10 The Courier sun • JUNE 19, 2014 for breaking news visit www.couriersun.com Proposed Select Bus Service on Woodhaven Boulevard met with skepticism BY ERIC JANKIEWICZ ejankiewicz@queenscourier.com @ericjankiewicz Woodhaven residents are bracing for a plan to bring Select Bus Service to one of New York City’s largest vehicle corridors, Woodhaven Boulevard. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is considering the boulevard, which is bordered by Queens Boulevard in the north and Rockaway Boulevard to the south, as a candidate for the next area in New York City to have Select Bus Service (SBS). Members of the neighborhood met on June 16 with the nonprofit organization Riders Alliance to prepare for a workshop on June 25 with the DOT, where the community will be invited to help create an express bus service that will shorten the travel time for bus commuters on the 3.2 mile boulevard. Kenichi Wilson, who has lived in Woodhaven for 33 years and is the chairman of the Community Board 9 transportation committee, believes that not much will come out of meeting with the DOT. “They’re doing it and that’s that,” he said. But the Riders Alliance believes that with enough community participation, the city agency will tailor the express bus service to the area’s specific needs. Wilson stressed that the area is filled with many businesses that would be negatively affected if the DOT creates lanes dedicated to the buses because it would prevent delivery trucks from double parking in front of businesses on the boulevard. “I have nothing against it except for having dedicated lanes doesn’t alleviate congestion for everyone. That’s not playing fair,” said Wilson, who is a local business owner. “I have a lot of friends who are restaurant owners who are concerned over deliveries.” According to a report by the DOT, dedicated bus lanes aren’t the only solution. “Ideas for consideration could include physically-separated bus lanes, center-running (as opposed to curb-running) bus lanes, and use of rail and highway rightsof way,” the report states. And Wilson believes that unlike other areas — like Harlem — where SBS has been implemented, bus lanes on Woodhaven Boulevard would not only be unnecessary but would actually increase traffic and congestion, something the express bus service is meant to alleviate. “It’s not alleviating congestion. It’s actually going to create more congestion,” he said and noted that most of Woodhaven Boulevard doesn’t suffer from bumper-to-bumper traffic. “They’re implementing bus lanes in non-congested areas. That doesn’t make sense.” State Sen. Malcolm Smith’s corruption trial ends in mistrial BY ERIC JANKIEWICZ ejankiewicz@queenscourier.com/@ericjankiewicz The federal corruption trial of state Sen. Malcolm Smith ended in a mistrial on Tuesday. Judge Kenneth M. Karas made the decision after it was revealed that the United States Attorney’s office failed to turn over 9,000 recorded conversations to defense lawyers until well into the trial, prompting several jurors to say that they could not wait for the defense to process the new recordings, according to The New York Times. The recordings, almost 300 hundred of which are in Yiddish, were made or received by Moses Stern, a Rockland County developer who became a government informer in order to avoid a prison sentence. The case against another defendant, the Queens Republican leader Vincent Tabone, was also declared a mistrial. But the case against Daniel Halloran, a former councilman, will continue next week, according to the Times. A new trial date of Jan. 5, 2015, is set for Smith and Tabone. Smith, who currently holds office and is seeking reelection, is accused of trying to bribe his way into a GOP nomination for mayor. On June 12, the morning before the day’s proceedings, federal prosecutors argued that the conversations were irrelevant to bribery crime and wire fraud that the defendants, including Smith, are charged with. But the defense — including Smith’s lawyer Gerald L. Shargel — convinced the judge that somewhere in the recordings there might be evidence that Stern and an undercover agent entrapped the defendants. The judge decided to postpone his decision until Friday to give prosecutors a chance to show him how the recordings might be translated quickly enough for the current case to continue. But it could take weeks to translate the Yiddish material since none of the lawyers speak Yiddish, according to the Times. And that’s something the jurors can’t wait for. “The lawyers are working around the clock as it is, and now you’re adding a pretty substantial review of the recordings,” the judge said. Jurors were then ushered into the courtroom where more secretly recorded conversations were played and they heard Smith say that bribes are “business of government,” according to the New York Post. “Tell them I got a kid in Albany that needs to be born. So when you birth him ... I’ll help you with your children,” Smith is heard saying on the tapes. “I’d say absolutely not to giving more bribe money.” “I’d say, ‘I’m not giving you a freaking dime.’ I’d say, ‘If I even give you a nickel more, you have to stand on the Empire State Building and drop every person you endorsed and hold Malcolm up and say he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Matter of fact, he’s better than sliced bread.’” Smith, a Democrat who was for a time the state Senate majority leader, is charged with being the linchpin in a conspiracy to bribe Tabone, then the vice chairman of the Queens County Republican Committee, and Joseph J. Savino, the Bronx Republican chairman, so he could get their authorization to run for mayor as a Republican in 2013. Savino pleaded guilty to bribery. Tabone has argued that the payment he received was a legal retainer and he was entrapped into taking it. Halloran allegedly served as a go-between in discussions with the Republicans. THE COURIER/Photo by Eric Jankiewicz
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