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for breaking news visit www.timesnewsweekly.com MARCH 26, 2015 • times 3 Inside Broadway brings performing arts to Glendale Elementary School BY ANTHONY GIUDICE agiudice@ridgewoodtimes.com @A_GiudiceReport As part of Inside Broadway’s afterschool arts program, the students at P.S./ I.S. 119 in Glendale performed their play “The After School Club” on March 26 in the school’s auditorium for parents, teachers and fellow classmates. Inside Broadway, an arts education nonprofit, is funded by the City Council’s Cultural After-School Adventures (C.A.S.A.) Initiative. Through the C.A.S.A. Initiative, Inside Broadway has brought, and will continue to bring, a taste of Broadway to over 500 students in over 20 public schools throughout the boroughs this winter and spring. The nonprofit is in its 33rd year of operation, providing city public schools with arts education programs, professional staff members and artists who teach the students dancing, singing, acting, theater history and how to design and build the scenery and backdrops for their show. City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley helped bring the C.A.S.A. program to P.S./I.S. 119 through a grant. “We really appreciate that Councilwoman Crowley gave us the opportunity to bring drama back,” said Jeanne Fagan, principal at P.S./I.S. 119. “We don’t have a drama program at the school. We have arts and music, but no drama.” The play, which the students created themselves, was inspired by the ’80s cult classic film “The Breakfast Club.” In the story, two rival factions in the school, the “nerds” and “cool kids,” are sent to detention. While there, they sing and dance their way past their differences and all become friends in the end. The music for the play included songs from the 1980s such as Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and more. “We are excited to expand the arts program at P.S./I.S. 119 to include musical theater to go along with their other arts programs,” Katie McAllister, program director of Inside Broadway, said. The students who took part in the play were Quinn Corcino, Sheikh Hasin, Julia Sirkoski, Adam Sirkoski, Aafant Shrestha, Alexa Garci, Samantha Liu, Sylvester Leyton, Darren Valdera and Jayda Nicole Catrina Fogarty. Since January, the children have been working with teaching artist Nick Saldivar for two days a week, two hours each day to create the play. “All the kids wrote parts of the play and we cut and pasted it all together,” Saldivar said. “I try to get the kids to create and generate their own content.” Saldivar said he usually works with 30 kids per group in other schools, so working with such a small group of 10 students at P.S./I.S. 119 was “a great experience.” “They are a really dedicated, lovely bunch,” Saldivar said. “I’ve been teaching them technique, having them think critically and be engaged.” Besides writing and performing in the play, the students also helped decorate by painting the banner that hung behind them while they were on stage. As a treat for the students, McAllister announced that they, along with other students from schools in the C.A.S.A. Initiative, will get to go behind the scenes Photos by Anthony Giudice of the Broadway hit “Wicked.” The students of P.S./I.S. 119 with teaching artist Nick Saldivar after their performance. NYC water rates set to go up again this July BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@queenscourier.com/@robbpoz In what’s become an annual rite of spring in New York City, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recommended a water rate increase on March 27. Calling it the lowest suggested increase in a decade, the DEP formally requested that the New York City Water Board raise rates by 3.24 percent, even lower than the 4.9 percent increase projected last year. For owners of single-family homes, their yearly water bills will climb about $33 per year, from $1,025 to $1,058, based on the average consumption of 80,000 gallons per year. Multi-family homeowners will pay, on average, about $23 more per unit annually, from $666 to $689 based on an average annual water consumption of 52,000 gallons. The DEP will also ask the Water Board to continue freezing the minimum charge for homeowners who use approximately 100 gallons or less per day; these customers are charged $1.27 per day, or $463.55 per year. “By implementing effective costs controls, refinancing higher interest debt and reducing the rental payment, we are able to deliver the lowest water rate increase in a decade, and the 25 percent of single family homeowners who use the least water will not receive any increase at all,” DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd said. “In addition, we have put together a package of initiatives to provide relief to nearly 50,000 additional low-income, senior and disabled customers.” The package Lloyd mentioned includes the proposed expansion of the Home Water Assistance Program, which provides annual credits to low-income families who qualify for the federal Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP); credits for those who enroll in the DEP’s monthly e-billing program; and $100 credits for those who participate in the lead and cooper monitoring program. Though the DEP touted the reduced increase, one elected official — Councilman Donovan Richards, who chairs the City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee — said the city needed to ease homeowners’ burdens even further. “The financial burden of offsetting the costs of maintaining the city’s vast sewer and water system cannot be placed on single family homeowners, many of whom are seniors,” Richards said. “Considering the hardships that many lower-income families are facing, it is important to retain reduction measures — including a minimum $1.27 daily flat rate and expanding the Home Water Payment Assistant Program to absorb these increased costs.” Queens residents will get their chance to speak for or against the water rate increase on Thursday, April 30, at the Water Board’s public hearing in Long Island City. The hearing will take place at 7 p.m. at LaGuardia Community College, 45-50 Van Dam St., Conference Room E-242. Visit http://www.nyc. gov/html/nycwaterboard/html/home/home.shtml for more details. The Water Board is expected to formally adopt water rates for the city’s 2016 fiscal year on May 8; the new rates will take effect on July 1. Ridgewo od Times office returns to Fresh Pond Road The office of the Ridgewood Times and Times Newsweekly is moving back to Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood. The papers’ office is now located at 62-70 Fresh Pond Rd., adjacent to Crifasi Real Estate’s Ridgewood office, just south of Metropolitan Avenue. Despite the relocation, the papers’ phone number (718-821- 7500), fax number (718-456-0120) and website (www.timesnewsweekly. com) remain the same. Send classified inquiries to dcusick@ ridgewoodtimes.com and editorial inquiries to rpozarycki@ ridgewoodtimes.com. For the last five years, the papers operated out of 60-71 Woodbine St.; prior to that, the Times Newsweekly was headquartered above the Maspeth Federal Savings bank at 66-58 Fresh Pond Rd.


RT04022015
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