There’s quite an intense race in Brooklyn’s 8th congressional district (which includes Fort Greene, Bed Stuy, Prospect Heights and East New York) going on. Turnout will be the key to who wins.

City Council Member Charles Barron and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries are duking out it out. Last week, Charles Barron got a toxic endorsement from David Duke, a former KKK Grand Wizard and fervent anti-semite.

And what a great reason to vote for Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who is running for congress in the 8th congressional district against City Council Member Charles Barron for Ed Towns’ congressional seat. Not that you need a reason to vote for Jeffries, who is a good guy.

City Council Member Brad Lander has worked closely with Jeffries on issues including affordable housing, creating good jobs, and building stronger neighborhoods. “He’s great at bringing people together to make real and concrete change. He’s going to be a fantastic Congressman. I hope you can support him if you live in Prospect Heights, East New York, Bed Stuy, or one of the other neighborhoods in the district,” writes Lander in an email.

According to the Daily News: 

The battle for a Brooklyn Congressional seat will likely hinge on one neighborhood in the sprawling and diverse new district- Bedford-Stuyvesant, political insiders say.

With record low turnout expected for the June 26 Demoratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Ed Towns, controversial City Councilman Charles Barron upstart and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries have flooded Bed-Stuy with campaign literature and door to door visits in recent weeks, residents say.

“It’s the Ohio of the district,” a Jeffries campaign staffer said, referring to the perennial swing state in Presidential elections.

While each candidate has carved out sections of strong support in the recently redrawn 8th Congressional district, neither one currently represents more than small enclaves of Bedford-Stuyvesant, long seen as a must win area for any black pol. As many as 9,000 votes are up for grabs based on prior turnout.

Here’s the way I am voting on Tuesday, June 26th in the democratic primary: Turns out I’m in the 9th congressional district and not the 7th. So I voted for Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. That was a no-brainer. Now if I can just keep my congressional districts straight.

For  congress in the newly redrawn 7th district I am voting for Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, the incumbent, because she’s been doing a good job for twenty years and she cares about health care, education and transit. According to Brad Lander, “she led the successful effort to get the Gowanus Canal declared a Superfund site, which will bring hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up the Canal in the decade to come.”

It’s a race to watch because she’s being opposed by Dan O’Connor, City Council Member Erik Marin Dilan and George Martinez (the Occupy Wall Street candidate).  Interesting candidates all.

But Nydia’s the one I’m going for this time.

Here’s a nice picture of City Council Member Steve Levin drinking a Coca Cola at the First Annual North Brooklyn Boat Club Summer Solstice party last night.

Steve’s a very good guy. He represents parts of Park Slope; he shares Park Slope with Council Member Brad Lander.

Yes, he’s as young as he looks. I don’t think he’s still in his twenties but he’s probably just this side of thirty.

He grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and came to Brooklyn to work as a community organizer after he graduated from Brown University.

He ran a  Lead Safe House program and an Anti-Predatory lending program, both based in Bushwick. In 2006, Stephen became Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Vito Lopez. IN November 2009, Stephen was elected to represent the 33rd District of Brooklyn, which covers Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, and Vinegar Hill

I remember that election very well. You can read my Breakfast of Candidates  interview with Steve Levin here.

North Brooklyn is part of Steve’s district, and the North Brooklyn Boat Club is a very happening thing in that neck of the woods.

Read this honest assessment of the new construction and negligible planning on Fourth Avenue by Robbie Whelan in the Wall Street Journal.

How did this happen in a neighborhood that fought like hell (and failed) to prevent the Atlantic Yards project, freaks out about a Barnes and Noble going in on Seventh Avenue, and cares about landmarking and all the rest. I hope Whalen is wrong when he states bracingly: “Brooklyn is going to be stuck for decades with this depressing wasteland of cheap materials and designs.”

The optimist in me hopes that good minds (hello Brad Lander, Steve Levin, Park Slope Civic Council, Park Slope Neighbors) are working on ways to FIX what’s wrong with Fourth Avenue. The zoning was screwed. No one was mandated to put storefronts on the Fourth Avenue side of their ugly high rise apartment buildings. Hence, it is an avenue with little or no street life. Thank goodness for the businesses that have set up shop there. The blocks between Union and President have some street life going on (Oxaca, Mission Delores, Rock Shop, Root Hill, an eyeglass store a wine shop). And between 2nd and 3rd Streets there’s Two Moon Art House and Cafe.

There needs to be more and much in the way of amenable city planning or organic and artistic development. Is that even possible anymore?

