14 APRIL 13 - APRIL 19, 2018 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
EDITORIAL
CHILD VICTIMS ACT SHOULD
FINALLY GET A VOTE
For years, advocates for child abuse victims have tried
in vain to convince lawmakers in the New York State
legislature to adopt the Child Victims Act. The bill seeks
to expand the statute of limitations already in place regarding
civil cases over alleged sexual abuse.
Their efforts have been stymied by myriad groups
including the Boy Scouts of America, Orthodox Jewish
groups and the Catholic Church, each of which fears that
the act’s enactment would bring on a new wave of costly
litigation.
These are genuine concerns, especially in the case of
the Catholic Church, which has suffered tremendous
financial losses from lawsuits brought by the victims
of predatory clergy members.
However, the lawsuits aren’t the only reason for the
church’s financial struggles; declining enrollment led to
dozens of Catholic schools across Brooklyn and Queens
being closed over the last 13 years. Parishes have also
been consolidated as a result of declining attendance
and participation in order to further cut costs.
The institutions opposed to the Child Victims Act
suffered tremendous financial losses in civil litigation
because they were found, in court, not to have done
enough to protect the victims of child sex abuse — or,
worse, did more to shield the abusers from facing justice
for their crimes.
That these institutions suffered greatly from the consequences
14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014
editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by
GO BACK TO THE
DRAWING BOARD
of their negligence should not be an excuse to
preclude other victims of child sex abuse from seeking
the justice they deserve.
Like so many other issues in the State Capitol, the Child
Victims Act has been treated like a bargaining chip. It
was left out of the most recent state budget deal which
included just about everything else under the sun.
With less than three months remaining in the active
session, it’s doubtful that the act will get a vote in both
the Assembly and state Senate. It has repeatedly failed
to pass both houses in recent years.
Justice shouldn’t have such a stringent time limit.
The statute of limitations for civil child sex abuse and
other equally egregious cases should be more flexible
to give the victims the opportunity to have their day in
court when they’re emotionally ready to confront their
abusers.
Now is the time for New York State’s legislature and
governor to step up and, at long last, do the right thing.
HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS
Change (Estab. 1953)
to
2015
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Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein
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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 editorial@homereporter.com
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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.
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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
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S
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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
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
For Brooklynites, especially those who have a long history in the borough,
the springtime return of America’s pastime tends to be tinged ever so slightly
with regret. Baseball is back, but the Dodgers have not played in Brooklyn
since 1957 -- the year the much maligned Walter O’Malley closed up shop at
Ebbets Field to move the team all the way to L.A. In this photo from the files
of this newspaper, you can see the crowds arriving at Ebbets Field on foot
and by auto to watch their beloved bums.
Compiled by Helen Klein
MANY THANKS!
We were all very happy to have you attend
Regina Opera's March 3 performance of
"Madama Butterfly" and write a review of this
performance.
We at Regina Opera put in an extraordinary
amount of work, time and energy into providing
high quality affordable musical events to our
Brooklyn friends and neighbors. It is rewarding
to see that attendees such as you enjoy the performances
and value our efforts.
We know that many people read your reviews
and we know that the Home Reporter and Brooklyn
Spectator readers come to see our performances
because they sometimes show us copies of past
reviews and display ads and other promotional
material printed in your newspapers or in the
online editions as they enter our theater for a
show.
So we thank you and the staff of Brooklyn Media,
the publisher of these newspapers, for their
support.
We hope to have you in our theater for our
May production of "Aida," Regina Opera's first
production of this opera.
Fran Garber
President, Regina Opera Company
This letter was written to our reviewer, Cliff
Kasden.
COUNTING ON AMERICA’S
YOUTH
The vote is our only truly peaceful weapon.
Since the most horrible murder spree in Florida,
I have come to see and hear many young folks
addressing the specific issue of guns, the NRA,
Washington, D.C. and so on, and I am filled with
grand visions of hope that this sad event will finally
be the impetus for a solid youth movement
that I believe is most necessary to instigate the
changes so many of us want.
They are clear about the problems, the cause,
and the solutions.
My hope is that these young folks, and all others
around these no longer united states, register to
vote ... and then vote.
In a recent New York Times column, Bret Stephens
suggested that, "The true foundation of
American exceptionalism should be our capacity
for moral and constitutional renewal, not our
instinct for self-destruction."
And long ago, the Beatles sang, "We all want to
change the world."
Substantive ideas lead to actions and lead to the
onset of change.
My hope is that the younger generation (beginning
with those just coming of age to vote)
will lead the country back on a path colored by
humanistic values.
Barry Brothers
LETTERS
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