Surfing on Van Cortlandt Lake

Did you know that you can sit alongside Van Cortlandt Lake in Van Cortlandt Park and surf the Internet for free?

Few attend Department of Ed hearing

If public input was the goal of the second round of public hearings for the city Department of Education’s 2008-2009 Contracts for Excellence plan, last night’s meeting at John F. Kennedy High School fell far short.
The purpose of the hearings — with one scheduled in each borough this week — was to solicit public input on how to spend the proposed $242 million in discretionary funding and $76 million in targeted allocations from the state won through the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. But the Bronx meeting, which was set to begin at 6 p.m., started a half-hour late, and brought in zero parents, a few teachers and just a handful of United Federation of Teacher representatives.
“They have no interest whatsoever in getting people out,” Paul Egan, Community School District 11’s UFT representative, said.
Mr. Egan was referring to the meeting’s start time when he said many parents were still at work or commuting, as well as the location. While accessible to Riverdale parents — although none showed up — Kennedy, he said, was not convenient to many people in the Bronx.
Those who did attend had to go through a metal detector and then sit in an un-air-conditioned auditorium, with a fan that clanked loudly, making it hard to hear at times.
John White, chief operating officer in the Office of Portfolio Development at the Department of Ed, said, “It just so happens ... that the budgetary process takes place over summers,” something he admitted was unfortunate because it did not “jive” with school schedules. He said that during the first round of public hearings in June hundreds of people showed up.
Under the state law, the money must be spent at schools that show the highest need, such as those with high populations of non-English speakers, special education students and students from low-income families. Funds must also target six specific areas: class size reduction, time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle school and high school restructuring, full-day pre-kindergarten and model programs for English language learners.
Under the current proposed allocations, local schools like PS 7, in Kingsbridge, and the Sheila Mencher Van Cortlandt School, PS/MS 95, in Van Cortlandt Village, will receive roughly $254,000 and $657,000, respectively. In Riverdale, PS 24 is slated to receive $46,000; PS 81, $62,000; and MS/HS 141, $126,000.
The Department of Ed offers a full list of proposed allocations by school at its Web site.

Missing Kingsbridge man

New York City police are looking for Eric Flory, a 54-year-old Bailey Avenue resident, who was last seen around 11 a.m. yesterday at St. John’s Church, at 3021 Kingsbridge Ave.
Mr. Flory is white, stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 145 pounds, and was last seen wearing a lavender shirt, gray pants and black shoes.
Anyone with information on Mr. Flory’s whereabouts should call the NYPD’s Crimestoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.

Con Ed update

Con Edison sent out its weekly e-mail blast about construction in the area on Saturday morning. The work schedule on its Web site right now looks old, so here’s the info for this week and the projection for next week:

Weekly Update
Starting July 27 through Aug. 3:

Work schedule:
Monday to Friday, from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• West 225th Street, between Broadway and Kingsbridge Plaza (Pipe installation and restoration)
• Kingsbridge Plaza ramp (Excavation and pipe installation)
• West 230th Street, between Tibbett and Riverdale avenues (Excavation_

In the next two weeks, the utility company said it expects to work in the following areas:
1. Henry Hudson Service Road, between West 239th and 246th streets (Excavation and pipe installation)
2. Riverdale Avenue, from West 257th Street south to West 246th Street (Excavation and pipe installation)
3. Riverdale Avenue, between West 232nd Street and the Henry Hudson Parkway service road (Final restoration)

All schedules, the utility company notes, are subject to change.
For more information, questions and concerns, call 800-799-1083 or e-mail M29project@coned.com.

Carbon monoxide scare

Four construction workers in Riverdale were taken to Jacobi Medical Center today, after a malfunctioning gas-powered power washer leaked carbon monoxide, filling the building’s subbasement with the poisonous gas.
Local firefighters and Emergency Medical Service units responded to the scene at around 1:20 p.m., at 3220 Arlington Ave., the site of the Riverstone Apartments, Riverdale resident Howard Jonas’ high-rise apartment building still under construction.
Firefighters detected high levels of carbon monoxide on the sub-floor and smaller amounts on above-ground floors.
Forty-three workers were checked for carbon monoxide poisoning, of which seven showed symptoms. Symptoms can include shortness of breath, headaches and dizziness.
Four were taken to the hospital, while three others refused medical attentions, said Debbie Cali, deputy chief of the FDNY’s EMS unit.
Emergency crews remained on the scene to monitor the air.

Frack!