Here’s an excerpt:

Just as great architecture can lift the spirit, bad architecture can crush it.

In few parts of New York is this more the case than with the rash of new apartment buildings along Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue, the six-lane street that runs south from Atlantic Terminal and cleaves Park Slope from Gowanus. Because of bad decisions by Amanda Burden’s City Planning Department and the profit-above-all-else motive of some developers, Brooklyn is going to be stuck for decades with this depressing wasteland of cheap materials and designs.

Just how bad is Fourth Avenue? Consider the latest addition, a 12-story rental apartment building ..

Brad Lander, one of Park Slope’s City Council Members (yes, we have two, two City Council Members), has proposed legislation to add oversight to the NYPD in light of the Stop and Frisk controversy. A couple of days ago, he introduced legislation, along with Councilmember Jumaane Williams and 22 of his colleagues, to create an Inspector General for the NYPD. It sounds very Gilbert and Sullivan but it also sounds like a very good idea.

You can read about the new bill in the New York Times. Bur first read what Lander had to say about this effort on his blog.

We live in the greatest city in the world, so it’s not often that I find myself wishing that we had something that exists in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, but not here in New York. All of these cities have independent oversight for their police departments – which means there is someone whose job is to ensure that the police department’s operations are effective, efficient, and protect our civil liberties.

With good oversight, people are more likely to follow the rules. Taxpayers can be more confident their money is well spent. Rights are more likely to be respected. Communities are more likely to build relationships of trust.

Without meaningful, independent oversight, problems grow and fester. Rules are broken. Pressure from the top outweighs what’s right. Money is wasted. People take shortcuts with the truth. Our civil liberties are less likely to be protected. Agency morale suffers. The bonds of trust between the police and communities around the city are frayed. Policing becomes less effective. We need to stop this trend.

There was a panel with NYC Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, City Councilmember Brad Lander and others at Congregation Beth Elohim last night about the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy and improving relations between the police and the community.

I wasn’t there. Were you? Via Google I found this short You Tube video of Bill de Blasio speaking last night. City Councilman Brad Lander is sitting behind him.

Have a look.

Earlier this week City Councilmember Brad Lander visited the family of Leiby Kletsky, the 8-year-old Borough Park boy who was brutally murdered last week. He wrote about his experience with the family and it is on his website today. I was in Europe during this terrible tragedy and I knew nothing about it until I got back to New York on Sunday night. I was moved by Lander’s reflections on his visit with the family and am reprinting it here for those who haven’t had a chance to read it.

No words can ease or describe the grief, or heal the wounds, but — like so many people I’ve talked to — I’ve been thinking about it constantly for the past week, and wanted at least to write down some of what I’ve been feeling.

We were all heartbroken by the tragedy — especially those with close ties to the Borough Park and Kensington communities, or the Orthodox Jewish community, or those of us with young kids … but really all of us, beyond Brooklyn, beyond New York, beyond the Jewish community, beyond parents.  The killing reminded us that despite everything we do to keep our kids and each other safe, there are spaces of senseless terror, of incomprehensible evil.  That the things that are absolutely most dear and precious to us can be taken away in a heartbeat, for no reason at all.

At the shiva, after talking to his parents, I met one of Leiby’s neighbors, who talked to me about how Leiby would play ball with the little kids in his building, about how rare it is for an 8-year-old to play with 4-year-olds, about how he had a heart of gold, living up to his name (Leiby is from the Hebrew lev, for heart).

While neither words nor actions feel meaningful in the face of the tragedy, the response of the Orthodox Jewish community has been remarkable.  I’ve been deeply impressed over the past two years with the extraordinary voluntary (chesed) organizations and efforts in the community, for so many causes — taking care of sick families, helping kids go to summer camp, providing social and health and mental health services, and so many others.  The past week showed that like no other.

Continue reading Brad Lander’s Shiva Visit to Leiby Kletsky’s Family →

Mayor Bloomberg has proposed closing 20 firehouses and 8 of them are in Brooklyn, including Engine Company 220, located at 530 11th Street in Park Slope.

The community is fighting it and there’s a demonstration this morning.

Join Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Councilmember Brad Lander, Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley  and Borough President Marty Markowitz will join Park Slope and Windsor Terrace residents THIS morning to rally against the closure. If the Bloomberg Administration is allowed to proceed with this closure, response times at fires will increase dramatically for Park Slope and Windsor Terrace residents. Arrival of the second engine necessary to get water on the fire would rise from 4:08 to 5:24 (a 30% increase). The elected officials and residents will call on the Mayor to explore other savings or revenue options, rather than seeking to save $55 million by putting lives at risk.

