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Storm A lb a n yO n Fee H ikeBY JOHN BLACKMOREPHOENIX, Page ThreeBrooklyn Waterfront (Bruce Drake Photo)Nix Red Hook PlanCuite To O K B o ardsatisfactory. The committee is pushing for the development of the containerport in the old %u201cgrain area,%u201d on the outer edges of Red Hook. The group feels that this site is preferable because no families or businesses would have to be relocated, there would be no traffic congestion, and that the cost of the development would be less for many reasons.The Coalition for An Effective Environmental Control Board, headed by Brooklyn Heights resident Ann Singer, have made repeated phone calls to Councilman Cuite%u2019s office urging him to send the Mayor%u2019s ECB civilian nominations to the Rules Committee for approval, but so far the powerful majority leader hasn%u2019t taken any action.The day care fee hikes proposed last month by Abe Lavine, State Commissioner of Social Services, has caused a great stir among working mothers throughout the city. On Tuesday, 1500 working mothers stormed Albany%u2019s expensive new legislative offices to demand a remedy to the inevitable day care crisis that would be caused by the fee hike and new eligibility requirements.The principle at stake is basic to the very concept of day care. If day care were no longer available to working parents because of prohibitive fees, many parents of pre-school children would no longer be able to continue at their jobs, and possibly have to resort to welfare. The family%u2019s ability of self-support is at issue, as well as %u2022 an incentive for welfare parents to seek employment.The program has burgeoned in the past few years, with 30,000 children regularly attending daycare centers in Brooklyn alone. It is estimated that of the 14,000 families taking advantage of day care facilities in Brooklyn, more than half involve working mothers who would not otherwise be able to hold down a job.Tuesday%u2019s trip to Albany was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Committee to Save Our Children, a federation of activist groups concerned with the impending state proposals to increase day care fees. At the rally in Albany, the group heard from legislators sympathetic to their cause. These included Sen. Carol Bellamy and Assemblyman Mike Pesce ofKings County GOP Chairman George L. Clark Jr. has announced that the annual Lincoln Day Dinner Dance of the Republican County Committee will honor retiring County Secretary Anthony N. Durso. Mr. Durso, who is also the County Clerk of Kings, is retiring after 22 years of service. He will remain in his position as County Clerk.Clark said that the dinner will be %u201ca long overdue tribute to a man who has been a devoted servant of our party for the past 22 years. HeBrooklyn, who advised the group to lobby at the legislative offices. For the rest of the day, different groups of parents met, or tried to meet, with various legislators and state officials, many of whom were evasive and noncommittal about the day care issue.The parents plan to continue pressuring the legislators until they take a definitive stand. Assemblyman Wright of Brooklyn, who has worked with the committee and acted as host to the working parents, pledged to keep the group informed.The fee hike and changes in eligibility proposed last month would not affect welfare recipients to whom day care would continue to be available on a no-charge basis. However, fees for working parents would greatly increase on a progressive scale, so that a family earning $3,500 would pay $3.80 per week, those earning $5,500 would pay $42 per week and families with* one child earning more than $7,500 would not be eligible for day care, thus making it prohibitively expensive and forcing some of them onto welfare, the parents say.Although the state recently promised an extra $15-million in aid to New York City to permit families presently in the program to continue, the working parents say this is not only a stall, but also prevents new families from entering the program.%u201cThe main effect of Tuesday%u2019s action was that we really kept the legislators running. Many were uninformed about the issue, but that won%u2019t remain for long,\participant Mary Stanton. Lizhas been a great help to me in tlietransition period after my election as county chairman.%u201dMr. Durso has served as the County Clerk of Kings County since 1968, succeeding the late Robert J. Crews. Previously he had served as the Chief Clerk of the Surrogate Court and as Deputy Boxing Commissioner. Mr. Durso is a member of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. He is the Deputy Chief Mayor of the Community Mayors of New York. Mr. Durso is married and the father of four childrenIra Levine, president of the South Brooklyn Development Council, publicly opposed plans for the Red Hook Containerport this morning at the Board of Estimate meeting. Joining Levine in opposition to the plan was Bernard Carlson, chairman of the Committee to Save Red Hook.An amended plan for the Red Hook Containerport was approvedEnvironmentalistsThe Coalition for An Effective Environmental Control Board, which is comprised of members of 10 New York City environmental groups, recently charged that City Council Majority Leader Thomas Cuite is responsible for the present New York City pollution disaster, because he has not yet acted on Mayor Lindsay%u2019s nominations to fill the city%u2019s Environmental Control Board.