On Wednesday, Gov. David Paterson signed a law loosening regulations on natural gas drilling so companies in the race to tap New York’s unmined supply can make use of a technique some worry puts New York City’s drinking water at risk, The Albany Times-Union reports — and local activists aren’t happy about it.
Called “hydrofracking,” the practice involves drilling deep into the shale formations that trap the natural gas, and pumping a high-pressure stream of water and chemicals against the shale formation until it fractures. The fracture releases the gas, which is then drawn up the well.
For Anne Marie Garti of the Jerome Park Conservancy, this is a danger to the water and agriculture that comes to New York City from the Catskills, where gas companies are purchasing mining rights to drill into the Marcellus shell there with the speed and aplomb of 19th-century oil barons.
“There is a rush for natural gas going on in upstate [New York], and if it is allowed to proceed, it will have disastrous consequences on our water, air and food,” she wrote in a July 21 e-mail blast intended to drum up opposition to the bill before it was signed.
“The [state Department of Environmental Conservation] is telling everyone that there’s no problem. But NYS has no experience drilling in shale, which requires the use of massive amounts of water and a toxic mix of chemicals. Horizontal drilling for natural gas has had disastrous consequences out West,” she wrote later in the e-mail.
The Times-Union piece says that hydrofracking in New Mexico and Colorado has contaminated groundwater with hydrocarbons and toxic chemicals.
The bill was supposed to come with provisions to mitigate the impact of such drilling on the environment, but did not, according to The Times-Union. Instead, Paterson asked the DEC to update its drilling regulations, which have not been updated to create limits for the practice.

Down the toilet

While New York City gets ready to install a public toilet in Riverdale, the City of Seattle is selling all five public pay toilets it purchased in 2004.
Citing problems with prostitution and drug use occurring inside the public potties, the city flushed the $5 million pay-toilet program and is now selling all five on eBay through a distributor.
“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” homeless Seattle woman Veronyka Cordner told The New York Times about the public toilet that stood behind the Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”
You can now buy the very same Hering-Bau WCmatic Ms. Cordner claims to have visited when it came time to smoke rocks.
There are no bidders so far. The minimum bid is $89,000.
In light of this news, Community Board 8 traffic and transportation committee chairman Tony Cassino wants the city Department of Transportation to visit Riverdale and explain its plans for safety at the sanitation station.
“The advantage we have here is that it’s near a police station,” he said.

Living in squalor

State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr., who represents parts of Riverdale and Kingsbridge, released a video earlier this morning of a visit to the bug-ridden Tiebout Avenue apartment of a mother and daughter under the care of city Adult Protective Services:



“That was their job, to bring people in to clean their apartment. They never did it,”
Louella Hatch, neighbors of the 59-year-old mother and her 44-year-old daughter, said of APS in a phone interview today.

Sister Laurie Fitzgerald, who does homeless outreach with Highbridge Community Life Center, says she met the pair 10 days ago and has been attempting to help them get a guardian. APS, she says, was responsible for making sure their apartment was livable and that they were receiving their entitlements, including medical insurance, which they were not. They were also responsible for showing cause to appoint the family a guardian, but have not yet been able to do so.

The 44-year-old is diabetic and her mother, who is obese, is still responsible for her care, Sister Fitzgerald said.

Ms. Hatch and a staffer for Mr. Gonzalez say the landlord was extremely cooperative and willing to help the family find alternative housing. Mr. Gonzalez says he has contacted officials at APS and promises to investigate what went wrong in the family’s care.

The mother and daughter are currently receiving care at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Sister Fitzgerald said.

A spokesperson for APS could not immediately be reached for comment.

Before Rangel

Today The New York Times follows up on the Charles Rangel rent-stabilized controversy by taking a closer look at the practices of Mr. Rangel’s landlord, the Olnick Organization. The article says that while the owner of Lenox Terrace, the building where Mr. Rangel resides, has turned a blind eye to rent stabilization laws when it comes to its high-profile tenants, “For other residents, however, the owner has a different posture: aggressively enforcing even arcane provisions of the regulations, threatening costly court battles to drive tenants from their rent-stabilized homes, and using other tactics that some housing advocates describe as harassment.”
Nearly a year ago, several residents of the sprawling Century building, at 2600 Netherland Ave., call The Press and lodged the same complaints about their landlord, the Olnick Organization. Their stories were documented in a front-page story that appeared in the Aug. 16, 2007 issue.
Olnick, it appears, has a big stake in Riverdale. The management company also owns the Winston Churchill on Johnson Avenue and the Whitehall building on Henry Hudson Parkway.