4 The Queens Courier • JUNE 13, 2013 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com AS ONE SCHOOL CLOSES, ANOTHER MAY OPEN Call for middle school to replace St. Fidelis BY MELISA CHAN [email protected] More than 200 residents in College Point have signed a petition calling for a middle school to replace soon-to-be shuttered St. Fidelis School. “With St. Fidelis closing, we didn’t see it as a crisis but an opportunity,” said Andrew Rocco, president of the College Point Civic and Taxpayers Association. “People are flooding into College Point for the quality of life and great neighborhood. Why should we not have basic infrastructure like a middle school?” The century-old Catholic elementary school at 124-06 14th Avenue will close this month due to declining enrollment and increased operating costs, The Courier previously reported. Neighboring parishes will take in St. Fidelis students in the meantime, said Thomas Chadzutko, superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Brooklyn. But local leaders are pushing the city’s Department of Education (DOE) to consider replacing the pre-K through eighth grade institution. “The population in College Point is increasing dramatically,” said State Senator Tony Avella. “The community has been asking for a middle school for the last five years.” The lawmaker added that area students have to travel outside their neighborhood to attend junior high. It took some seventh and eighth graders two hours to get to and from J.H.S. 194 when the city temporarily took away yellow school bus service in 2010. A DOE spokesperson said St. Fidelis is still Photo by Dave Conlogue Firefighters clean up the elevated Astoria subway platform where a man jumped in front of the train. FLOOD OF TROUBLE BY MELISA CHAN [email protected] An outdated sewer system is leaving large swathes of Queens vulnerable to serious flooding, according to a pair of elected officials. “Year after year, Queens residents have been fighting the trauma and financial burden of flood damage to their homes and lives,” said Assemblymember Nily Rozic. “We cannot continue to let our working families weather the storm alone.” For decades, poor infrastructure in Fresh Meadows has caused basements and garages to flood with sewage during heavy rainstorms, local leaders said. “If we have a torrential downpour, all the water gets backed up,” said Jim Gallagher, president of the Fresh Meadows Homeowners Civic Association. He added that sewer pipes in the neighborhood can only handle about an inch and a half of water per hour. Any more rainfall causes water to pour into homes. The problem also extends to Glendale, where rainy weather shut down the flood-prone Cooper Avenue underpass last weekend. A spokesperson for Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley said the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) plans to add new catch basins to the underpass, but the department has not committed to major infrastructure improvements. Thousands in southeast Queens say they have also been suffering from mold spores and flooding since the city took over the water supply in 1996. According to DEP spokesperson Christopher Gilbride, the city has “invested hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading the sewer system in Queens” over the last decade and will continue to make improvements. But Rozic and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio last week said they wanted the department to speed up the sewers upgrades and reexamine reimbursement policies for homeowners until then. The pair urged the department to make flood-prone neighborhoods a priority in capital plans and expedite short-term flood mitigation measures like street landscaping to reduce storm runoff. “After the wake-up call Sandy delivered, there’s just no excuse for inaction,” de Blasio said. “We can’t keep leaving families high and dry.” being reviewed for a potential lease. It could become another elementary school to ease overcrowding at College Point’s two existing pre-K through fifth grade facilities. However, local leaders say a middle school would be more helpful. “We’re getting things put into our neighborhood that service the entire city, yet we can’t have basic infrastructure needs,” said Rocco, pointing to the new police academy and waste transfer station at College Point. Community Board 7’s education committee does not have an official stance on the issue. But Chairperson Arlene Fleishman, a former District 25 school board president, said the district needs more elementary school seats. She rejected the idea that College Point needs a middle school because students currently have to go outside their neighborhood. “All our children, no matter where they live, have to travel to middle schools,” she said, “and high schools are even further.” Darren Kaplan of College Point said the area would ideally get both a middle and elementary school to accommodate new members of the growing population. “The middle school situation is ridiculous,” the 52-year-old father said. “It’s a mess.” Rocco said congested elementary schools now will only lead to overcrowded middle schools later. “It’s not rocket science,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious. If the two elementary schools have kids packed in trailers outside, then there’s going to be a need for a junior high school because that’s next.” Suicide on N train BY MELISA CHAN [email protected] Severed limbs flew onto an Astoria street after a man threw himself in front of a Queens-bound N train, witnesses and a police source said. The incident at 31st Street and Broadway shut down power and train service in both directions between Queensboro Plaza and Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard for nearly four hours on Tuesday, June 11, according to police and city alerts. A resident named Sean, who did not want to give his last name, said “everything was chaotic.” Witnesses said they saw a heavyset, severed leg on the street and body parts strewn on the tracks at around 4:13 p.m. One resident described what appeared to be “ground up meat.” “I asked the driver when he came down and he told me a man jumped,” said passerby John Sadiq. “He came rolling and crushing.” The investigation is ongoing, a law enforcement source said. Last month, at least three others in the city were struck and killed by subways in separate incidents. One was reportedly decapitated by an elevated train in Ridgewood. Additional reporting by Rosa Kim BUSES BACK ON TRACK Q13 AND Q16 ROLL ON NORMAL ROUTES BY MELISA CHAN [email protected] Construction at Little Bay Park will no longer affect local bus routes, officials said. The MTA had plans last month to reroute buses traveling from Fort Totten to Flushing for a year due to ongoing joint projects at the park. Work from building a comfort station, expanding the parking lot and repaving the bus turnaround terminal at Little Bay Park prevented the Q13 and Q16 from making normal stops, the MTA said in a May 7 letter to elected officials. The transit agency originally wanted to redirect the Q13 up 212th Street, passing local schools and homes before it gets back on track to Bell Boulevard, according to correspondence. It also proposed ending the Q16 at a new stop on Willets Point Boulevard. “We did not want the buses going through residential areas,” said Assemblymember Ed Braunstein. “It’s dangerous. It’s noisy. It’s not right.” Braunstein said the MTA and local leaders were able to quickly come up with a less intrusive route. The buses will instead enter and briefly drive through Fort Totten before leaving and continuing on normal routes. Regular stops will not be impacted, the MTA said. “This way nobody is inconvenienced,” said Warren Schreiber, president of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance. “This agreement proves that when people make a good faith effort to find solutions to difficult problems, exceptional things can happen.”
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