Page 110 - Demo

Page Two, PHOENIXBUDGET ON BORO LEVEL: Brooklyn%u2019s BPSebastian Leone recently proposed that the city capital budget be transferred from the City Planning Commission to the Borough Improvement Boards. %u201c I suggest that a more meaningful draft of the budget could be prepared if it were done, in the first instance, on a borough level, after borough hearings were held, not by the City Planning Commission, but by the Borough Improvement Board, made up of the Borough President and members of the City Council in each borough,%u201d Leone said.LEONECHURCHWOMAN: Mrs. Adele Hester was elected President of the Church Women United in Brooklyn, Inc. and installed recently at the Lafayette Ave. Presbyterian Church. A member of the Greater Zion Shiloh Baptist Church, Mrs. Hester was secretary for six years and has been President of the Ladies Aide Society. She has three sons and lives in the downtown area of Brooklyn. Mrs. Hester is the second black woman to serve as President of the Church Women United in Brooklyn, Inc.GETS GRANT: A grant of $1,500 for development of microwave-controlled vehicle collision prevention systems has been made to Dr. Howard Boyet, professor of electrical engineering at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. In making the announcement, Dr. Nasser Sharify, chairman of the Pratt Institute Research Council and dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, noted that the development program stemmed from laboratory prototypes devised by Dr. Boyet and his students under a $475 Research Council grant in April 1972.FORMER AIDE: Louis R. Rosenthal, a 29-year-old lawyer and former legislative aide to former City Councilman Leonard Scholnick, has announced his entry in the Democratic Primary for the City Council seat now held on an interim basis by Frederick W. Richmond.Richmond AttacksHotels, City Budget}App rove Funds ForRed Hook SewerBY LYNNE GRIFOCouncilman Fred Richmond, in testimony given at a hearing held by Louis Lefkowitz on March 2, proposed a three-point plan for dealing with the problem of crime in single room occupancy hotels. In another action, Richmond, as a member of the Finance Committee of the City Council has issued a report on the 1973-74 Executive Capital Budget calling on the Council to reassert its powers of budgetary review and scrutinizeKudrrnf nfiscal year.The local councilman from the 18th District has proposed that the City Council pass legislation that would require sro hotels to lock all entrances, except the main lobby, after 9 p.m Owners would be forced to install modern %u2018 break away%u201d doors on their secondary exits. In addition, SRO hotel'swould be required to maintain a 24- hour switchboard and those with 500 or more rooms would have to install a television security system. Richmond is also the sponsor of Intro 1080, a Hotel Security Bill, seeks to force every city hotel to provide bonded security service 24 hours a day.In his report on the Capital Budget, Councilman Richmond has highlighted the fact that the present approach to the budget process is carried out in a %u2018%u2018haphazard manner (with) poor fiscal managemeni and baa planning.%u201d He feels that the Council has not exercised %u201c its mandated responsibilities under the City Charter...to sort out the legitimate from the non legitimate items.%u201dRichmond called upon his fellow councilmen to begin a thorough investigation of all lump sumContinued on Page 7BY CORRINE COLEMANWashington has come through at last with funds to begin the long awaited Red Hook Interceptor Sewer Plant, the project demanded for years by such Gowanus Canal cleanup advocates as Buddy Scotto, Eileen Dugan, Peter Drago, Ira Levine, and State Representatives Carol Bellamy and Mike Pesce.Approval of $11,035,500 to begin construction of the plant, to be built in the northwest corner of the former Brooklyn Navy Yard, was given by the federal Environmental Protection Administration late last week, and announced by Rep. John J. Rooney whose good offices were sought by the recently formed Gowanus Canal Redevelopment Committee.Pressure for construction of the treatment facility, the first stage in cleanup of the canal and the surrounding area, had been coming from the Ad Hoc Committee to Clean the Gowanus, headed by Eileen Dugan of Carroll Gardens, and culminated in a recent meeting at the Carroll Gardens Library which was attended by 300, including District Leader James Mangano and Councilman Thomas Cuite. The South Brooklyn community, already unified in its demand for immediate cleanup of the canal, became even more insistent when Professor Jeanne Holker of New York City Community College reported findings of %u201c phenomenal concentrations of salmonella, typhoid, baccilary dysentery and cholera organisms,%u201d in the sluggish waters.Formation of the M ayor%u2019 s Gowanus Redevelopment Committee, headed by . outgoing Chairman of the City Planning Commission, Donald H. Elliot of Brooklyn Heights, followed immediately. The new group which includes 31 public officials, legislators and community leaders like ' Dugan, Levine, Scotto, Mangano, Councilman Cuite, State Senator, Bellamy, State Assemblyman Pesce, City Water Resources Commissioner Martin Lang, and Congressman Hugh Carey and John Rooney, continued the push for the federal monies which had to be forthcoming before the March 1 deadline for such funding.First st%u00abp in cleaning canal.The allocation, which came through at the eleventh hour, will enable work on the plant to begin this spring, according to Commissioner Lang. The facility, which is slated to cost $300 million,STATEMENT BY ASSEMBLYMAN MICHAEL PESCE:I am very happy to see that local Democratic leaders have changed their position from supporting the filling in of the canal to the cleaning of it. I hope they will continue their efforts to develop the area in a manner that will benefit the residents of the whole South Brooklyn community by joining with the Ad Hoc Committee to Clean the Canal, which has done a fantastic job.I personally take great pleasure and pride in seeing the federal government locating the millions needed to initiate the cleaning of the canal. The deficit budget that was passed in the Assembly last week allocated $50 million to localities around the state to help them initiate waterContinued on Page 19will be utilized for treatment of the sewage that has until now been dumped raw to pollute the waterway and the harbor of New York, and will lead to eventual dredging and development of the Gowanus area.STATEM ENTS E N A TO RBELLAMY:BY STATE CARO LThe award of the federal funds that will make possible the immediate start of activity to clean up the Gowanus Canal is testimony to the crucial importance of an aroused community in getting government moving on obvious problems.This issue is literally decades old, but it wasn%u2019t until the pressure erf an organized community, through the Ad Hoc Committee, forced the city and state governments to act. Hundreds of people have been involved over the years in the fight to clean up the Gowanus Canal, and there will probably be hundreds more in the battle before we finally see results, but this grant to startContinued on Page IV%Historical Society FutureThreatened By TaxationTaxes may soon force one of New York City%u2019s oldest historical and cultural attractions to shut its doors, the Brooklyn Heights Association has revealed. %u201c The City of New York has taken away the tax exempt status of the Long Island Historical Society,%u201d said the Association, %u201c and by so doing threatens it with extinction.%u201dMore than a century old, the Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of the Long Island area and the families that have lived there. The City has levied $6,000 for the current year on the property of the Society at 128 Pierrepont St.To help New Yorkers better understand their past, the Society operates a library, a museum and gives lectures, seminars, slides shows, workshops and tours. It maintains collections of rare paintings, portraits, prints, manuscripts, maps and numerous other artifacts from Long Island%u2019s past and genealogical collection is one of the largest in the U.S. TheSociety does not receive any government support.%u201c The Society is concerned notonly with the past,%u201d said the Association, %u201c but also with the present and future. The Society is now a thriving cultural institution. If the City does not restorp taxexempt status, the people of LongFrancos Domains Phntoisland and the City will lose the services of one of the area%u2019s oldest, most useful and most renowned historical attractions.%u201dThe Association urged the public to help the Society regain tax exempt status by writing to the Tax Commission, 936 Municipal Building New York New 10007.