14 JUNE 21, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Cross Bay toll
moves closer
to elimination
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
RPOZARYCKI@QNS.COM / @ROBBPOZ
Eff orts to forever eliminate
the toll on the Cross Bay
Veterans Memorial Bridge
in Queens moved a step closer toward
becoming a reality on June 14.
The State Assembly passed
legislation that would ban the toll
on the bridge linking Broad Channel
and the Rockaways for good.
Assemblywoman Stacey Pheff er
Amato, who represents the area
where the bridge is located, sponsored
the legislation, which now
moves on to the state Senate.
Operated by MTA Bridges and
Tunnels, the Cross Bay Bridge is
the only crossing in New York City
in which drivers must pay a toll to
travel from one part of the same
borough to another. Even though
Broad Channel and Rockaway residents
are eligible for discounted
tolls through EZPass, for years,
local residents and community
leaders have said the toll serves no
meaningful purpose for the area.
“I made a pledge before taking offi
ce that I would work to eliminate
the Cross Bay Memorial Bridge
toll,” Amato said in a June 14 statement.
“Today, I had a thrilling win
and a great step forward for our
community. As I have stated countless
times: The toll has outlived its
original stated purpose of paying
for the bridge, and has absolutely
no stated current purpose other
than supplementing the MTA’s
budget on the backs of hard-working
New Yorkers.”
Assemblyman Mike Miller,
whose district is based in nearby
Woodhaven, co-sponsored Amato’s
legislation and was equally pleased
to see it clear one legislative hurdle.
The Senate version of the bill
is sponsored by state Senator
Joe Addabbo, whose district
includes Broad Channel and the
Rockaways.
“This is the most unfair toll, I
would argue, in the entire state,”
Addabbo said on June 15. “Knowing
the MTA’s fi scal responsibilities
and obligations and their status,
I know that you don’t balance the
MTA budget, which is billions of
dollars, on the couple of million it
gets from the Cross Bay Bridge toll.”
As this paper went to press on
Wednesday aft ernoon, June 20,
it was unclear whether the bill
would get a vote in the State Senate
before the legislative session
ended that same day.
Community board chairs plan to
collaborate on mutual challenges
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
For the past year, Queens Community
Board 13 Chair Clive Williams
has attended the monthly
Borough Board meetings and looked
around the room at his fellow board
chairs. He’s oft en thought about how
little time they spend together, despite
the fact that many share the same exact
concerns.
Ninety percent of the time, Williams
sits next to Board 5 Chair Vincent
Arcuri at the meeting, and one day
he turned to Arcuri and issued him a
challenge.
“Why aren’t we talking to each
other?” Williams asked Arcuri. “As
a matter of fact, why aren’t chairs
talking to each other? Because we
have pretty much many of the same
challenges, the same problems in our
communities.”
Williams told this story in front of
Community Board 5 at its June 13 meeting,
which Arcuri invited him to attend
aft er accepting his challenge. The two
chairs, along with Community Board
12 Chair Rene Hill — who Arcuri also
invited to the meeting — announced
that they plan to collaborate with each
other and share information and experiences
that may help each other solve
these common problems.
As Williams continued, he explained
that, as soon as he walked
into the Board 5 meeting, he saw an
idea that he plans to take back and implement
at his own board meetings. As
simple as it may seem, he thought that
Board 5’s practice of keeping folders
Community Board 5 members listen to a presentation during a June 13
meeting at Christ the King High School in Middle Village.
of information relevant to the meeting
for every board member to pick up
when they walk in was a great way to
be more organized.
Hill gave a larger example when she
explained that one of the main reasons
she was elected as the chair of Board 12
was because of her successful eff orts
to prevent the Veterans Home at St. Albans
from getting shut down. Attending
the Board 5 meeting helped her learn
about which government representatives
are focused on veterans aff airs
as she continues that fi ght, Hill said.
“We still have to keep guard on that
property … the most veterans in all of
New York City are in Queens,” Hill said.
“When you need the help, it’s important
to know who to go to.”
For Arcuri, these small takeaways
about things that Board 5 has
Photo by Ryan Kelley/QNS
seemingly done forever were an
interesting realization, he said. Even
having all the board members sit at
a central table in the room or having
people sign up for a public forum are
practices that Arcuri has heard other
boards don’t do.
Finding out how everybody else
functions and learning ways to do
things more effi ciently is just the fi rst
step in an eff ort that Arcuri hopes can
expand to other boards throughout
the borough in the future.
“We have some old-timers like
Board 6, Board 7, Board 10 and myself
that have been around for a long time,”
Arcuri said. “Now we have some new
ones too, so maybe we should be
exchanging ideas. Maybe they can
tell us what we’re doing wrong or not
doing.”
Glendale Kiwanis honors scholarship winners
For achieving outstanding marks and displaying good citizenship, numerous teenagers earned scholarships from
the Kiwanis Club of Glendale to help pay for a higher education. The club honored the scholarship winners on
June 14 with a dinner at Christ the King High School in Middle Village. In all, the club distributed scholarships
to a dozen students as they head for high school or college. Pictured in the photo are Scholarship Committee members
Past President Debbie Kueber, Second Vice President Steve Hansen, Past President Kenny Voisin, and President
Kerrie Hansen with scholarship recipients Sarah Cullivan, Jonathan Cortes, Juilanna Kozlowski, Siobhan O’Donnell,
Ardita Bajraktari, Anyah Ferra, Caitlin Hassan, Lianna Mastrolembo, Jenna Dooley, Steven Tapia, Hbayshaara Kahn,
John Joseph Lotardo. Not pictured is Damiano Cottone.
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