Between The Groins — How Ya Doin’ Mr. Mayor?

Posted on March 5, 2015 by John Cori in Between the Groins, Columns 

So there has been a buzz about a rumor this week that I first saw in a post on Facebook(FB) by way of the Rockaway Times FB page. In the post it was noted that, according to Katie Honan of DNAInfo, The Mayor of the City of New York, will be marching in The Rockaway Peninsula’s very own St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Saturday.
My first thought was, excellent! What a great opportunity to give this guy a good old piece of our collective Rockaway minds.  BUT HOW?!?!
After The Rockaway Times Post on FB about the Mayor marching, there was a question posted on the Rockaway Beach FB page. The post was by Matthew Long. His post was simple “To boo or not to boo?” That was his question!
To boo or not to boo? That IS the question!

Matthew Long’s simple question definitely set Facebook on fire. There were many creative answers from the very opinionated Rockaway people: turning our backs to him, building a float of a ferry and follow The Mayor with it (great idea Joanne Smith), booing at the top of our lungs, to simple signs, sending him and the media a very clear message.

Like I said, this is an excellent opportunity to let Mayor de Blasio know how we feel. Yet it is one thing to tell him HOW we feel, but I think it is much more important to let him know WHY we feel the way we do.  We need to send him a clear message about what is ailing us:  He needs to know that Build it Back is a failure under his administration!  He needs to know what a debacle the rebuilding of our boardwalk is!  He needs to know we refuse to accept his suspension of the ferry!!  He needs to know about the failure to rebuild our PARKway along Shore Front!  He needs to be reminded that we have a lack of quality healthcare.  He needs to hear about our crumbling Bay wall along the entire peninsula!  That our library is still shuttered, closed since hurricane Sandy!  That there is a completely unfair and disproportionate level of social welfare programs on our peninsula!  And he needs to hear about the lack of quality jobs!

And WE NEED ROCK JETTIES!!!!!

Insert your message here (                 ) !

Of course there are plenty of things we can tell the Mayor we are happy about as well:  The NYPD is great!  The FDNY is great!  NYC Sanitation is great!  NYC teachers are great!  And so on!!!

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this!  MAKE SIGNS!!
Make thousands of signs!!!

We can yell and scream all we want. But a clear POLITE message on a sign will surely be seen and heard loud and clear by the Mayor and The Media.  We should not act the way they treat us!

To boo or not to boo?  I say not to boo!   If we have to use our voice, perhaps a simple chant of:  ROCKAWAY LIVES MATTER, will grab his attention!!