WHEN: Wednesday, May 25 at 11am
WHERE: Engine Company 220, 530 11th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
WHAT: Rally and press conference
WHO: Residents of Park Slope and Windsor Terrace, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Councilmember Brad Lander, Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy, Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Al Hagan

Now the Mayor wants to grade the cleanliness of city streets. First restaurants, now this. Council Member Brad Lander, who’s district includes Park Slope, Boro Park, Kensington, Gowanus and Carroll Gardens thinks it a good thing. He was  pleased that Speaker Quinn announced today (in her State of the City address) that she intends to move forward on a bill he introduced last year:  Intro 287 which would require the Department of Sanitation to reduce alternate side parking to once a week per side in Community Board subdivisions that achieve cleanliness ratings of 90% or above on Mayor’s Office of Operation’s “Scorecard.”

Good street score = Less alternate side of the street parking. Okay. Here from Lander himself:

Author Calvin Trillin once joked that “You can park your car on the streets of New York, or you can have a full-time job — but you can’t possibly do both.”  Unfortunately, for too many New Yorkers, this is all too close to reality.  By allowing communities to reduce alternate side parking to one day per week, this legislation can minimize the sense of dread that that all drivers feel on a day when alternate side parking is in effect. It will also reduce unnecessary car trips, thereby decreasing air pollution, since in many neighborhoods a good portion of the daily traffic consists of people looking for parking.

This proposed legislation builds on the success and leadership of my own community board, CB6 in Brooklyn, whose district manager Craig Hammerman has helped to lead the way on this issue.  And I look forward to working with Councilmember Sara Gonzalez and CB7 in Brooklyn — who have been keeping their streets clean and patiently requesting the same treatment for years — and other Councilmembers and Community Boards around the city.

I am proud to be a supporter of a more livable and sustainable city for users of all modes of transportation.  This legislation is an important part of broader efforts to make our streets and our city work better not only for drivers, but also straphangers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Here is City Council Member Brad Lander’s letter to Governor Cuomo about his decision to delay grants to LICH putting the hospital’s survival in jeopardy.

The Park Slope Interfaith Social Justice Network is newly formed organizations, which includes Old First Reformed Church, Congregation Beth Elohim, Kolot Chayeinu, St. Augustine Roman Catholic, Church, Greenwood Baptist Church and The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture.

Other congregations (and individuals outside congregations) are welcome to join!

The group is having its first community event sponsored by Brad Lander on Monday, January 31st at Old First Dutch Reformed Church 729 Carroll Street at Seventh Avenue.

At 7PM, there’s a potluck dinner. Participants are asked to bring a dish to share as well canned or dried goods as a donation to the food pantry at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church.

At 7:30PM, there will be a discussion about homelessness in New York City with a representative from Coalition for the Homeless and CAMBA. Conversation points to include: Where do we stand? What can we do to combat homelessness? What can we do to help out?

You can RSVP for this event here.

Monday night is also the HOPE Count, the annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE), sponsored by the NYC Department of Homeless Services.

In this event, NYC DHS and volunteers canvass parks, subways, and other public spaces to count the number of
people living without shelter in New York City. You can register for this event here.

The Hope Count begins at 10:30 PM.

Tonight at 6:30 PM: There’s a Community Conference Call with Brad Lander to review his annual report on his office’s 2010 accomplishments.

I want to encourage you to join me and my staff for the conference call we are hosting to review my annual report on our 2010 accomplishments this evening at 6:30.

To RSVP for the conference call click here, and we will send you all the information you need. You can RSVP right up until the last minute this evening.

As EVERYONE knows by now, north-bound F/G-train platforms at the 15th St. and Ft. Hamilton Parkway stations will be closed for the next 5 months (with south-bound closures to follow afterward).

No one denies that  major track work on the F local tracks is necessary but F/G train users and losers believe that the MTA should provide service alternatives.

Many want the MTA to extend  B68 bus (which runs along Prospect Park Southwest and Coney Island Avenue) past its usual terminus at Bartel Pritchard Square (at the 15th St/PPSW Station), to 9th St and 8th Ave, where riders could pick up the F train.  Brad Lander has set up a petition and urges straphangers to demonstrate their support.

Already 1000 F/G subway riders have signed a petition for better transit alternatives.

If you are interested you can sign a petition to the MTA for better service alternatives.

