WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MAY 24, 2018 15
Water shutoff in Maspeth postponed due to lack of notice
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
It came as a surprise to everyone
at Assemblyman Brian Barnwell’s
Maspeth offi ce when, on May 16,
someone came to the door with a fl yer.
It was a warning, actually, that the
water at the offi ce was going to be
shut off the following day. The fl yer
from the Department of Design and
Construction (DDC) pointed out that
a portion of 69th Street north of the
Long Island Expressway and several
side streets would be aff ected.
The problem was, according to staff
member Mark Papish, that the fl yer
was only received at 3:30 p.m. — a mere
16 hours before the shutoff .
The staff acted quickly to fi gure
out why this news was just reaching
them, but calls to all the other local
elected offi cials’ offi ces revealed that
nobody knew this was happening.
Barnwell’s offi ce was able to get the
shutoff postponed until further notice,
but the situation revealed more fl aws
with an agency that has been causing
headaches in the area as of late.
“It’s just another example of DDC
coming through and not handling a
situation properly,” Papish said at a
Community Board 5 meeting later that
night. “It’s like the 74th Street sewer
project; they’re not assessing it for
what it is. They’re not actually caring
about the people they’re aff ecting.”
Nan Zhang, a real estate attorney
and member of Communities of
Maspeth and Elmhurst Together
(COMET) also spoke at the Board 5
meeting and said the civic association
worked with Barnwell’s offi ce to get
the shutoff postponed. But Zhang also
pointed out another fl aw with the fl yer
itself.
Zhang said he looked up the demographics
of the neighborhood and determined
that about 300 people would
have been aff ected by the water shutoff ,
and one-third of them were Chinese.
The fl yer was only printed in English
and Spanish.
“We need to understand that the
Chinese community is coming into
Community Board 5,” Zhang said. “I
think all the notifi cations starting
now should be in Spanish, English,
Chinese and any other language that
the community needs.”
It is unclear what the construction
project to the water shutoff entails,
but the next day the DDC released
new fl yers that said the shutoff would
take place on May 21 starting at 8 a.m.,
and some fl yers were distributed in
Chinese.
Photo via Shutterstock
Qns. economy booming with immigrants help: DiNapoli
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
RPOZARYCKI@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@ROBBPOZ
Immigrants get the job done for
Queens, State Comptroller Thomas
DiNapoli declared during his
May 18 speech outlining an “economic
snapshot” of the borough.
DiNapoli told the crowd at Queens
Borough Hall in Kew Gardens that
Queens’ economy is “truly soaring”
amid “an historic time for the borough.”
The borough’s population is
booming, and the job market has set
“employment records each of the past
six years.”
“Much of the borough’s successes
come from immigrants, which make
up nearly half of the borough’s population,”
DiNapoli said. Immigrants
make up nearly half of Queens’ workforce
and 69 percent of the borough’s
self-employed entrepreneurs, he noted.
“Queens is truly proof that immigration
is something to be embraced,
not to be feared,” he added,
rebuffi ng the recent anti-immigrant
rhetoric coming from the Trump
administration.
Between 2009 and 2017, according
to DiNapoli’s report, Queens added
110,500 private sector jobs. The
healthcare industry led the way in
job growth, followed by leisure and
hospitality, business services and
retails; these sectors, the comptroller
said, accounted for more than twothirds
of the new jobs.
This occurred as Queens reached
a record population of 2.4 million, a
25 percent spike since 1980. The 1.1
million immigrants who reside in
Queens — “the most racially and ethnically
diverse county in the nation,”
as DiNapoli noted — is second only
to Miami-Dade County in Florida in
having the nation’s highest countywide
immigrant population.
With Queens being home to two of
the city’s three main airports, it’s no
surprise that many Queens residents
work in transportation. DiNapoli’s report
found that Queens accounted for
58 percent of all transportation jobs
— and 96 percent of all air transportation
jobs — in New York City. More
than 49,000 people are employed
at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia
Airports, generating $64.4 billion
in economic activity throughout the
New York City area last year alone.
Construction also played a major
role in Queens’ economy in recent
years, with a 49 percent increase
in construction permits between
2011 and 2017 leading to a 32 percent
increase in construction jobs. Last
year, DiNapoli remarked, a record
52,700 construction jobs were created
in Queens — the most in the
entire city.
Despite the very rosy economic picture,
the state comptroller conceded
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Queens’ economy is booming
during a speech in Kew Gardens on May 18.
that Queens residents still face plenty
of economic challenges. Although
the $62,200 median household income
in 2016 was the highest in all of
New York City, more than half of all
Queens households devoted 30 percent
or more of their income toward
paying their rent.
This, DiNapoli noted, is indicative
of the need for more aff ordable housing,
as soaring home values continue
to put additional economic pressure
on families across Queens that may
force some to leave for more aff ordable
abodes outside of the borough.
Public schools are also overcrowded,
the comptroller said, a byproduct
of the borough’s population surge.
Even as the city poured hundreds
of millions of dollars toward school
Screenshot via Facebook/Thomas DiNapoli
construction across Queens in recent
years, many elected offi cials in
attendance agreed that more must be
done to keep up with the demand for
classroom space.
Queens residents also endure some
of the longest commute times in the
fi ve boroughs, and DiNapoli along
with other lawmakers in attendance
stressed the need for greater infrastructure
investment.
“We’re always fi ghting for more
infrastructure in Queens,” Borough
President Melinda Katz said, noting
that rebuilding roads and the transit
system are even more important
as tourism has surged across the
borough. More than $1 billion in
tourist-related economic activity was
generated in Queens last year alone.
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