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FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com JUNE 18, 2015 • THE COURIER SUN 3 Boys and Girls Club of Metro Queens rallies to restore funding BY ANGELA MATUA editorial@queenscourier.com/@AngelaMatua Chants of “show us the money” reverberated throughout the gymnasium of the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Queens on Wednesday, as parents, children and staff called for more funding for afterschool programs. The Richmond Hill-based nonprofit organization, which offers free after-school tutoring, homework assistance and athletic and arts programs, serves children from 6 to 18. But the elementary school programs, which serve 200 students, have lost their funding. The City Council proposed cutting $420,000 from the organization’s funding for the next fiscal year and if it is not restored, club Associate Executive Director David Kupecky said, parents will have to choose between putting food on the table and providing their children with a safe space to attend after school. “The mayor’s initiative this year is ‘after school for all,’” Kupecky said. “He’s talking about middle school, he’s talking about pre-K and I think that right now, elementary school is being forgotten.” The Boys and Girls Club will have to charge parents $300 per month for the 36-week after-school program and $800 for the seven-week summer program if the funding is not restored in the final budget. Marcus Gonzalez, a 20-year-old Jamaica resident who works at the Boys and Girls Club and has been attending the programs since he was 5, said that the mentors he met helped him when he struggled through high school and eventually pushed him to strive for more. He will be graduating from LaGuardia Community College in 2016 with an associate degree in early childhood education. “If it wasn’t for the free-of-charge summer and after-school programs here where I grew up, who knows where I would be,” Gonzalez said. The Boys and Girls Club of Metro Queens is appealing to the City Council to restore funds for their after-school programs. Chrissy Mercado, a Richmond Hill resident whose three children attend the Boys and Girls Club after school, said she is worried about the impact these cuts will have on working families. “These cuts will hurt parents who do not have family in the area to assist with child care,” Mercado said. “If this funding for our programs are cut this will force parents to make potentially dangerous decisions of leaving their children with after-school providers who may not be licensed, a terrifying thought.” Shawna Richardson, who was a Richmond Hill THE COURIER/Photo by Angela Matua and Far Rockaway resident but now lives in Brooklyn said she commutes to Queens every day so that her 12-year-old daughter can experience the same services that her 21-year-old son did when they lived in Queens. “There are so many initiatives that the city is trying to embark on to improve the academic and social well-being of our children, our community, of our city as a whole,” Richardson said. “My children, our children are examples of the success and benefits that this club has already provided. So my theory is, why fix something that’s not broken?” Crime up for the month at 106th Precinct THE COURIER/Photo by Angela Matua Deputy Inspector Jeffrey Schiff, commanding officer of the 106th Precinct announced that crime was slightly up at the June 10 Community Council meeting. BY ANGELA MATUA editorial@queenscourier.com/@AngelaMatua Crime increased in the 106th Precinct over the last four weeks, with robberies and car thefts being mostly responsible for the slight uptick. Deputy Inspector Jeffrey Schiff, the precinct’s commanding officer, said at the 106th Precinct Community Council meeting on June 10 that the command is up 14 crimes in the last 28 days and that robberies, specifically in South Ozone Park, have been a problem. According to Schiff, many of the victims and suspects in the robberies were minors. More than 50 percent of the victims in the “youth-on-youth” robberies knew the people who robbed them, he said. Schiff said phones are the most popular items being stolen and that robbers force their victims to disable any tracking device on the phone. “It starts off as a bullying factor and then turns into a robbery,” Schiff said. If this problem continues to exist, Schiff and the precinct will look to visit the schools in the 106th Precinct’s jurisdiction to discourage bullying. The two perpetrators who police believe were most responsible for the robberies were caught on Wednesday, and officials are looking to tack on additional robbery charges. The 106th Precinct also has the most reported stolen cars in the city, according to Schiff, and the problem has been hard to stop because the crime is not rampant in any particular neighborhood. The 102nd and 105th precincts also saw an increase in car thefts, making this a trend in southeast Queens. There were 121 stolen cars reported last month and 90 cars were recovered in the 106th Precinct’s command. Schiff said he thinks this problem may be tied to fraud, as individuals who cannot afford to pay the lease on high-end cars may end up dumping them and reporting them as stolen. Capt. John Sanford, of Highway District 3, attended the meeting to update the community on a plan to combat the large amount of ATVs and dirt bikes illegally driven in the precinct’s command. “It’s very difficult for us to combat because I can’t in good conscience ask my guys to chase these people when they’re doing this behavior because it’s putting you at risk, it’s putting them at risk and it’s putting my guys at risk,” Sanford said. Sanford said his department analyzes 911 calls and tries to find patterns in problem areas. Highway Patrol 3 has confiscated 2 quads and 15 dirt bikes and has also handed out 43 summonses. Police Officers Daniel Rivera and Mark Shackel also received Cop of the Month honors at the meeting for apprehending a suspect who robbed a Metro PCS store on Rockaway Boulevard in Ozone Park. According to Schiff, the officers were called to the scene after an employee hit a panic button in the store when he became suspicious of the suspect. The perpetrator fired a round into the store and duct taped the employee in a back room before police arrived. It took three minutes for officers to restrain the perpetrator and the suspect was shown in a video trying desperately to escape. “While this may be three minutes, it’s a lifetime when you’re fighting for your life,” Schiff said. Schiff and Precinct Council President Frank Dardani presented the officers with plaques donated by the Ridgewood Times.


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