18 FEBRUARY 23 - MARCH 1, 2018 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
EDITORIAL
WE MUST DO SOMETHING
ABOUT GUNS IN AMERICA
The “mindless menace” of gun violence struck our
country again February 14 with the massacre at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Seventeen victims, both students and faculty, were
cut down by a 19-year-old former student with a history
of mental turmoil who bought his weapon of mass
destruction, an AR-15 assault rifle, legally. It's a device
with just one purpose: to kill as many people as possible,
as quickly as possible.
Since, however, we’ve witnessed something truly
remarkable. The survivors of the Parkland shooting —
students, teachers, parents — aren’t retreating into grief.
They’re collectively angry at what happened, and how
their government failed to prevent it from happening.
They’re taking a lead in a nationwide movement to get
the federal government finally to do something to beef
up our gun laws and keep weapons out of the hands of
dangerous people.
“Every single person up here today, all these people
should be home grieving,” Douglas student Emma Gonzalez
said at a rally on February 17. “But instead we are
up here standing together because if all our government
and president can do is send thoughts and prayers, then
it's time for victims to be the change that we need to see.”
Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough anymore -- and
never were. The cycle of gun violence in America cannot
go on any longer. We’ve run the cycle repeatedly over
the last 20+ years, from Columbine to Newtown and all
the other points of mass death in between.
After Parkland, we seemed destined to repeat it again
— the “thoughts and prayers” tweets from politicians,
including those firmly in the pocket of the National Rifle
Association, were as predictable as they were revolting.
The outrage from Parkland is something new to the
American mass shooting experience and gives a glimmer
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/file photo
14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014
editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by
GO BACK TO THE
DRAWING BOARD
of hope that maybe, finally, something will be done.
We can’t let Parkland become a forgotten tragedy.
Enough gun violence victims have died in vain.
We urge our readers to contact their local lawmakers
to support new gun regulations, and also to take part in
March for Our Lives activities in the weeks ahead. Get
more info at www.marchforourlives.com.
Brooklyn cannot let the Parkland shooting survivors
stand alone in this cause. We must stand with Parkland
and be part of the change our country needs.
HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS
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Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein
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Editor in Chief ... Helen Klein
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LETTERS
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
Brooklyn@uupmail.org.
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 must
affiliate with an academic medical institution or teaching
hospital. SUNY Downstate has Brooklyn’s only
teaching hospital.
Privatizing or closing SUNY Downstate as a way for
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 save
several financially unstable hospitals in Brooklyn,
including Interfaith Medical Center, Brookdale, Long
Island College Hospital and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical
Center. You can see the proposal online at
http://www.brooklynhospitalplan.org.
It calls for the creation of a network of satellite ambulatory
care centers, and would be controlled by and affiliated
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, it
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—is a
viable, workable option for long-term health care in
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
A LOOK BACK
Flushing Meadows Park was the site of not one but two World’s Fairs, the 1964 one that
many readers undoubtedly remember, and the 1939 fair that most probably do not. That
fair -- whose symbol was the Trylon and Perisphere, seen at left -- is the subject of the
collage taken from a 1939 issue of The Spectator. Among the wonders that first were
revealed at the ‘39 fair -- whose official motto was “The World of Tomorrow” -- was nylon
fabric. The View-Master was also introduced at the fair, where early television sets were
given wider exposure. Like the ‘64 fair, the ‘39 fair’s official colors were blue and orange.
Compiled by Helen Klein
AN OPEN LETTER FROM
ASSEMBLYMEMBER WILLIAM COLTON
Dear friends,
Unity. That is a notion that I will always support.
As the New York State assemblymember in
the 47th District for over two decades, it pains me
that division and hateful rhetoric in our community
have persisted and become more rampant.
I have the interest of the whole community,
regardless of your race or affiliations, in mind
when I speak against the racist and derogatory
comments made and disseminated on social media.
I condemn racist and discriminatory speech.
Historically, hateful language against any group
has led to increased crime and violence targeting
these groups. This correlates with the recent
increase of hate crimes and attacks against individuals
of Asian descent and other ethnic groups.
It reminds me of when swastikas appeared on
a constituent’s residence not too long ago. I introduced
and passed legislation that would outlaw
graffiti displaying swastikas and burning crosses.
In trying to pass the legislation, I faced some
opposition against possible infringement of freedom
of speech protected in the first amendment.
Ultimately, the state legislators decided to protect
the victims of such hate. It is obvious to me that
hateful remarks are inflammatory, and incite
discrimination and racial tension.
Clearly, the community’s quality-of-life issues
and concerns are legitimate and need to be
addressed. The current approach to addressing
these problems, however, is nothing more than
finger-pointing and divisive antics.
They distract from the issues at hand and create
a situation that excludes meaningful and productive
dialogue and discourse between different
communities.
In the past, I have been able to bring various
groups and communities together to work on
issues.
At Lafayette High School, students were bullied
for their difference. Once I gathered parents together
and opened the lines of dialogue between them,
the bullying ended, and the school now approaches
problems by including all actors in a constructive
environment with the common goal of unity.
We need to stop looking at differences and
fearing change. Instead, we should celebrate our
commonalities. Our government officials need
to work together with the community to provide
resources for all. We, as a human race, are all
deserving of a good quality of life.
Sincerely,
William Colton
New York State assemblymember, 47 A.D.