%u201cThomas Cuite is clearly the individual whose lack of action and-or concern for the past seven weeks has allowed more than 500 cases to pile up at the ECB (Environmental Control Board), which, even when functioning, is always hindered by considerable backlog,%u201d the group charged.The ECB was established when the City Council passed a revisedin December by the City Planning Commission. This plan calls for an internal road and rail network designed to keep heavy traffic off local streets and a new park to be developed as part of the project in the Ferry Point Triangle Area.The Committee to Save Red Hook, a group representing 16 civic groups and churches in the area, says the amended plans are notCharge Delay:air pollution code more than a year ago. Five city officials and four civilians are to sit on the board, but the civilian nominations have never been approved. When the new Noise Control Code became effective Oct. 12, it required signatures from at least five ECB members, including two of the civilians, for final action, and effectively put the ECB out of business.EDITOR%u2019S NOTE: A City Hall spokesman said Tuesday that what the Coalition for an Effective Control Board termed inaction by Cuite was actually a delay caused by the Brooklyn Councilman%u2019s special concern to fill the board with well-qualified individuals. Cuite has made sure, thespokesman said, that each of the Mayor%u2019s nominees were interviewed personally.The spokesman advised that only one interview remained and that City Council would probably act at its next meeting which will be heldTuesday.Continued on P age 10Tribute to DursoMAN IN MALL-LAND W OM AN IN MALL-LANDFacingBY CORRINE COLEMANEntering the colder climate of Albany two days after New Year%u2019s 1973, freshman Assemblyman Mike Pesce, who downed the Democratic regulars in the %u201972 state election battle, encountered a variety of icy barriers along with some possibilities of local thaws.Gov. Rockefeller%u2019s %u201cscary%u201d getiough-with-drug-pushers program was the central chilling factor onii%u2014 J - , . . i t , - . 4 m> /%u2022 _i*. * L . #__________UIQ UMJ U lU i JL c o v e LCIL UIC U C C liCout of the reform caucus and entered his office in the cold marble %u201cwaste%u201d of the new Legislative Office Building, known as LOB.%u201cAndy Stein got a lulu and the reform caucus got screwed,%u201d the new assemblyman from South Brooklyn%u2019s 52 A.D. said, explaining that the appointment of Manhattan%u2019s Upper West Side representative as supervisor of variousAlthough there were no inkes nr direct references made about theLOBcommittees (%u2019%u2019for which he gets the extra pay that he least of all needs%u201d) will insure control against reform breakthrough.Asserting that he, like everyone else, is concerned about the narcotics problem and the crime stemming therefrom, Pesce nevertheless is aghast at the %u201charshness%u201d of the governor%u2019s proposals. Noting the change in composition of the U S. Supreme Court, he feels that after some negotiation aNd compromise, the essence of the program %u2014 life sentences for hard drug pushers over the age'of 19 %u2014 will be upheld. %u201cThe end product will be destructive. Rockefeller is turning to an approach of prosecution and punishment three years after his famous program of treatment for which close to a billion dollars has been spent. So we go from one endContinued on P age 10 M ike PesceS paced O ut%u201cIt%u2019s like telling your mother about your first day in kindergarten,%u201d State Senator Carol Bellamy said, trying to explain her impressions of her first day in Albany as a legislator. %u201cWe spent an hour-and-a-half picking our seats%u2014by far the most strenuous activity of the day.%u201dThe young Brooklyn senator, one of three women sworn in as state senator last Wednesday, said it toon longer to nna an otnee. \assigned me an office,%u201d she said, %u201cand we got over there and found a Republican already ensconced.%u201cI spent the next two hours finding out whether we had gone to the right room,%u201d she continued. %u201cI found out the Republican wasn%u2019t authorized, so I sent my secretary over there the next day. He still wouldn%u2019t leave, so she just squatted in his office and refused to leave.%u201d%u201cIt was a great show of power on my part,%u201d Bellamy said, grinning. %u201cIt only took two days to get a room.%u201dPrior to the legislature%u2019s formal opening at noon, the senator said she attended a press conference about the war. %u201cI wore a black armband, but it kept falling off, %u201d she said.Not all of her impressions were filled with humorous anecdotes of naivete. The senator said that she didn't applaud Gov. Rockefellers State of the State message, although most of her colleagues did. Regarding the governor%u2019s plan to crack down on hard drug pushers, the senator said, %u201cHe advocated more drastic measures than are necessary, especially for youthful offenders.%u201dContinued on P ag e eBY KITTY TERJEN

