22 MAY 11 - MAY 17, 2018 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
EDITORIAL A LOOK
ANOTHER BETRAYAL OF NEW
YORK'S TRUST
On Monday, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
went from being a prosecutor with a bright future to a
politically radioactive villain without an office.
His downfall came after The New Yorker documented
allegations that he physically assaulted several women
with whom he had been associated — accusations which
were particularly shocking considering that Schneiderman
was, publicly, a staunch advocate of women’s rights
and the #MeToo movement.
But when the cameras were gone, as The New Yorker
reported, Schneiderman was apparently nothing like
the upstanding public servant that New York residents
had come to know since 2011. The alleged actions are
monstrous.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time our trust has been betrayed
and it won’t be the last.
If recent history has taught us anything, it’s that
nothing about New York politicians we see on camera
is indicative of who they really are.
Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor in 2008 over his
extra-marital exploits. Indecent photographs cooked
Anthony Weiner’s political career, and ultimately led
him to prison.
But lust is just one deadly sin that afflicted New York
politicians; greed is still another.
In the pages of this paper, we’ve documented indictments
and convictions of numerous elected officials who
used the office they held for personal gain, violating the
public trust — and for many, ruining confidence in our
system of government.
Some found pleasure in Schneiderman’s downfall,
considering that he was also investigating individuals
close to the Trump administration over alleged
corruption. However, Schneiderman’s scandal doesn’t
negate the investigation the attorney general’s office is
conducting; in addition, the scandal doesn’t amount to
a pardon for offenses that others may have committed.
Abuse of people and abuse of power are the worst
parts of a toxic culture in our state capital that must
end. We need to elect good, decent people to serve us
in Albany — and we must rely upon the press and other
investigators to continue exposing bad actors in government
OP-ED
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/file photo
BY ASSEMBLYMEMBER
NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS
14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014
editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by
GO BACK TO THE
DRAWING BOARD
and facilitate their removal from office.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said,
“There is always a certain amount of deviancy in a
society. But when you get too much, you begin to think
that it's not really that bad. Pretty soon you become
accustomed to very destructive behavior.”
We’ve breached that unacceptable threshold long ago;
now it’s up to us to step back from it.
HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS
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Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein
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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
BACK
In a photo of a
Norwegian Constitution
Day parade of yore, from
the files of this newspaper,
then-Mayor Ed Koch
can be seen, interacting
with the crowd as he
strides behind members
of the Viking Association
in traditional garb, and
heading up a contingent
of police officers. While
the parade is now on
Third Avenue, it previously
marched along Fifth Avenue. Among the storefronts that can be glimpsed
in the background is the recently shuttered Kruchkow’s Shoes, which closed
after more than a century in business, as well as the long-gone Petzinger’s
Deli, at 78th Street.
Compiled by Helen Klein
HEROIN INJECTION CENTERS – THE NEWEST BAD IDEA
FROM MAYOR DE BLASIO
Here in New York City, we have all witnessed
rule of law deteriorate under the de Blasio
administration. Whether it has been
sanctuary cities, decriminalization
of marijuana, or the New York City
Housing Authority not complying
with federal rules, one could
assume that Mayor de Blasio has
made it a priority to showcase his
disregard for the rules that
govern our nation.
Consistent with this attitude,
de Blasio recently unveiled his
plan to introduce “Supervised
Injection Centers” that will allow heroin users to
shoot up in a controlled setting in flagrant violation
of federal code. This is not only against the
law, but will also send the exact wrong message.
Authorizing these facilities will redefine the
way we combat drug use and addiction on the
most fundamental level by signaling to users that
addiction is a manageable condition and you can
partake in illegal opioid use nearly risk-free.
NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill visited an
established injection center in Vancouver, Canada
and observed various criminal activities occur
outside the center including drug dealing and
use. It is an inescapable reality that drug use will
spill outside the doors of these facilities and into
the neighborhoods they occupy.
The mayor’s new initiative will also include
tying the hands of the NYPD in an effort to undermine
existing laws. According to de Blasio
spokesman Eric Phillips, addicts coming and
going from these centers will be allowed to carry
their dope with them without being subject to police
searches, making it an even more attractive
place for drug dealers to do business.
Before we brand drug users as a hopeless
cause, we need to provide them with the resources
necessary actually to succeed in
treatment.
As the National Institute on Drug
Abuse states in its Principles of
Drug Addiction Treatment, residential
treatment participation
“for less than 90 days is of limited
effectiveness, and treatment
lasting significantly longer is
recommended for maintaining
positive outcomes.”
Currently the majority of
court-ordered drug treatment lasts for less than
90 days, so it is no wonder that we have fallen into
an endless cycle of drug abuse.
I’m not ready to surrender in the battle against
opioid use and will continue to advocate for the
expansion of treatment centers with proven
success rates.
I have written to both the Department of Health
and the United States Department of Justice,
calling upon them to take swift and determined
action against the mayor’s radical agenda.
Additionally, I plan to introduce a bill in the
State Assembly that will prevent any organization
that provides these services from receiving
funding from the state government because
taxpayer dollars should be used to fund senior
centers, community centers and after-school
programs, not drug shooting galleries.
I am prepared to fight tooth and nail to preserve
the quality of life in our neighborhoods
and ensure that resources are put in programs
that curb drug use, not condone it.
Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis represents
the 64th A.D.