FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JULY 26, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 19
Photo courtesy of The Color Run
‘The Color
Run’ returns to
Queens this fall
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
Flushing will be fi lled with color
during a dreamy paint race happening
this fall.
Th e Color Run will take place at Citi
Field, home of the New York Mets,
on Sept. 15. Attendees will have the
opportunity to run through the ballpark
in a whimsical race “that celebrates
healthiness, happiness and
individuality.”
Th e unique 5K event, which will
kick off at 9 a.m., is themed the “Hero
Tour” for its fi ft h time around at the
venue. Registered runners will receive
a participant kit, which contains a
unicorn hero medal, lightning bolt
T-shit and, of course, the paint, made
of corn starch, baking soda and dyes.
Each kilometer of the un-timed race,
“Color Runners” are doused head to
toe in a diff erent color paint. Th e race
concludes with a “Finish Festival,”
where runners celebrate with music,
dancing and a fi nal dose of color.
Th e event raises funds for Back on
My Feet, a nonprofi t that uses a running
based model to create self-esteem
and self-suffi ciency among individuals
who are working their way out
of homelessness.
Tickets range from $15-$60.
Interested participants can register
here.
Since its beginning in 2012, the
Color Run has had more fi rst time
5K runners that any other event in
history, according to founder Travis
Snyder.
“Seeing how happy Th e Color Run
has made all diff erent kinds of people
has been very rewarding,” Snyder
said. “It really is an event for all fi tness
levels, ages and backgrounds.
Our tag line is ‘the Happiest 5K on the
Planet’ for a reason. Th at line was created
aft er seeing how happy it made
people.”
Citi Field is located at 123-01
Roosevelt Ave. For more details, visit
www.thecolorrun.com.
Holocaust survivor who lives in Bayside beats the odds again
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
When 95-year-old Bayside resident
Jack Betteil was off ered a free haircut and
“the works” for his 100th birthday by his
barber, he fully intended to take him up
on the off er.
However, a diagnosis of a severe case of
aortic stenosis — a condition in which the
heart’s aortic valve becomes calcifi ed with
age — late last year put Betteil’s date with
destiny in the balance.
Aft er a series of testing, North Shore
University Hospital cardiac physician
Dr. Bruce Rutkin determined that
Betteil would be a good candidate for a
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement
Procedure (TAVR), which replaces the
narrowed valve without opening the
chest. Th e procedure, performed on April
18, was a success.
Betteil and his son Matthew returned to
the hospital on July 19 to thank the doctor
who saved his life.
“My father, who has such a zest for
life, was having trouble breathing,” son
Matthew Betteil said. “My family is so
grateful that the doctors at this hospital
did everything they could to preserve
his life.”
Born in Krakow, Poland, in 1923,
Betteil was a teenager when he and his
family were pulled from their home and
taken prisoner by the Nazis during World
War II. While Betteil was sent to a camp
at Plaszow near his birthplace, his mother,
father and two sisters were taken to
Auschwitz. His sister Cesia lived; the rest
of his family perished in the gas chambers.
Betteil survived six concentration
camps, where he performed hard labor
Jack Betteil holds up a photo of himself taken one year after his liberation from a concentration
camp
and was grossly underfed, before his
release on May 5, 1945. He weighed 70
pounds at the time of his liberation.
“I have no idea why I survived the war,”
he said. “I was very sick when I was liberated
by the American army, Gen. George
Patton’s Th ird Army. But I survived.”
Betteil spent a year in Italy at a displaced
persons camp before moving to
the United States, where he raised his
family. He made a living repairing broken
television sets.
Matthew Betteil said his father donated
over 40 repaired televisions to the mental
hospital at Creedmoor, near his Bayside
home. Th e son only found out about his
father’s “secret activity” aft er discovering
a stack of thank-you notes in the basement
decades later.
“It was very diffi cult for me to complain
about anything to him,” Matthew Betteil
said. “He would say, ‘You had food today.
Photo by Suzanne Monteverdi/The Courier
You have your parents. You have your
home.’ He really taught me what was
important in life when I was growing up.”
In his spare time, Betteil enjoys creating
art, carving wood and sculpting his own
versions of Native American statues —
activities he plans to return to due to his
improved health.
“I can’t just stay home and do nothing,”
Betteil said.
Matthew Betteil says he believes his
father’s interest in Native American arts
stems from a shared experience as a population
that experienced a genocide.
“I think it’s important that my father
stays alive, because people who are
deniers can hear the story from someone
that went through it,” Matthew Betteil
said. “I think that’s another reason why —
aside from him being the greatest father
in the world and having him around is
important to me.”
Lancman eyes possible run for Queens DA next year
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com
@smont76
Councilman Rory Lancman, who represents
areas including Fresh Meadows,
Jamaica and Kew Gardens in City Hall,
is eyeing the Queens District Attorney’s
seat that Richard A. Brown has held for
27 years.
“We’re in desperate need of reforming
our criminal justice system,” Lancman
told QNS in an interview. “We need to
make it more fair and equitable for everyone.”
Th is includes an increased focus “on
issues that matter to women and working
people,” he noted.
Brown ran unopposed for re-election in
2015. He is currently serving his seventh
term in offi ce.
Earlier this year, Lancman, an attorney,
was selected to lead the City Council’s
Committee on the Justice System, which
has oversight of the city’s courts, district
attorneys and legal service providers, as
well as the mayor’s Offi ce of Criminal
Justice. Th e newly formed committee
also assumed the jurisdiction of the
Committee on Courts and Legal Services,
which the councilman chaired in his previous
term.
In the role, Lancman and his colleagues
“have explored almost every aspect of the
criminal justice system,” including broken
windows policies, wage theft and policies
relating to the opioid crisis.
Th e councilman has spoken in favor of
criminal justice reforms involving cash
bail, marijuana enforcement and prosecution
policies and Rikers Island, an
institution “beyond reform and repair.”
He spoke in favor of reducing the population
of Rikers and placing smaller jails
adjacent to the city’s existing courthouses.
“Rikers is a horrible nightmare and a
tremendous waste of taxpayers’ money,”
he said. “No one should be sitting on
Rikers because they’re too poor to pay
bail.”
Earlier this year, Lancman introduced
a bill that would require bail bond businesses
to post signage designed by the
Department of Consumer Aff airs (DCA)
that would disclose the maximum premium
or compensation that can be charged
for giving bail bond or property as bail. It
would also establish a complaint mechanism
for consumers at the Department of
Consumer Aff airs should a premium or
compensation charged confl ict with the
state’s insurance law.
Th e bill passed the City Council on July
18 and awaits the mayor’s signature.
Lancman was one of the sponsors of
the Criminal Justice Reform Act, which
passed the City Council in 2016. Th e bill
decriminalizes certain low-level off enses
(i.e. open container of alcohol, littering,
public urination). Off enders are instead
sent to civil court.
Th e councilman was also the prime
sponsor of a bill that criminalized
“revenge porn” — the practice of spreading
X-rated content of an individual without
their consent online — in New York
City, eff ective December 2017.
“We’ve tried to move the system to
focus on the things that really matter,”
he said.
Th e next election for Queens District
Attorney takes place in 2019.
Photo via Facebook/Rory Lancman
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/www.thecolorrun.com
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