City Council Member Brad Lander has just released his annual report to the community. The report is broken down by issue, and by the various neighborhoods in the district and you can read it here. There is going to be a conversation about the report, some of the issues it raises, and where things are headed in 2011 on Thursday, January 27 at 6:30 PM. The public is invited to participate via community conference call. You can RSVP for that here. In the introduction he writes:

As a deep believer in democratic accountability, I believe it is essential toreport back to the community.One year into my tenure in the City Council,I’m pleased to share this first annual report onsome of what we accomplished in 2010, what we learned, and what we’re hoping to do inthe year to come.

Last night the Panel for Educational Policy, which consists of 13 appointed members and Chancellor Cathie Black, voted to locate Millennium Brooklyn High School inside the John Jay High School Complex making it the fourth high school in that large Seventh Avenue building in Park Slope. Prior to the vote there was a four-hour public hearing at Brooklyn Tech. From reports on Park Slope Patch, it sounds like the public hearing, attended by staff, students and other supporters of the schools within the John Jay Complex, was similar  to the public hearing at the John Jay Complex last week.

There has been much controversy surrounding the way the Department of Education has handled the proposal to bring Millennium to Park Slope.  It was originally presented as a proposal but soon seemed a fait accompli after Lisa Gioe Cord, the principal who has been selected to run Millennium Brooklyn, told her current school that she would be leaving (to start the new school).

At a hearing last week at the John Jay Complex staff and students complained that the John Jay schools were  “set up to fail” when they were routinely denied funding for, among other things, improvements to the schools derelict building.

Others cried racism and “separate but unequal” treatment because the new school is set to be funded very generously by the Department of Education, as it is considered a selective school and part of the chancellor’s New School Initiative.

Assemblyman Jim Brennan told the crowd last week: “This proposal is an egregious insult to the existing schools. Don’t blame the demonstrators. Take Millennium and take it off the table right now…Strengthen and build what’s here before you. Before you do anything new, you must help those who are here.”

OPINION: What to many seemed like a fait accompli is now a reality. On the plus side, Millenium Brooklyn could be a “win by association” for the schools now in the complex in terms of much needed improvements (thought it is painfully obvious that this funding would never have happened without Millennium). What has been forgotten in all this is that Millennium Brooklyn has the potential to be an excellent new high school choice for Brooklyn students.

It is time to take a look at the recommendations presented by City Councilmember Brad Lander that he believes will be critical in helping to ease—and possibly heal—the tensions raised by bringing the new school into the building.

Insure safety with respect for all students by removing the metal detectors for the entire John Jay campus and developing a strong building-wide safety plan.

Commit to diversity at the John Jay campus by ensuring that the John Jay campus includes an ongoing mix of non-selective and selective options, and that the new school – and all schools there – work to reflect Brooklyn’s diversity, and serve English language learners and students with special needs.

Provide equitable and adequate resource investments across schools by implementing long-overdue building-wide improvements, and making sure that investments tied to these changes serve all the schools equally.

Conduct space planning in an equitable, transparent, inclusive manner, in consultation with all the principals.

Establish a “John Jay Campus Council” to build community among the schools, and partnerships with the broader community to help the schools succeed together, create shared spaces and institutions, fundraise, and connect to resources.

Seems that the MTA is playing hardball and will not provide shuttle buses to those left stranded without a subway station (Ft. Hamilton and 15th Street F trains stations) starting next week.

My friend just heard from City Councilman Brad Lander’s office. Lander met with BP Marty Markowitz, Jim Brennan and the MTA and they will not add shuttle buses or increase routes along the B61 at all.

They are adding  bike parking at Church and adding a B35 bus stop at the Church Street station. Neither solution does anything for anyone wanting to board at 15th Street or Fort Hamilton. Bad news.

Okay, you say. So those commuters have to walk to the 9th Street or Church Avenue stations. What’s the big deal? Or they should just get on the train going in the other direction to Church Avenue and then get on the Manhattan-bound trains from there.

Think again.

It’s really not the best solution for kids, for instance, who take the subway to schools in other parts of Brooklyn or Manhattan. A friend’s daughter takes the F train from 15th Street to Fourth Avenue and then switches to the R train there. The proposal would mean that she, at 12-years-old, should get on the train at 15th and take it out to Church Avenue (which is a bit of a trek on the tracks) and then cross over to the Manhattan bound tracks and get the F back in the right direction to Fourth Avenue.

This is a hardship for the people who rely on the 15th Street and Ft. Hamilton stations. This is a big inconvenience. This is a lot of extra time on the subway for students and other commuters.

