By Assemblywoman Grace Meng On Tuesday, I joined with my colleagues in the State Assembly in voting to raise New York State’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50. I voted for and co-sponsored this bill because it will have a tremendous positive impact on the lives of working families here in Queens and throughout New York. [...]
As the nation celebrates National Teacher Appreciation Week, we need to definitely show our appreciation for all teachers across the United States. Teachers work extremely hard under a myriad of conditions, ranging from overcrowded classrooms, to dealing with discipline problems, lack of instructional materials, sometimes difficult parents and sometimes unsupportive administrators and supervisors. Also, teachers [...]
Ok, so no tax increases, more city funding for education and no cuts to the NYPD are some of the positives of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Fiscal Year 2013 Executive Budget. Ready for the negatives? Cuts to the FDNY, cultural institutions and libraries — and fewer funds for after-school and day care programs. So it’s two [...]
By Vincent S. Castellano On March 13, Community Board 14 in Rockaway unanimously voted to re-open the old LIRR line between Aqueduct and Queens Blvd. This line has been closed so long, most people don’t even know it exists. Yet it is the key to the future of mass transit in Queens. Many people [...]
BY Jane Hall-Alston The cost of health care has exploded in the last 40 years. In 1950, five cents of every dollar earned went to health care; in 2010 health care consumed 17 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). If this rate continues, in 70 years health care will consume 40 percent of the [...]
Though nothing will bring him back, we hope that George Gibbons’ family can sleep a little easier at night knowing that the man responsible for his death will face the maximum sentence allowed under the law. It was last October that Gibbons, 37, was killed heading home from work when the livery cab he was [...]
By Bob Friedrich On Thursday, April 12 at North Shore Towers, more than 900 angry co-op & condo owners assembled at a Town Hall meeting organized by the Presidents Co-op & Condo Council (PCCC). It was the largest such gathering ever held in Queens. The demand was simple: fairness and equity in how their property [...]
By Thomas M. Long & Herbert W. Stupp The Jamaica Bay area has a number of public works named for notable New Yorkers who merit our remembrance. There is the bridge named for former Congressmember Joseph Addabbo, the Marine Park Bridge named for Mets and Dodgers hero Gil Hodges, and Floyd Bennett Field, which honors [...]
Protect our protectors Why is it that in only four months, eight — EIGHT — police officers have been shot in our city? Though most have been lucky enough to escape serious injury, the fact remains that more needs to be done to protect our protectors. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that, “All the shootings have [...]
Just when we thought Peninsula Hospital had gotten the life-saving CPR it needed, it seems the facility is once again flatlining. Late last month, the hospital was barred from accepting new patients after the State Department of Health (DOH) shut down the lab. Reportedly, there was expired blood plasma and staffers handling samples were not [...]
