29 • TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2015 My Say also one of Dr. King’s passions: “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” Extreme income inequality is a problem too many New Yorkers continue to face. Individuals and working families shouldn’t have to struggle just to make ends meet. That’s why I support raising the minimum wage and will continue to work to create more good-paying, long-lasting jobs within our community to help more Queens’s families thrive. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was not only a time to reflect on the tremendous achievements of a remarkable man and national hero, but also a day to think about our own actions and how we can contribute to bringing Dr. King’s vision to life today. It’s a vision to embrace as we address those concerns of humanity and rise above the differences that divide us. For information about this or any other community issue, please don’t hesitate to contact my office at 1-718-784-3194 or email me at nolanc@assembly.state.ny.us. Editor’s note: Nolan represents the 37th Assembly District, which includes all or parts of Astoria, Long Island City, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, Sunnyside and Woodside. -CONTINUED FROM PG. 4- Schools & Safety Highlight Board 4 Session -CONTINUED FROM PG. 7- of an argument about the process in which that shelter was put into our community.” To do that, Dromm organized a toy drive, and opened a new afterschool program to benefit the children living in the PANAM shelter. Dromm also touted the benefits of the city’s free municipal ID program. “Every person who lives in New York City can get a municipal ID,” Dromm explained. He claimed this form of identification is extremely helpful, especially to undocumented people living in the city. Residents who do not have a state-issued ID can use the municipal ID card to: open bank accounts; give to schools so they may enter the buildings to pick up their children; and show police officers if there is an incident. Dromm, in drafting and sponsoring the municipal ID legislation, worked to secure additional benefits for the IDs. These benefits include: one year of free membership in 33 different cultural institutions including the Bronx Zoo, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Queens Botanical Gardens; it can be used as a library card for any library throughout the five boroughs; discounts on Broadway tickets and at the giftshops in the cultural institutions. “This is about all of us together, as New Yorkers, celebrating who we are,” Dromm said. To schedule an appointment to receive a municipal ID, call 311. Comptroller visits City Comptroller Scott Stringer showed up at the board meeting to briefly update the community on what his office will be doing in the upcoming year. Stringer’s office made a letter grading system for every agency under Local Law 1 and found that some of those agencies failed in regards to how much they spend with small businesses, especially women and minority owned business. “We want to do more to protect the people of our city,” Stringer said. Fire Safety Lt. Patrick Shannon of the FDNY was present to give information on fire safety education, especially for seniors. Shannon explained that in light of the recent fire in LeFrak City that claimed three lives on Jan. 1, the FDNY wanted to raise fire prevention awareness. Members of the FDNY have been going to community boards, senior centers and homes handing out pamphlets, cards and information on what to do in case of a fire, since many people— especially seniors—do not know what to do in the event of a fire or how to properly prevent a fire from happening. To set up an appointment for FDNY personnel to visit a home or apartment building and provide information and a smoke detector, call 1-718-281-3872. Jackie Robinson Parkway Rehab Project On Deck -CONTINUED FROM PG. 1- retaining walls near the Metropolitan Avenue exit. Some concrete center medians will be replaced as needed, and new reflectors and signage will also be installed. Workers will also replace metal guardrails that run along the outside of the parkway. Most of the work will take place during overnight hours on weekdays and weekends, but some work may be performed on weekdays if necessary, requiring either lane closures or entire segments of the parkway to be shut down. Additionally, as many as six full weekend closures of parkway segments may take place; these shutdowns would run from 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night to 4 a.m. the following Monday morning. Reportedly, the first closures are tentatively scheduled to take place in mid-March. Some emergency repaving work has already taken place, Giordano noted. According to plans on the state DOT website, the work will be broken up into four segments—A.) the western terminus and the Cypress Hills Street exit; B.) between Cypress Hills Street and Forest Park Drive; C.) between Forest Park Drive and Metropolitan Avenue; and D.) between Metropolitan Avenue and the Van Wyck Expressway. Traffic will be diverted to designated detour routes when full closures of the parkway take place. The detour routes, broken down by project segment, are as follows: Eastbound A.) Jamaica Avenue eastbound from Pennsylvania Avenue to Cypress Hills Street, then Cypress Hills Street northbound to the parkway entrance. B.) Cypress Hills Street southbound from the parkway exit to Jamaica