36 THE QUEENS COURIER • NOVEMBER 26, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com editorial THE QUEENS PUBLISHER & EDITOR 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 EVENTS MANAGER CLASSIFIED MANAGER CONTROLLER PRESIDENT & CEO VICE PRESIDENT VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS BOB BRENNAN ROBERT POZARYCKI AMY AMATO-SANCHEZ NIRMAL SINGH ALAN SELTZER STEPHEN REINA RON TORINA, JENNIFER DECIO, CHERYL GALLAGHER ANGY ALTAMIRANO, KATRINA MEDOFF, ANTHONY GIUDICE ANGELA MATUA, ALINA SURIEL CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI ANGY ALTAMIRANO DEMETRA PLAGAKIS CELESTE ALAMIN MARIA VALENCIA VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 www.queenscourier.com editorial e-mail: editorial@queenscourier.com for advertising e-mail: ads@queenscourier.com Entire Contents Copyright 2015 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 offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, 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 fi ve 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 QUEENS 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. SNAPS QUEENS Fall at the Alley Pond Environmental Center Photo by Deniz Mani of Bayside High School Send us your photos of Queens and you could see them online or in our paper! Submit them to us via our Instagram @queenscourier, Facebook page, tweeting @queenscourier or by emailing editorial@queenscourier.com (subject: Queens Snaps). Total rejection on housing plan We don’t want it here! That’s the message the Queens Borough Board sent to the de Blasio administration last week in soundly rejecting the mayor’s affordable housing plan, which many critics charged would undo long-term efforts to preserve the borough’s housing character. It’s an interesting position to take, considering the Citizens Budget Commission’s recent report which indicated that tens of thousands of lowincome Queens renters are “severely burdened” by housing costs — meaning that these tenants are paying 50 percent or more of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. We sincerely doubt that the 14 community board chairpersons who make up the borough board, along with other opponents of de Blasio’s plan, don’t want affordable housing expanded throughout Queens and the rest of the city. Indeed, the mayor’s noble goal of adding 200,000 affordable units over the next decade is a necessity to keep the middle-income tax base that keeps this city economically strong from moving to the suburbs. So what should the city do instead? It’s hard to fi nd a solid answer, but one thing that shouldn’t happen is the undoing of the various rezoning projects that residential communities across this borough fought so hard to achieve in recent years in the face of improper development. Parking is tough enough as it is; waiving the off-street parking requirement would let developers build a couple of additional units, as the mayor’s plan requires, but that also means a couple of additional cars on the streets taking up spaces that may not exist. Without question, the city needs to create more affordable housing, but it needs to be done by reusing underused industrial areas (as they’re currently doing in the Hunters Point area of Long Island City). The city should also consider expanding existing rent regulations or offering greater subsidies for low-income tenants. Mayor de Blasio should tweak his affordable housing plan to refl ect Queens’ desire to maintain proper housing while making it more affordable for everyone. Shop in your neighborhood After Thanksgiving diners pull the wishbone off the turkey, stores across Queens and the rest of America will open their doors and christen the start of the holiday shopping season. The madness begins with Black Friday and all the various megamart doorbuster discounts that convince people to rise from their food comas at ungodly hours of the morning. There’s also Small Business Saturday, a nationwide promotion designed to convince shoppers to do some of their holiday business at mom-and-pop stores on Main Street rather than the local mall. It is said that people often pay a bit more for products from a small business than at a national chain store, but that money doesn’t go to a corporate conglomerate. It goes back into the community in the form of jobs and tax dollars, keeping businesses and main shopping strips viable all year round. We encourage our readers to do their shopping at small businesses not just for one Saturday or one season, but all year round. What are you most thankful for this Thanksgiving? “I am thankful for my family.” Jennifer-Ann Ramanand “I am thankful for this year.” Laura Carreño “I am thankful for the health and safety of my family.” Patrick Mullen “I am thankful for my family and my health.” Selena Joy BY IRENE SPEZZAMONTE “I am thankful for my parents. They are working things out.” Savannah Adkins street talk “I am thankful for my health, my friends and my family.” Marquise Gallmon “I am thankful to have the opportunity to fl y back home to California to see my family.” Samantha Ruiz “I am thankful for having opportunities. I will graduate in May and even though I don’t know what I will be doing, there are a lot of opportunities in front of me.” April Gardner
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