14 MARCH 24 - MARCH 30, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP EDITORIAL A LOOK BACK AN ANTI-SOCIAL BUDGET There has never been a budget more antithetical to the American way of life than the one President Trump proposed last week. While it boosts funds for military defense, it axes all kinds of programs that protect people and improve their lives. If you think it won’t affect you here in Brooklyn, think again. Homebound seniors risk losing the Meals on Wheels program; senior centers would be at risk of closing due to proposed funding cuts. Your children’s after-school programs may be closed because the federal Department of Education is threatening to strip funding for them; it also wants to get rid of professional development for teachers. The proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts puts cultural institutions and public television at great risk. Cuts in federal transportation funding threaten projects aimed at making it easier to get around the city. The NYPD could lose hundreds of millions of dollars toward its counter-terrorism program, even as the threat of terrorism remains as high as ever. 14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12,GO BACK TO THE It even cuts from the Environmental Protection Agency, which is working to clean up the Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal, our city’s most polluted waterways. How exactly is reducing funding for an agency that strives to keep air and water clean fiscally or socially responsible? You might believe that state and city officials who blasted these proposed cuts are simply overreacting or playing politics. You might also believe that local governments could scrape together enough resources to protect vital programs. The reality is, however, that the city and state cannot close all the significant funding gaps that the Trump budget, editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by DRAWING BOARD if enacted, would create. Programs will be slashed, services will be diminished, institutions will die, and millions of people will suffer the consequences. Rich or poor, young or old, liberal or conservative, this budget puts our quality of life in serious jeopardy. The Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Should it adopt this anti-social budget, Congress will have failed its basic Constitutional duty, and this borough, city, state and nation will face incredible catastrophe for years to come. This budget is unacceptable, and we’re counting on our Congressional representatives to refuse to compromise on the safety and well-being of the people of Brooklyn. HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS Change (Estab. 1953) to 2015 ▲ ▲ Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein (USPS 248.800) 9733 FOURTH AVE. • BROOKLYN, NY 11209 Co-Publisher ... Victoria Schneps-Yunis Co-Publisher ... Joshua A. Schneps Editor in Chief ... Helen Klein Telephone 718-238-6600 Fax 718-238-6630 E-mail [email protected] Periodical postage paid at Brooklyn, N.Y. Published weekly by Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. Single copies, 50 cents. $35 per year by mail, $40 outside Brooklyn. On June 8, 1962, the Bay Ridge Home Reporter (founded 1953) and the Brooklyn Sunset News, a continuation of the Bay Ridge News (founded 1943) were merged into the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: Home Reporter and Sunset News 9733 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11209 Entire contents copyright 2014 by Home Reporter and Sunset News All letters sent to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. 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Photo by Gardiner Anderson And the award goes to… Bay Ridge, which has provided the backdrop for many movies and television shows over the years, from “Blue Bloods” and “Saturday Night Fever” to “Mad Men” and, in 2006, to “Then She Found Me,” starring Helen Hunt and Bette Midler, seen above in a September, 2006, Home Reporter photo taken on location on Shore Road at 77th Street. Midler performed at the most recent Oscars, singing “Wind Beneath My Wings” during the awards show’s In Memoriam segment. “Then She Found Me,” which also starred Matthew Broderick, was also shot inside a historic home on 88th Street. Each day, thousands of people depend on SUNY Downstate Medical Center for emergency medical care and vital health care services. But this state-operated public hospital has been in danger of being closed or privatized for more than two years. Hundreds of jobs have been lost, and numerous health care services have been cut or curtailed due to the hospital’s ill-prepared “Sustainability Plan.” Now, there is language in the 2014-15 proposed state budget that would open the door to as many as five corporations to operate SUNY’s public hospitals. United University Professions, the union that represents nearly 3,000 employees at SUNY Downstate, has been fighting to keep SUNY Downstate a fully operational staterun facility. However, UUP isn’t fighting the battle alone. The SUNY Downstate Coalition of Faith, Labor and Community Leaders has become an important ally. The coalition has staged a number of rallies and protests over the past 18 months to save health care services and jobs at SUNY Downstate and keep it a public facility. The latest such effort is a 48-hour interfaith fast. It will begin Sunday, March 9, at 3 p.m., in front of Downstate’s 470 Clarkson Avenue entrance. Interfaith leaders and members of the community will participate to show their strong support for this beacon in Brooklyn and call attention to the threats it faces. You can take part in the fast or find out more about it by calling 718-270-1519, or sending an email to [email protected]. We strongly urge you to join our campaign. Take part in the fast, or come out and show your support. Together, we can deliver a strong message that SUNY Downstate must remain a full-service, state-operated public hospital. The threats facing SUNY Downstate are real. The SUNY Board of Trustees has openly discussed the possibility of closing SUNY Downstate. There is also language in the Executive Budget, which would allow corporations to control SUNY’s public hospitals; one corporation affiliate with an academic medical institution or teaching hospital. SUNY Downstate has Brooklyn’s teaching hospital. Privatizing or closing SUNY Downstate as a way the state to save dollars is shortsighted and unnecessary. We believe the answer to Brooklyn’s health care shortcomings lies in the “Brooklyn Hospitals Safety Net Plan,” a UUP-backed initiative to stabilize and deliver health care throughout Brooklyn. This plan would preserve SUNY Downstate and several financially unstable hospitals in Brooklyn, including Interfaith Medical Center, Brookdale, Island College Hospital and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. You can see the proposal online http://www.brooklynhospitalplan.org. It calls for the creation of a network of satellite ambulatory care centers, and would