
2 to 4 years old, that say, ‘Can you do
it right away?’ I get another call from parents
who are in school or daycare with the
children saying, ‘Can you please don’t do it.’
So, let’s not think that this argument or this
conversation is one-sided. It is not.”
And it’s important to stick with the science,
Adams said, especially in a city like
New York where people have strong opinions
on both sides of an issue and it’s impossible
to please everyone.
Photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Bell Court Civic Association debuts during Bayside St. Patrick’s Day parade
/QNS.COM
