Broad Channel Civic Association Meeting Tonight

BROAD CHANNEL CIVIC ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER FOR MAY

                   CIVIC ASSOCIATION MEETING

        ***** American Legion Hall – Crossbay Blvd. – 7:00 PM *****

                               May 22, 2014

President’s Message 

The Civic Meeting for May will take place on Thursday, May 22nd at 7 pm and we will be holding this meeting at the American Legion. The main presentation will be on the Build It Back Program and we will have the new director, Amy Peterson, on hand to discuss changes she has made to the program and for a question and answer session. All residents who have enrolled in this program are encouraged to attend as there have been numerous changes to the program and they will be discussed in detail at the meeting. The Broad Channel Civic Association has been leading the discussion over the last 6 months of the many problems with this program. Lost paperwork, changing priority status, incorrect home assessment's and uniformed staff are all problems that have plagued this program resulting in a backlash that led to city council oversight hearings. This Civic Association testified at that hearing and has had numerous conversations with our elected officials regarding the deficiencies mentioned. Thanks to the support of these officials, we believe we are finally starting to see the changes this program needs. Amy Peterson has been extremely responsive and it is critical to have additional issues and problems identified and to that end that is the purpose of having her come to this Civic meeting and listen to our residents and hopefully use this feedback to shape the policy of this program.

Crossbay Boulevard is going to be repaved within the next month according to NYC DDC. The Boulevard will be milled down and repaved with some curbs and sidewalks replaced as well. DDC has spray painted the curb/sidewalk replacement areas throughout the town. A last minute problem arose when DDC decided to scale back the replacement of the marked sidewalks to only replacing 25% of those initially marked. I want to thank Assemblyman Goldfeder for intervening and for arranging an onsite meeting with DDC and the Broad Channel Civic where DDC reversed this decision and agreed to replace all of the sidewalks and curbs that were originally identified as damaged and in need of replacement. The Civic Association expressed concern on the time frame for this project as we are approaching the summer months and traffic will be increasing and we have been assured that it will be expedited and completed by July 1st. We are concerned about initiating any delays as there is always the possibility the funding can be re-directed. The Boulevard is a mess with potholes and depressions and the paving will be a nice makeover for the town as well as relieve vibration noises currently experienced by residents living on the Boulevard.

Broad Channel Beautification Day was a great success with dozens of residents turning out to clean up and plant the center mall. Big shout out to Judy Zackiewicz and her daughter Jenna for organizing this day and for all of their work of building and installing the Tree Pits Planters! Also big thanks to the Vollie's for donating their time and apparatus to water all of the trees and plants! The mall looks great and just in time for the summer traffic to see and understand the kind of residents that we have here in this town.

The Street raising project for West 11th, 12th and 13th Roads is on schedule according to the presentation put forth at the last Civic meeting. The first phase of this will occur when the striping marks along the mall will be removed and repainted with new signage to indicate that residents can park in this area. This is a temporary parking area that will be for the use of the residents of those blocks under construction to allow for them to have parking when there is construction that creates the loss of parking on those blocks and residents are asked to try to leave that parking available for the affected residents. The Project will see the first major construction start in sometime in June with the bulkhead and cofferdam work at the ends of the blocks. I want to thank Councilman Ulrich for hosting a meeting in his office between the Civic and Con Edison to discuss the relocation of the Con Ed poles during this construction. This issue has threatened to delay or slowdown the project and the councilman's involvement has led to progress on this issue. We will be attending an additional meeting that he has planned to finally resolve this problem and to hear back from Con Ed as to the proposals that were put forward. Additionally the Civic Association has been in contact with Fern Weinreich who is now the designated community liaison for the street raising project who has indicated that DDC will have a liaison staff office on West 12th Road throughout the project to address community concerns. Fran will be at the next Civic meeting to introduce herself as well.

Quote of the Month --" Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."-----Buddha

Respectfully submitted,
Dan Mundy Jr.