12 NOVEMBER 17 - NOVEMBER 23, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
EDITORIAL
NO MORE ELECTION DAY
EXCUSES
One of the more common cliches heard on Election
Day is, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”
Well, because about 78 percent of Brooklyn’s registered
voters didn’t bother showing up to vote in the
November 7 citywide election, we guess that there isn’t
much for the borough to complain about the next four
years. That’s not true, of course, but it seems as though
things aren’t bad enough to compel everyone to make
a change.
Why did voters not show up on Election Day? There
are many excuses, but two stand out as particularly
asinine.
One is the rainy weather that hit during the latter part
of the day. Voting booths are almost always placed in
warm, well-lit, waterproof venues. Your feet may get wet
by walking through the rain, but are dry feet worth the
price of a wasted vote?
The other poor excuse was a general malaise among
the electorate, that neither de Blasio nor his many challengers
14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014
editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by
GO BACK TO THE
DRAWING BOARD
were appealing. It sounded an awful lot like the
same excuse people had in 2016, when Hillary Clinton
won the popular vote but Donald Trump won the presidency
with the electoral vote because he squeaked by
in three swing states.
Every Brooklyn resident has a responsibility to be
active in his/her community -- and there is simply no
excuse for not participating in every election if you are
qualified to vote.
If it’s rainy, bring an umbrella or call a friend for a
ride (some campaigns will even drive you to the polls).
If you’re going out of town, fill out an absentee ballot
before you leave. State law protects your right to go out
and vote without being docked. If you don’t like who’s
running, write in the candidate of your choice.
If you’re not a registered voter, become one: visit vote.
nyc.ny.us to find out how. And save the date -- the next
general election is November 6, 2018.
It’s easy to be an armchair pundit and voice your displeasure
about government on social media or at the
Thanksgiving dinner table. But that's all bark and no
bite. The only thing that counts, in the end, is your vote.
And if you don’t vote, you don’t have a voice.
HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS
Change to
2015
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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.
OP ED
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
BY ASSEMBLYMEMBER
budget that would open the door to as many as five corporations
to operate SUNY’s public hospitals.
PETER ABBATE
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
Back in the 1980s, the city acquired the property between 59th and 60th
Streets and Fourth and Third Avenues to build a new school -- two new
schools, in fact, P.S. 503 and P.S. 506. In this photo, discovered in the files of
this newspaper, the demolition of some of the small buildings that previously
occupied that lot -- at some unspecified time -- is depicted, as is a very different
period of time. Note the graffiti and the old car, which firmly ground the
photo in decades past.
Compiled by Helen Klein
MARKING THE CENTENNIAL OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
Walking out of the voting booth last Tuesday,
I was handed a new “I Voted” sticker celebrating
the 100th anniversary of women’s
suffrage.
New York State has long been a national
leader in the advancement of
women’s equality. The Seneca Falls
Convention of 1848 – the nation’s
first to address women’s rights
– was organized by leading suffragists
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Lucretia Mott and set in motion a
decades-long push toward women’s
suffrage. On November 6, 1917, New
York legalized women’s suffrage.
Now, as we celebrate the centennial of women’s
suffrage here in New York, we are not only reminded
of what it took to get here, but also how far
we still must go to achieve full women’s equality.
Today, safeguarding women’s rights is more
important than ever, and the Assembly majority
remains committed to doing just that. Unbelievably,
women still earn less than men and face
many challenges in the workforce. I am proud
of all the Assembly has done to protect women’s
rights and know that there is much left to be done.
As we look back on this historical milestone, we
would do well to honor the commitments of those
who fought for the right to vote and free elections
when we have the chance.
This past local election cycle had extremely
low turnout with less than 15
percent of the population of the five
boroughs casting a ballot. We can all
agree that there are needed reforms
to our electoral process to make it easier
for citizens to vote but many simply
choose to stay home.
When you look back on the sacrifice
of those who came before us,
that is a shame. The right to vote is a
shining example to the world of what democracy
means and why it is so important.
Voting is one of the strongest, most direct ways
we can effect change. It is our chance to influence,
inspire, make our voices heard and hold our leaders
accountable.
As always, my door is open. If you have questions
about this or any other community issue,
please feel free to contact me at 718-236-1764 or
via email at abbatep@nyassembly.gov.
Assemblymember Peter Abbate represents the
49th A.D. in Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Dyker
Heights and Boro Park.