Readers: Tall councilman needs to do better!
COURIER LIFE, JANUARY 17-23, 2020 31
An annual participatory budgeting
process organized by Bedford-
Stuyvesant Councilman Robert Cornegy
Jr. has the lowest voter turnout
of any district in the borough, with
just one percent of voters deciding
the fate of millions of dollars in public
spending, according to data analyzed
by the Brooklyn Paper.
Ech year, the majority of Kings
County Council members set aside
a portion of their discretionary
funds to be spent through the city’s
so-called participatory budgeting
process, which allows constituents
to vote on how to spend their hardearned
tax money over a severalweek
long period each fall.
For the past four years, however,
Cornegy — who was named
the world’s tallest elected offi cial
by Guinness last year — has only
been able to scrape together a measly
6,951 votes for more than $4 million
worth of Council funding, with
an average annual voter turnout
of only 1,738 people in a district of
roughly 150,000 Brooklynites
Readers had a lot to say online:
People dont come out because
the process isn’t transparent. The
projects and funding is controlled
by a very insular political machine
which represents or caters a few select
blocks in Bed Stuy.
If you dont know someone who is
well connected (or if you happen to
live on the wrong block) you pretty
much dont exist.
Why bother trying to participate
in a rigged process?
Justa Wom
When people have lived with feeling
invisible and ignored in their
community they lose trust in the process
and possibility that they can create
change. And in some cases it just
feels like a waste of time for folks who
are struggling to maintain housing
in their current communities. The
interaction and involvement with
the community needs to built year
around. It’s not easy but all of the
elected offi cials need to to do a better
job at it.
Sapp-Grant
Wow. I have actually gone to
Council Member Corneghy’s District
Participatory outreach meetings, as
my district(40th) were not doing any
kind of outreach at the time.
Cheryl Sealey
I bet if it was on Facebook it would
be different.
Michael West
Don’t ax the trees!
The city’s controversial scheme
to ax a small forest’s worth of trees
in Fort Greene Park hit a snag after
a state judge ordered the Parks
Department to provide evidence
that its plans will not impose a signifi
cant impact on the green space
and surrounding neighborhood,
setting back renovations to the area’s
largest park.
State Supreme Court Judge Julio
Rodriguez III sided with the environmental
watchdogs at Friends
of Fort Greene Park in ruling that
the Parks Department failed to
substantiate why its $10.5 million
overhaul of the park — which entails
chopping down a whopping
83 trees — does not constitute a
signifi cant alteration of the neighborhood’s
namesake playground,
according an attorney for the
plaintiffs.
“This decision should awaken
the department to reality,” said
legal advisor Michael Gruen in a
statement.
Readers spoke up online:
Don’t cut down the trees. That
money could be much better spent on
a reap problem.
Jim Turner
That money should be used on
other projects. Like putting it into
the renovation of the projects.Fort
green park is a land mark why would
anyone want to break it down for
some plaza. There are plenty of stores
downtown and on Atlantic ave. No
one seems to care about the projects,
or the reason for these trees we have
children with Asthma and respirator
problems and the trees help with
these issues. Leave the park as it is. I
if you take the park what else do we
left.
Deborah Bailey
The City’s plan would have been a
nice improvement. I think this is sort
of a proxy fi ght against perceived gentrifi
cation.
Joseph Koelbel
Cutting down 83 trees is not an
improvement.
Peggy Herron
Don’t shoot dogs!
An off-duty Secret Service agent
killed a dog in Windsor Terrace on
Monday night, shooting the animal
after it allegedly charged him.
The special agent with the federal
law enforcement agency
claims the dog, a Belgian Shepherd,
charged him on Caton Place
near E. Eighth Street at 9:45 pm,
when the agent pulled out his
weapon and slew the pet, according
to a spokesman for the US Secret
Service, who described the dog
as “unrestrained and aggressive.”
The dog was leashed at the
time of the incident, according to
the Secret Service rep, but had escaped
from its owners at the time
of the incident
Readers made themselves heard
online:
That secret service agent is defi -
nitely not a New Yorker! There are
stray pit bulls everywhere and I’d just
go the other way. Why shoot a dog?
June Plum Vaz
This person needs a new job if a
dog on a leash scares him like this.
Gina Santonas
It’s unfortunate however, if that
agent perceived that animal was a
threat...
Jamal Baker
A “barking dog” ISN’T a threat.
Frances Zarnock
Greenwood is made up!
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority stuck its foot in a
contentious debate that’s divide
Brooklynites for decades — where
does Park Slope end and Greenwood
Heights begin?
A recently installed map at the
25th Street subway station places
the bougie brownstone neighborhood
well below the Prospect Expressway,
where the moniker “Park
Slope” is labeled confi dently, despite
the area’s namesake greenspace,
Prospect Park, ending at
15th Street and Greenwood Cemetery
taking over as the most prominent
landmark.
The faux pas sparked a lively
debate on the Brooklyn sub-Reddit
page, where user CallYaMuthaAlreddie
claimed that 15th Street
remains Park Slope’s defi nitive
southern boundary.
“This map is wrong,” wrote the
Reddit user. “Park Slope ends at
15th street, where the park ends.
There’s no park to slope from at
Prospect Avenue.”
The MTA’s map also refutes the
Brooklyn Paper newsroom’s handy
map of the borough, where Greenwood
Heights is located south of
the expressway, and which this
publication holds as the defi nitive
arbiter of neighborhood boundaries
— if only because it’s what
we’re used to.
Readers experssed themselves
online:
A rose by any other color wouldn’t
smell as sweet as “Park Slope.” The
area now known as “Greenwood
Heights,” originally was part of South
Brooklyn, as was now prestigious
“Park Slope.” Somehow it became part
of “Sunset Park” in the 1960s, possible
because of new NYC mapping and creating
of Community Districts. Then
the new name was created/promoted,
perhaps by real estate agencies or locals
seeking to separate themselves
from others, in the 1980s.
Jerry Krase
It’s hard to tell, but according
to your newsroom map it appears
Greenwood Heights does not extend
west of 4th Ave? I think most people
on my block (23rd Street, between
3rd and 4th aves) would associate
more-so with Greenwood Heights
than Sunset Park.
To your credit, I’ve never lived in
a neighborhood with an identity a
contentious as Greenwood Heights’.
Some still call this whole area Sunset
Park, some say it’s South Slope. I
don’t think it fi ts the character of either,
so “Greenwood Heights” makes
the most sense to me. We can all
agree though, this is DEFINITELY
not Park Slope.
Christopher J Helyer
“Greenwood Heights” is not a
thing– just a very recent marketing
invention by the real estate industry.
Jihan Kim
Can we please stop with these
made up ‘hood names?
Seamus McHenry
If it’s not Greenwood Heights it is
certainly Windsor Terrace and not
Park Slope, no?
Cassandra Gauthier
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