Avenue, then Jamaica Avenue eastbound to Forest Parkway; Forest Parkway northbound to Forest Park Drive; and Forest Park Drive westbound to the parkway entrance. C.) Forest Park Drive eastbound from the parkway exit to Forest Parkway, then Forest Parkway southbound to Park Lane South; Park Lane South eastbound to Metropolitan Avenue; and Metropolitan Avenue westbound to the parkway entrance. D.) Metropolitan Avenue westbound from the parkway exit ti Union Turnpike, then Union Turnpike eastbound to the Grand Central Parkway’s eastbound entrance. Westbound A.) Vermont Place northbound from the parkway exit to Cypress Avenue, then Cypress Avenue westbound to Cooper Avenue; Cooper Avenue and Cooper Street westbound to Bushwick Avenue; and Bushwick Avenue southbound to the terminus at Jamaica and Pennsylvania avenues. B.) Forest Park Drive northbound from the parkway exit to Myrtle Avenue, then Myrtle Avenue westbound to Cooper Avenue; Cooper Avenue westbound to Cypress Hills Street; Cypress Hills Street northbound to Cypress Avenue; Cypress Avenue westbound to Vermont Place; and Vermont Place southbound to the parkway entrance. C.) Union Turnpike westbound from the parkway exit at Metropolitan Avenue to Myrtle Avenue, then Myrtle Avenue westbound to Forest Park Drive and Forest Park Drive northbound to the parkway entrance. D.) Union Turnpike westbound from the Queens Boulevard exit on the westbound Grand Central Parkway to the westbound Jackie Robinson Parkway entrance at Metropolitan Avenue. Then known as the Interboro Parkway, the Jackie Robinson Parkway’s last major overhaul took place in 1991 and included safety measures to reduce the number of traffic accidents on the curvy roadway. The parkway was renamed in 1997 for the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman who broke baseball’s color barrier. The new project is scheduled to be completed in November 2016, Giordano noted. HAVVE YYOOUU CCHECCKED YYOOUUR CCHIILLD’S HOOMMEWWOORK TOODAYY?? Pat Buchanan News And Opinion two NYPD cops by a career criminal taking revenge for Garner and Brown. Race relations today seem in some ways more poisonous than in 1965, when there were vast deposits of goodwill and LBJ pushed through the Voting Rights Act easily, 77-19 in the Senate and 328-74 in the House. Only two Republican Senators voted against the VRA. But not a week after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act, the Watts section of Los Angeles exploded in one of the worst race riots in U.S. history. After seven days of pillage and arson, there were 34 dead, 1,000 injured, 3,000 arrested, and a thousand buildings damaged or destroyed. The era of marching for civil rights was over and the era of Black Power, with Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown and The Black Panthers eclipsing King, had begun. In July 1967, there were riots in Newark and Detroit that rivaled Watts in destruction. After Dr. King’s murder in Memphis in April of 1968, riots broke out in 100 more cities, including Washington, D.C. By Oct. 1, the nominee of the Democratic Party, civil rights champion Hubert Humphrey, stood at 28 percent in the Gallup poll, only 7 points ahead of Gov. George Wallace. Though Nixon won narrowly, the Great Society endured. And in the half-century since, trillions have been spent on food stamps, housing subsidies, Head Start, student loans, Pell Grants, welfare, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and other programs. How did it all work out? Undeniably, the civil right laws succeeded. Discrimination in hotels and restaurants is nonexistent. African-Americans voted in 2012 in higher percentages than white Americans. There are more black public officials in Mississippi than in any other state. In sports, entertainment, journalism, government, medicine, business, politics, and the arts, blacks may be found everywhere. Yet the pathology of the old urban ghetto has not disappeared. In some ways, it has gotten much worse. Crime in the black community is still seven times what it is in the white community. Test scores of black students remain far below those of Asian and white students. While 40 percent of all infants are born to single moms, the illegitimacy rate in black America is over 70 percent. Whether it is dropout rates, drug use rates, delinquency rates or incarceration rates, the rates for blacks far exceed those of white and Asian-Americans, and of immigrants and Hispanics. White households have a median family income below that of Asians, but far above that of black Americans. White households have on average $143,000 in wealth in stocks, bonds, home equity and other assets, 13 times that of the average black household. At Howard University in 1965, LBJ declared, “We seek ... not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and equality as a result.” “Equality as a result”? Measured by the average incomes and wealth of Asians and whites and Hispanics and blacks, we have failed. And income inequality is back again, as issue No. 1. After 50 years of affirmative action and the greatest wealth transfers in human history, “equality as a fact” has not been achieved and will not be, absent a greater seizure of power by the U.S. government and larger and virtually endless transfers of wealth. The reports of Karl Marx’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.” -CONTINUED FROM PG. 4-
RT01222015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above