18 OCTOBER 6 - OCTOBER 12, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
EDITORIAL
WHAT WILL WE DO WITH THE
OUTRAGE?
By simple math, we should be used to mass shootings
by now. We’ve seen so many of them in the national news
over the last 20 years; there have been more than 200
mass shootings this year alone.
Yet the October 1 massacre in Las Vegas — with more
than 60 dead and over 500 injured from a hail of sniper’s
bullets — disturbs and shocks us profoundly unlike any
similar shooting to have occurred in recent memory.
It could have very easily happened here. Brooklyn
has hundreds of outdoor concerts every summer in
all different venues. Thousands attend these concerts
to have a good time; they go through tight security to
keep everyone safe. Not even security could stop what
happened in Vegas, as a sniper from a nearby building
rained death upon people whose only sin was being in
the wrong place at the wrong time.
The latest massacre again spurs calls for greater gun
regulation — and, naturally, the “thoughts and prayers”
of those resistant to any kind of gun control. They used
flawed logic to rationalize the insanity; they claim that
we shouldn’t bother with more regulations because
criminals will break the law anyway.
There are laws for everything; should they all be
abolished because people break them? Of course not.
Other critics point out that local gun regulations
haven’t stopped the flow of guns to Brooklyn and other
parts of our state. That isn’t for lack of trying; rather, it’s
a symptom of an obviously broken federal law that enables
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
people to buy guns in states with very lax weapons
laws, then smuggle them into New York.
All this bloodshed over the last decade is shameful,
easily preventable and yet impossible to avoid because
of politics. Sure, everyone’s outraged by what happened
in Las Vegas, just as we were outraged after Orlando,
Aurora, Sandy Hook, Columbine.
But what will we do with that outrage? If history has
taught us anything — nothing. That will be our prologue
to the next inevitable tragedy.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Everyone — Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative,
gun owners and those without guns — must
get behind an effort to get assault weapons out of the
people’s hands. Let’s not repeat history again.
HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS
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GUEST OP-ED
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.
BY
ASSEMBLYMEMBER
FELIX ORTIZ
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
This photo, from the files of this newspaper, depicts buildings at Sunset
Park’s Bush Terminal, back before the United States introduced zip codes
(1963). Build as a huge manufacturing, warehousing and shipping complex
in the early part of the 20th century, today it houses Industry City (where
ABC Carpet & Home has just opened, joining numerous other businesses in
the burgeoning development) in about one-fifth of its original property. In
addition, the complex’s location on the waterfront has led to a portion of it
becoming the long-awaited Bush Terminal Park.
Compiled by Helen Klein
NEW YORK’S PAID FAMILY LEAVE BEGINS IN JANUARY
Family always comes first. We drop what we’re
doing to be by our loved ones’ sides in a time
of need and make sacrifices for them in
an instant; but unfortunately, selfless
actions like those can come with a
harsh price tag.
It can be the difference between
food on the table and an empty fridge,
because for so many New Yorkers, paid
leave from work simply isn’t an option.
That’s about to change, though, when
the state’s new paid family leave program
begins on January 1.
In Albany, I helped spearhead the
creation of the program, recognizing
that for too long, workers have been penalized for
putting family first.
Under New York’s paid family leave program –
the most robust in the nation – almost all workers
will be eligible for paid family leave benefits. This
is a drastic improvement over the federal Family
and Medical Leave Act, which only offers unpaid
leave and covers just 60 percent of the workforce.
New York is now one of only five states, as well
as the District of Columbia, to require a paid
family leave benefit. Workers will no longer be
punished for caring for a loved one.
Paid family leave is not only the right thing to
do, it’s a crucial step toward helping more New
Yorkers achieve financial security, as well as a
boost to our economy. It’s good for business – it
will increase worker productivity and morale,
and help employers retain skilled workers.
It can also help close the gender pay gap by
ensuring that women, who are often the ones to
take time off from work to care for children and
ill family members, remain employed and have
stable income.
New York’s program is being phased in,
ensuring employers have enough time
to adjust and implement it. In 2018,
workers will be eligible for eight
weeks of job-protected paid leave at
50 percent of their average weekly
wage up to 50 percent of the statewide
average weekly wage.
In 2019, it will increase to 10 weeks
of leave at 55 percent of the worker’s
average weekly wage up to 55 percent
of the statewide average weekly wage,
then to 60 percent of the worker’s average
weekly wage up to 60 percent of
the statewide average weekly wage in 2020.
By 2021, it will rise to 12 weeks at 67 percent
of the worker’s average weekly wage up to 67
percent of the statewide average weekly wage.
To cover the costs of the program, private employers
will secure paid family leave insurance
and premiums will be fully funded by employees
through small payroll deductions. The maximum
payroll deduction will be 0.126 percent of the employee’s
weekly wage or the state’s average weekly
wage – currently no more than $1.64 per week.
Public employers may opt in to the program.
Employees are eligible after working at least
20 hours per week for 26 weeks, or less than 20
hours per week for 175 days.
Together, we are building a stronger New York
State. Progressive policies like paid family leave
serve as an example across the nation of what we
can do to support working families and ensure
equal opportunity for all.
Assemblymember Felix Ortiz represents the 51st
A.D.