28 The QUEE NS Courier • june 6, 2013 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com editorial letters Victoria Schneps-Yunis Joshua A. Schneps Bob Brennan Tonia N. Cimino Amy Amato-Sanchez Nirmal Singh Graziella Zerilli Stephen Reina Ron Torina, Jennifer Decio, Cheryl Gallagher Melisa Chan, Terence Cullen, Cristabelle Tumola Maggie Hayes, Angy Altamirano Cliff Kasden, Samantha Sohmer, Elizabeth Aloni Cristabelle Tumola Bill Krese Jan DiGeronimo Maria Romero Louise Cavaliere Celeste Alamin Maria Valencia Daphne Fortunate Victoria Schneps-Yunis Joshua A. Schneps Publisher & E ditor Co-Publisher Associate Publisher Editor-In-Chief VP, Events, Web & Social Media Art Director Assistant to Publisher Assistant Art Director Artists Staff Reporters Contributing Reporters Web Editor Editorial Cartoonist Director, Business Developm ent Events Manager Senior Acc ount Executive Classified Manager Controller Office Manager President & CEO Vice President Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 website: www.queenscourier.com e-mail:editorial@queenscourier.com ads@queenscourier.com queenscourier@queenscourier.com Entire Contents Copyright 2013 by The Queens Courier All letters sent to THE QUEENS COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of THE QUEENS COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to THE QUEENS COURIER within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Schneps Communications assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold The Quens Courier and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. IDENTIFY THIS PLACE To find out the answer to last week’s “Identify this place” please visit www.QueensCourier.com THE QUEENS LaGuardia noise will diminish property values The recent change in take-off routes at LaGuardia Airport is the most pressing environmental issue facing northeast Queens communities. This was done with no public input and we are suffering from almost unbearable noise pollution affecting our quality of life and even our health. It occurs from early morning to very late at night. State Senator Tony Avella and Assemblymember Ed Braunstein have been joined by Congressmembers Grace Meng and Steve Israel on the issue. What has been lost in the discussions, though, are the very severe economic consequences to our neighborhoods if the noise is not made to stop. That is the tremendous loss of residential property values that will be suffered in Little Neck, Douglaston, Bay Terrace, Bayside, Auburndale, East Flushing and Whitestone. There are approximately $50 billion dollars of residential property alone in these areas. The FAA itself has commissioned studies demonstrating the loss in property values as a result of noisy flight patterns. The general rule of thumb that these studies come up with is that property will decline one percentage point in value for each decibel of aircraft noise. These studies also demonstrate that more expensive properties suffer greater percentage losses in values than medium or low value properties. For residential properties alone in our area then, each one percent loss is about $500 million. We could expect total losses in the billions of dollars. At a public meeting in Bay Terrrace recently the representatives of the FAA admitted that they had done no cost-benefit analysis at all of their new take-off policy. All of us, and all of our elected officials, must make our voices heard. Melvyn Meer Bayside Member of Community Board 11 Bring back school to children P.S. 130, located at 200-01 42nd Avenue, Bayside, currently serves mainly District 25 students. The school, however, is geographically in District 26 and historically was a K-6 and K-8 school for students living on the Auburndale/ Bayside border. Through political manipulation, the school was closed to local children, and after several incarnations, became what it is today. Many of the students are bused in from other District 25 areas, while the local children are bused to overcrowded District 26 schools. This makes no sense, considering the effect on students’ education and the prohibitive cost of busing children. Children living across or down the street from P.S. 130 cannot readily attend their neighborhood school, a school that they could get to by walking. The Auburndale Improvement Association, Inc. is circulating a petition calling for the return of P.S. 130 to neighborhood children. We realize that the education of the students currently attending the school must not be disrupted. The changeover would have to be gradual. We also feel that the program at the school for special needs students should stay, because we believe that there would still be sufficient room for local children on the upper floors of the building. The response that we have been getting from the petition in the community is overwhelming and powerful. The feeling is that returning P.S. 130 to District 26 is in the best interests of the students and the stability of the surrounding neighborhood. The civic organization has written to the Department of Education, the School Construction Authority, the Superintendents of Districts 25 and 26, Community Board 11, local elected leaders and those candidates seeking office. When the petitions are completed, we will forward copies to all of the above, so that they can receive the full impact of the comments on those petitions regarding the need to return P.S. 130 to the local community. Returning P.S. 130 to District 26 should reduce some of the overcrowding in schools where local students are now being bused to school every day. The present controversy as to where to site a new elementary school in District 26 may then be moot, or at least it may place emphasis on siting a new school elsewhere in District 26, or in District 25, at an appropriate place agreeable to the community. Henry Euler, First Vice President Auburndale Improvement Association, Inc. QUEENS PROUD How do you spell champion? Arvind Mahankali. He is the definition of hard work and persistence. After two years of placing third at the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, the 13-year-old eighth grader from M.S. 74 in Bayside finally took first place by correctly spelling “knaidel,” a Yiddish word for dumpling. Mahankali, a well-rounded student who loves math and science and aspires to be a physicist, refused to be beaten. Last year, another German-derived word, “schwannoma,” meaning a type of cancer, knocked him out of the competition. It seems, he immediately looked ahead, telling The Courier at the time, “Next year, I think I have a very good chance of winning.” And he was right. This year marked his final chance to compete, as Scripps is not open to high school students. So he went out with a bang, winning $30,000 in cash, savings bonds, a complete reference library and more. But more than the prizes, Mahankali walked away with a sense of pride and accomplishment that extends far beyond the Bee. He proved to his family, friends, peers, the nation — and above all, to himself — that the true key to success is to never give up. So here’s to Arvind: May you always enjoy the sweet spell of success. IT’S ABOUT TIME This week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the launch of “Build it Back,” a city program to assist homeowners, landlords and tenants in the five boroughs impacted by Sandy. “Build it Back” will aim to make the newly available federal aid simple and understandable and will provide registrants with a Housing Recovery Specialist who will guide them through each step of the process of returning to sustainable housing and recovering out-of-pocket costs. The program has four tiers: repair, for those homes that require minor to moderate fixes; rebuild, whereby homeowners can select from models for their new houses; reimbursement, for those out-ofpocket repairs homeowners covered; and acquisition, for those who want to sell their homes. Though Bloomberg said that, in the days following Sandy, “the city led one of the fastest disaster recovery efforts ever seen,” for those people whose lives are still in tumult, Rapid Repairs must not have seemed rapid enough. That is why we welcome “Build it Back” — so that our great city can get back on its feet, better than before. CORRECTION Our profile of AgeWell New York, a managed care plan, that ran on March 28, 2013 included photographs of patients receiving care at AgeWell Physical Therapy and Wellness, P.C., a local physical therapy practice. AgeWell New York and AgeWell Physical Therapy and Wellness, P.C. are separate businesses and are not related entities.
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