Page 99 - Demo

School Board Hopefuls Rush In;Parents Plan Say in May 1 VoteRV PORRIMF! TOI FMAVAfter weeks of hesitancy, of hovering on the brink, contenders for the nine-person District 15 Community School Board are coming on in with their announcements of candidacy for the May 1 elections %u2014%u25a0 the second time around under the decentralized New York City school system.Thus far, 16 new candidates from the South Brooklyn community have picked up the petitions issued last week and are filling them up with the 200 signatures needed to place them at stage two of the complicated race. By April 3, thePeter Dragolast date for petition filing, the process of slate choosing should be completed, and those of the newcomers chosen by what is planned as a district parentpoverty group coalition will have some chance of defeating the seven current board members running again. (Of the original nine, one has been removed and the other, George Harris, is not running this time).Those of the new candidates not chosen in the above manner can of course continue in the race, but they will have little chance of victory if the campaign outlined by Ann Marona, president of the district 15 Parents Council is adhered to. According to Mrs. Marona of Park Slope, the contenders, William Banks, Robert Cogen, Alberto Cruise, PeterDrago John M Flanagan JrWilliam Hunter, Robert McNeill, Ellen Michener, Carmen Muniz, Betty Ralph, Aida Robello, Carrie Rojas, Tuffy Sanchez, Joan Sexton, Lily Shelton and Ida May Staiano have been invited along with current board members in the race, President Phillip Kaplan, Vice President Doris Cohen, Secretary Mary Treacy, Treasurer Alfred Manti, Prudence Cangiano, Vincent Darcy, and Emil Giordano, to a meeting at the District 15 offices at 360 Smith St. (off First Place in Carroll Gardens) on Thursday, March 8, at 8 p.m. According to Marona, each school in the district will bring a delegation of parents to the meeting and they will carefully question the candidates and then return to their schools with recommendations. Each school will then choose a slate of nine, and by April 3, get together to tally the choices, to come up with the all school favorites. Finally the parent group will meet with the South Brooklyn Poverty Committee to come to an agreement on the final nine. %u201cThe parents have gotten smarter,%u201d Marona says, adding that this time they will unify behind the nine candidates with educational philosophies and ideas about pupil needs that are closest to their own. It is possible that they will includeuwo or three members of the present board who are not in opposition \\ to the parents viewpoint, she continued. %u201cWe will be questioning, and using our newly gained political expertise. We are sick and tired of the old runaround.%u201dOne question close to the hearts of the District 15 parents, will be the candidate%u2019s position on the Gowanus-Gas Works site for a high school. The high school question has been a sore point in the district for years, erupting two years ago during two community school board hearings which were followed by a negative vote by the board now up for reelection. The drive for the high school site, reactivated because of the continued overcrowding of John Jay,(the one high school in the district) and the threatened closing of three parochial high schools in the area,has pnlisted thp support of ParentsAssociations and parent groups throughout the district. Led by Ellen Michener, head of the Ad Hoc Committee for a High School on the Gowanus, and P.T.A. President of I.S. 293, the movement has been gathering steam and has inspired vocal proponents like Michener, Peter Drago and John Flanagan to announce their candidacy for the board. Though this issue is not the only concern of South Brooklyn parents, it is certain that candidates opposed to the Gowanus site will not receive the parent backing. As a matter of fact, one of the current school board members, President Phillip Kaplan, has reversed his position on the canal location, and is now for the Gas Works site, stating that he considers it the only remaining alternative. It is possible that other community board members will follow in die switch.According to a Board of Education statement issued in February 1973 and approved by the Board of Elections, any eligible voter within the community district and any eligible parent (not necessarily a voter, but having a child attending a school within the district) who will be 18- years-old before the day of election (May 1) may be a candidate. Each candidate must get 200 %u201cvalid%u201d signatures on a nominatingEllen Michenerpetition, and must file the petition by April 3. The signatures must bethnsp nf pligihlp vntprg alrpadvregistered or who will have registered by the last filing date (April 3) in the community district, as permanently registered voters or as eligible parents. Parents who are eligible from that position alone, must include on the petition, die number of the elementary, intermediate or junior high school from which they will register as a parent by April 3. Though many candidates will be running for the community school board and the voting will be by the method of proportional representation, a signer may sign for only one school board candidate.There will be a special registration drive beginning Monday, March 12, in all public elementary schools for six days, the Board of Education announced. From Monday to Friday (March 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) hours will be 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and on Saturday, March 17, from noon to 6 p.m. Brooklyn Board of Election offices on 345 Adams St. will be open for registration, daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Volunteer groups deputized by the Board of Elections will register voters in spots throughout the school districts. Reregistration is not required for people permanently registered for general elections, but persons not already on the permanent rolls and those with children attending public