Solution? Well, how about shuttle service. The commuters over there really want that so why is the MTA being so tight fisted about it. When you take away (albeit for much needed improvements) you gotta give something back.

Shuttle buses are what the commuters who use those stations want.

Last night at the public hearing about the DOE’s proposal to locate Millennium 2 in the John Jay Complex  on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, students, administrators, and teachers presented strong and passionate arguments about the Department of Education’s mishandling of the situation. In my opinion it is  clear that the DOE must listen closely to charges of racism, segregation and inequality (financial and otherwise) regarding the three schools that are already inside that building.

The overheated meeting last night, which took place in the overheated auditorium, exposed many serious issues that must be addressed by the DOE—and the Park Slope community. I think there is a radical disconnect between the community and the schools in the JJ complex, which serve, primarily, minority students. Few families from affluent and white Park Slope have opted to enroll in any of those school let alone tour through them to see what they’re about.

As expressed last night, the students at those schools feel like barely tolerated guests in the community, at best, and criminals at worst. Many students in their remarks pointed to the metal detectors and police presence at the school and outside of it.

According to many who spoke last night, the lack of diversity, the lack of funding, and the sense of separation from the community have created a segregated institution within a community that views itself as enlightened and progressive. The students who spoke truly understand this disconnect and they expressed how it’s left them feeling “other” and marginalized. Clearly, Park Slope locals have serious misunderstandings about what really goes on in the school building and they rarely venture inside to find out.

And then comes the proposal to locate Millennium as the 4th school inside those walls. With the schools’ history of DOE neglect no wonder it caused such a negative reaction (and explains the loud and sometimes disruptive environment last night). According to accounts, Millennium 2 was originally presented to the staff and students as a proposal by the DOE but soon it was clear that it was a fait accompli.

What was even more galling to the staff and students and many in the crowd last night was the huge amount of money that will be poured into this new school effort, funding that has been repeatedly denied the schools in that building.

Millennium 2 is part of the DOE’s coveted New Schools Initiative (it will be the 8th in that program) and money is no object for that program, which also brings in corporate funding for those “special” schools.

It seems that the sky’s the limit for Millennium 2 while the DOE claims poverty when it comes to improving the quality of life in the John Jay complex (improving ancient bathrooms, plumbing, bell systems, classrooms, windows, walls, etc.).

Even if the opening of Millennium 2 is ultimately a win-by-association for the other schools it is painfully obvious to the teachers and students that improvements to the building and the school would NEVER have happened unless a “Park Slope approved school” was going in there.

Over and over teachers and administrators made the following point: the schools in the JJ complex were set up to fail while Millennium 2 is being set up for success. And what’s the success formula: funding for the physical plant, funding for teachers, electives, guidance, after school activities and everything else that makes a good school good.

I agree with many who spoke that the  JJ building is an embarrassment and the fact that it exists within this supposedly enlightened neighborhood is even more of an embarrassment. Many in this neighborhood would never allow their children to attend a school with non-working bathrooms, no electrical outlets and general derelict condition. Why is that good enough for the children in our district who go there???

Last night was truly a moment of reckoning that was a long time coming. Issues that have been kept under cover for a long time came flowing out. Racism. Segregation. Class issues. Money for some, financial neglect for others. Better schools for the rich, inferior schools for the poor. Misunderstanding between community and school populations.

Albeit, the talk was mostly from the side of the schools in the John Jay Complex, who don’t want Millennium to be located in the building. Their counter-proposal is to invest in the schools that are already in there.

Representatives from the Secondary School of Research presented a list of demands they want addressed immediately, including the removal of the metal detectors which create a humiliating experience for the students and staff. A name change: Park Slope Collegiate instead of the John Jay Complex. And, of course, a long list of improvements to the building plus the restoration of the new school funding that those schools NEVER got.

A representative from Borough President Marty Markowitz’s office said that Markowitz will advocate for that list of demands (minus not putting Millennium 2 in the building).

Later Brad Lander spoke honestly to the crowd about their charges of racism and inequality. He has his own list of what needs to be done there including the elimination of the metal detectors, a new name for the complex, and renovation of the physical plant. He also proposed a community/school council for understanding and connection between school and Park Slope.

Representative Jim Brennan also spoke to the crowd with these strong words: “This proposal is an egregious insult to the existing schools. Don’t blame the demonstrators.. Take Millennium and take it off the table right now…Strengthen and build what’s here before you. Before you do anything new, you must help those who are here.”