be controlled by and with 14 other Brooklyn hospitals. Downstate would be the network’s hub, educating and supplying physicians and medical staff to the care centers and working with doctors at the other hospitals. It’s a simple, effective plan and, if given a chance, will work. New York has a responsibility to provide for the health care needs of its citizens. The Brooklyn Hospitals Safety Net Plan—our plan and the community’s plan—viable, workable option for long-term health care Brooklyn. That’s something that Brooklyn residents desperately need. Frederick E. Kowal is president of United University Professions, the union representing 35,000 faculty and professional staff at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses, including SUNY’s public teaching hospitals and health science centers in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island and Syracuse. With the city deciding to move forward on most of the school co-locations approved late last year, as Mayor Bloomberg prepared to vacate City Hall, parents in southwest Brooklyn are not only disappointed but angry. While the Department of Education under Mayor de Blasio wisely opted to back out of a planned co-location of a new high school inside Gravesend’s John Dewey High School, the DOE decided to move ahead with two others: the co-location of a charter school inside Seth Low Intermediate School in Bensonhurst and another inside Joseph B. Cavallaro Intermediate School in Bath Beach. These – like others in the borough and the city – are both fiercely opposed by parents, educators, students and the local Community Education Councils, all of whom contend that the co-locations would steal necessary space from students already attending the schools, and those who will be going to them in the near future. While the city has said it only considers under-utilized schools for co-locations, area education advocates say that both Cavallaro and Seth Low are well utilized, and likely to become more crowded as students now in elementary school in both District 20 and District 21 move up to middle school. Indeed, District 20 is one of the most crowded school districts in the city, so much so that the city built a host of new schools for it in the past decade, with more being planned, meaning that public school students in both District 20 and District 21 are likely to feel the squeeze should they have to share space with students from a charter school. That strikes us as patently unfair. While some of the charter schools poised to open in September, 2014 may be worthy additions to the city’s educational offerings, their needs should not trump the needs of existing schools with existing students. And, indeed, when a charter school is put inside a public school, the process must involve the school communities at both educational institutions, and parents must also be involved. The city must go back to the drawing board and come up with alternative arrangements for the charter schools planned for Seth Low and Cavallaro as well as other schools where they are opposed.. The students who attend those schools deserve no less. guest op-ed Keep SUNY Downstate open and public BY FREDERICK E. KOWAL Entire contents copyright 2016 by Home Reporter and Sunset News With an effort afoot to co-name the corner of Seventh Avenue and 86th Street in memory of fallen Patrolman David Guttenberg, who died after being shot at that corner in the line of duty back in 1978, this paper has chosen to dedicate its look back to Guttenberg, featuring an image from his funeral that ran originally in this newspaper. Guttenberg was shot when he walked into an auto parts store in an effort to avoid ticketing a double-parked car, and interrupted a robbery in progress. He died just a few blocks away, at the old Victory Memorial Hospital. Compiled by Helen Klein GUEST OP-ED WITHOUT FEDERAL HEATING FUNDS, NATION’S MOST VULNERABLE OUT IN THE COLD The proposed federal budget includes cuts to health and human services, including eliminating the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). LIHEAP, which received $3.4 billion in funding last year, helps low-income households pay for heating their homes, and provides assistance with upgrading and weatherizing homes to become more efficient. LIHEAP reaches the nation’s most vulnerable, including children and families, people with disabilities and senior citizens. Cutting this program will directly affect over 1.3 million families nationwide and over 150,000 families in New York State. Throughout the years, HeartShare has cultivated a vast network of utility companies, elected officials and community organizations who come together in a bipartisan effort to focus on what’s important—delivering small grants of $200-$350 to the neediest energy customers in 60 New York State counties. HeartShare Human Services administers four energy funds to low-income households in partnership with National Grid, Con Edison, NYSEG and RG&E. Some funds require that applicants exhaust LIHEAP funds first. With the depressed state of the economy since the housing crash, the rising cost of utilities, as well as the brutal, often unpredictable, winter weather, applicants need those dollars more than ever. What does a typical applicant look like? It’s a person earning no more than 150 percent of the poverty level, or less than $20,000 annually. It’s parents scrambling to get electricity restored, so that Children’s Services doesn’t take their kids away. It’s a family with no heat and no choice but to go to a shelter on a cold winter night. It’s a cancer patient who has exhausted all other financial resources and has nowhere else to turn. It’s an elderly neighbor or veteran on fixed incomes too proud to ask for help. My team and I helped administer grants to over 24,000 of those New Yorkers last year and continue to do so. Energy insecure households receiving LIHEAP benefits are choosing between heating their home and other basic necessities, like rent, medicine or food. No one should be facing a “heat or eat” dilemma. In its studies on energy insecurity, the National Center for Children in Poverty identifies LIHEAP as the main safety net for energy assistance. LIHEAP also offers what the Center says this group needs most—energy-efficiency retrofits and interventions. Unfortunately, the federal budget also calls for the elimination of the Weatherization Assistance Program. LIHEAP is a high-impact program reaching our neediest neighbors and friends, which is why it has been funded by the federal government every year since its inception in 1980. It’s why my team and I travel down to Capitol Hill during LIHEAP Action Week every year. LIHEAP is a small price tag to keep families healthy and safe. Joseph Guarinello is HeartShare’s vice president of energy assistance and community development. HeartShare and its Family of Services, established in 1914, nurtures and empowers over 36,000 vulnerable New Yorkers each year. BY JOSEPH GUARINELLO
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