4 SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Kew Gdns. jail plan a step closer to approval
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
With the City Planning Commission’s
decision on Tuesday
to approve the ULURP
application for four new jails across
the city — including a new facility in
Kew Gardens — reactions are ranging
from hope to dismay.
The Sept. 3 hearing in Manhattan
saw the agency vote in favor the
proposal by the Mayor’s Office of
Criminal Justice with recommendations
by the Lippman Commission to
close Rikers Island, but the proceedings
were punctuated by the chants
of activists calling for no new jails
altogether.
Now the City Council will decide
on the fate of the plan, which aims to
institute a culture change with Department
of Corrections while also
keeping detainees closer to families
and courts.
A hearing with the Land Use Committee
in the City Council chamber
will take place between 10 and 5
p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 5, and is
expected to be the only hearing
before a vote.
Former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman
was given the task of evaluating
how criminal justice reforms
The Queens House of Detention is one step closer to getting razed thanks to
the City Planning Commissions vote in favor of closing Rikers and building
borough-based jails. Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
in the city could be implemented
by former Council Speaker Melissa
Mark-Viverito in 2017 and looked at
the decision as progress.
“With today’s approval by the City
Planning Commission of the city’s
plan to establish smaller, boroughbased
jails, we are one step closer
to shuttering the jails on Rikers
once and for all. Just three years
ago, the prospect of closing Rikers
seemed nearly impossible. With the
momentum generated by advocates
and those who have experienced
firsthand the horrors on Rikers,
and the blueprint we developed in
“A More Just NYC,” we are closer
than ever before,” Lippman said.
“We have a once-in-generations
opportunity to shut the door on a
dark chapter in our city’s history
and open a new one in which our
justice system can serve not only as
a beacon of fairness for New York,
but for our whole country.”
The proposal is currently on track
to impose these changes by 2026,
which is estimated to cost taxpayers
about $11 billion over the course of
all that.
The facility in Queens will be built
on the current site of the shuttered
Queens House of Detention, behind
the Queens County Criminal Court
House, and the adjacent municipal
parking lot.
The de Blasio administration has
reduced the capacity of the Kew
Gardens jail from 1,500 to about
1,100, but will also include the facility
where all the women in detention
across the city will be housed.
Borough President Melinda Katz
has supported the plan to close
Rikers but has adjusted her view
regarding the opening of new jails.
As for the Land Use Committee,
Queens Council members dominate
the roster, filling seven of the 17 positions.
This includes Peter Koo, Francisco
Moya, Barry Grodenchik, Rory
Lancman, I. Daneek Miller, Adrienne
Adams and Donovan Richards.
Queens pols push back on proposed gifted & talented end
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Don’t lower the standards, raise
them.
That was the message from
City Council members who rallied
Wednesday at City Hall urging the
de Blasio administration to reject
a recommendation by the School
Diversity Advisory Group to scrap
the city’s Gift ed and Talented (G&T)
Program.
A group of elected offi cials from
across held a rally calling on Mayor
Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor
Richard Carranza to not only stand
by the program, but to also expand
it and add more children from all
walks of life.
In a Sept. 3 interview with WNYC
radio, Carranza indicated that no
one should expect any changes to
the Gift ed & Talented Program this
school year, which begins Sept. 5.
Even so, lawmakers at the Sept. 4
City Hall rally were adamant about
preserving the program and helping
more New York City students qualify
for it.
The panel on diversity was appointed
by de Blasio; in August, the
group released a study which claimed
that eliminating the G&T program
altogether would put more students
at a disadvantage than leveling the
playing fi eld.
“The fact of the matter is that if 90
percent of our children were doing
well in the New York City public
school system, we would still be failing
over 100,000 children each year.
Let those numbers sink in: we are nowhere
near 90 percent,” Councilman
Barry Grodenchik said. “This is not
broken and it should not be fi xed.”.
This is not the fi rst attempt by the
de Blasio administration to diversify
schools through eliminating
programs or testing seen by some
experts as being discriminatory.
In 2018, legislators across the city
pushed back against the mayor’s
call to eliminate Specialized High
School Admissions Test, citing an
overwhelming lack of black and
Hispanic students being admitted.
They made a similar argument that
the city should instead increase access
to programs helping all students
score high on the test, rather than
eliminate the test entirely.
“Gifted and Talented programs
provide students with rigorous and
challenging curriculums that help
them reach their full potential in
the classroom,” Congresswoman
Grace Meng said. “We should not do
away with them. Instead, we should
be expanding G&T seats in all areas
of the city and improve the testing
process, so that children in every
community can benefit from all that
these important programs have to
offer.”
Councilman Robert Holden said
that, in his experience as an educator,
diff erent students require diff erent
workloads and curriculum in different
subjects making the program
valuable to childhood development.
“I saw it fi rsthand at CUNY where
80 percent of the students graduated
from public high schools … what you
eliminate in Gift ed and Talented borderlines
on criminal – it really does
– because we’re at a point where the
system has been failing and failing
for decades. It needs bold initiatives
and Gift ed and Talented gives that
initiative,” Holden said.
City Councilmen Robert Cornegy, Peter Koo and Barry Grodenchik at a Sept.
4 rally at City Hall. Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
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