8 SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Barnwell & sullivan
win primary races
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
RPOZARYCKI@QNS.COM
@ROBBPOZ
There were few surprises
during the Sept. 13 primaries
held in the Ridgewood
Times coverage area.
Breezy Point businessman Tom
Sullivan won the Republican Party’s
15th Senatorial District primary
over attorney Slawomir Platta. With
98.74% of machines counted, Sullivan
has a more than 1,600 vote lead
on Platta (3,188 to 1,508).
Sullivan will face incumbent State
Senator Joe Addabbo in the November
election for the right to represent the
district spanning most of southwest
Queens and the Rockaways.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Brian
Barnwell cruised to victory over
challenger Melissa Sklarz in the 30th
Assembly District primary. With
97.73% of all votes tallied, Barnwell
had 5,214 votes while Sklarz — who
was bidding to become the first
transgender woman elected to the
state legislature — had 2,902. The
30th District covers areas of Astoria,
Long Island City, Maspeth, Middle
Village and Woodside.
Turnout in this primary was way
better than in 2016; Barnwell upset
then-Assemblywoman Margaret
Markey in that race in which a total
of 2,543 votes were cast.
Overall in Queens, turnout among
registered Democrats in the Sept.
13 gubernatorial primary was 23
percent; while that seems like a rather
weak total, it was nonetheless three
times higher than the turnout of the
last gubernatorial primary in 2014.
That year, just 67,886 Queens
Democrats — equal to 9 percent of
the 739,114 registered Democrats in
the borough — cast a vote in the primary
between Governor Andrew
Cuomo and law professor Zephyr
Teachout. Cuomo won 71.9 percent
of the borough’s vote in that primary,
and went on to score an easy election
that November for a second term in
offi ce.
Facing a tougher challenge this
year from political activist/actress
Cynthia Nixon, Cuomo managed to
do even better in Queens, garnering
131,388 votes, or 72.7 percent of the
180,313 ballots cast in the race. Even
in defeat, Nixon received 48,902 votes,
slightly more than the 2014 primary
votes Cuomo received (48,833) and
about three times the total Teachout
garnered (14,522) in that contest.
Overall, Cuomo enjoyed a successful
primary on Sept. 13 in the
borough where he was born and
raised, winning 17 of the 18 Assembly
districts in Queens.
Shooting threat at Grover Cleveland unfounded: cops
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
Police have determined that a
potential threat to Grover Cleveland
High School in Ridgewood
phoned into 911 on Tuesday morning
was unfounded, according to law enforcement
sources.
Authorities confi rmed that a concerned
resident placed a 911 call at
approximately 6:57 a.m. on Sept. 18 and
said that a person was going to have
a gun at the school. Aft er a brief investigation
by offi cers from the 104th
Precinct, the threat was determined to
be not credible, police said.
Still, the word got out on social
media and even reached Councilman
Robert Holden’s offi ce, who said he was
in communication with the precinct to
get to the bottom of the situation.
While police could not confi rm, the
rumor may have originated from an
actual threat found inside of Grover
Cleveland Charter High School in
Reseda, California. According to the
Los Angeles Daily News, a note was
found inside a restroom at the school
with the threat of “shooting up the
Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, where police determined a
911 call about a shooting threat was unfounded on Sept. 18.
school” on Tuesday at 10 a.m. because
the writer was “tired of getting bullied.”
According to parents on Facebook here
in Ridgewood, students were sharing a
picture of a written threat on social media
that caused some concern and confusion.
File photo/Ridgewood Times
Detective Thomas Bell of the
104th Precint Community Affairs
Unit confirmed that a marked car
was assigned to the high school, but
the threat was determined to be
unfounded.
Councilman says Glendale shelter could become school instead
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
In the fi rst Community Board 5
meeting since the summer recess
— during which a possible plan for
a homeless shelter in Glendale resurfaced
— local elected offi cials and
members of the community fi nally
got the chance to address the topic.
While Councilman Robert Holden
and Senator Joseph Addabbo both
continued to vocalize their opposition
to the shelter, Assemblyman
Andrew Hevesi also made the trip to
Christ the King High School in Middle
Village for the Sept. 12 meeting.
Holden, who was the first speaker of
the evening, began by offering a glimmer
of hope to local residents who fear that
the shelter will be a danger to the area.
According to the councilman, there
is a possibility that the potential shelter
at 78-16 Cooper Ave. could instead become
a new school aft er speaking with
Lorraine Grillo, president of the School
Construction Authority (SCA) and
commissioner of the Department of
Design and Construction (DDC). Grillo
visited the site this week and gave
a positive report to Holden, he said.
“They love the site. It would make
a great location for a school,” Holden
said. “What kind of school? I don’t
care. Whatever they want to put is
fi ne with me.”
Holden explained that the SCA
would have the option of turning
the defunct factory at the site into a
school or demolishing that building
to construct an entirely new school,
which the councilman said he would
prefer. School buses would have
plenty of space to park onsite, Holden
added, and an independent chemical
company that used to be next to the
property is no longer there.
Later in the meeting, Hevesi gave
an impassioned speech about his
history with this specifi c site. When
the shelter fi rst came to light in 2013,
Hevesi said that he joined local residents
when they protested at the site
and was vocal in his opposition to the
shelter. But he then explained why he
“will never be on a protest line again.”
Since becoming the chair of the
Social Services Committee in the
years following the 2013 protests,
Hevesi said that he has visited numerous
shelters and witnessed the
conditions and practices that keep
homeless individuals stuck within
the system.
First and foremost, he concluded
that homeless shelters are in the
money-making business.
“Not-for-profi ts, for-profi ts, they
are a business, and business is good,”
Hevesi said, earning a round of applause.
“They don’t worry about the
services they provide because they
get a contract. Once you get a contract
it’s a long-term deal; it’s the only way
these contracts work.”
That brought Hevesi to the factors
that contribute to making people
homeless. Skyrocketing rent prices
and domestic violence are among the
reasons, the assemblyman said, but
the biggest problem is the “people
who are invested in the system who
keep the system going.”
While most residents immediately
point the fi nger at Mayor Bill de Blasio
and his Turning the Tide plan,
Hevesi said the real culprit resides
in the state’s highest offi ce.
“Governor Cuomo refuses to give
people a rent supplement to keep
them in their homes,” Hevesi said.
“The governor and I have been going
at it for years. He hates me, I hate him,
and I enjoy his hatred. He deserves it.”
Hevesi explained that the Cuomo
family runs Help USA, a nonprofi t
shelter provider, and he said that
their shelters on Ward’s Island and
Randall’s Island are “abominable.” The
assemblyman also alleged that some
of Cuomo’s donors are shelter owners.
A statewide rental subsidy program
pushed by Hevesi was shot
down by Cuomo two years in a row
before fi nally earning a small pilot
program in the state budget this year.
Instead of joining in a protest, Hevesi
said he is “going to solve the damn
problem so we don’t need the shelter
in the fi rst place.”
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