schools in the district who are not qualified for permanent registration must register to vote in the elections. The seemingly unwieldy procedure jointly concocted by the Board of Ed and the Bd of Elections allows those parents not qualified as permanent registrants to vote only in the district in which their children attend school. They may choose the district of the school one child attends if they have several children in various school districts. Permanent voters with children however, may vote in the district of their residence or in one of the childs attendance. Permanent voters without children must vote in the district of their residence. The Board of Elections, no doubt anticipating confusion resulting from the complex setup, has puttogether a specie! unit for this election whish is under the direction of Paul Greenberg. His offices are located at 121 Sixth Ave. in Manhattan. The Board of Ed%u2019s special coordinator is Asst. Superintendent Jerome G. Kovalcik. at central headquarters, 110 Livingston St., Brooklyn.Current information about thoseTuffy Sanchezcandidates who have so far announced includes: William Banks: Ran in the 1972 Democratic primary for State Senator which was won by Carol Bellamy; Executive Director of ColonySouth Brooklyn Houses. Robert Cogen: Co-publisher of the old South Brooklyn News. Alberto Cruise: A Sunset Park resident; Peter Drago: Pledged for a High School on the Gowanus-Gas Works site. A Carroll Gardens resident and Manager of the Carroll Gar dens Community Library. On the Exec Board of the Independent Neighborhood Democrats; John M. Flanagan Jr.. 20-vear-old early supporter of the Gowanus school site. Student at Staten Island Community College. Park Slope resident. Endorsed bv the South Brooklyn Community Corp. Local Education Committee of which he is Chairman William Hunter,Teacher at John Jay High School; Robert McNeill: Brother of Father McNeill who ran against Assemblyman Vincent Riccio in the 1972 Republican primaries.Continued on Page 10$100,000 At Stake:Methodist FaiBY KITTY TERJENIs To ComplyMethodist Hospital stands to lose $100,000 in payments from the City Health Department if the hospital fails to comply with four specific requirements regarding its Ambulatory Care Services.In a letter dated January 26 from A1 Schwarz, Assistant Commissioner of Health, to Don Rece, Methodist Hospital Administrator, the City Health Department gave the following reasons for holding back $100,000 from payments totaling $309,000 due this year under the Ghetto Medicine Contract if conditions aren%u2019t satisfactorily met by the hospital within 30 days: (1) Failure to comply with the requirement that there shall be a full-time director of ambulatorv care: (2) the requirement that there shall be at least five sessions (Monday through Friday) of general medicine and pediatrics; (3) failure to involve the Ambulatory Care Advisory Committee in the screening process for a new director of ambulatory care; and (4) for unreasonably delaying the proper performance of hospital service.%u201cThis is not a %u2018fine,%u2019 %u201d Methodist Hospital Administrator Don Rece said Friday, referring to charges made last week by Zita Fitzgibbon, chairwoman of Methodist%u2019s Ambulatory Care Services Advisory Committee, that the city had %u201cfined%u201d the hospital %u201cfor failures to meet its responsibilities in the out patient clinic and emergency room and its responsibilities to the community.%u201d%u201cShe made those charges out of context and on her own, without regard to the rest of the committee,%u201d Robert Queen, hospital public information officer charged. Queen said that the city had given the hospital another 60 days to find a full-time director of ambulatory care. %u201cWe made one offer and it was turned down,%u201d Queen said. %u201cHe didn%u2019t want to come to the wilds of Brooklyn after reading about all the recent occurrences here.%u201d Queen said the applicant had been scared away by such occurrences as the recent siege at the Bed-Stuy sporting goods store, where hostages were held at gun point.Don Rece, on the other hand,R aid th p h n R p ita l r e s n o n d p d n n lvlast week to the city%u2019s* compliancenotice and had not yet heard whether or not their response will be accepted.Although Queen claimed the hospital had more than the required number of clinic sessions, Rece said the fifth session was not started until February 6. %u201cNow we have a clinic every day,%u201d he said. He added that the Ambulatory Care Services Advisory Committee will now be involved in the screening process at the second interview. %u201cIt was a metter of when the committee came in,%u201d he said, %u201cThere was no intent to not to involve the committee.%u201d%u201cWe%u2019re going ahead with the important programs as far as we can,%u201d Queen said, pointing out that New York Magazine had recently given an excellent rating to the hospital and its emergency room. %u201cWe plan io continue this and make the hospital even more excellent. That is why we have to eliminate obsolete areas.%u201dMethodist Hospital recorded 53,118 visits to its Emergency Room in 1972, an increase of 7,177 visits over the previous year, and reported that out-patient visits to the hospital last year jumped to 41,610, an increase of 1,123 over1971. The hospital attributes the sharp increase in the number of emergency room visits to the fact that many people today are relying on hospital emergency care as they once relied on their personal physicians.The emergency room at Methodist was completely renovated in 1970 and 1971 in order to expand and modernize its facilities. The hospital has also expanded its out-patient services several times in recent years, adding new clinics. Currently, there are more than 45 different general and specialty clinics at the institution.Community groups fighting Methodist%u2019s newly announced Relocation Plan, which gives all the remaining tenants of the hospital owned expansion block in Park Slope six months to leave, claim the hospital is violating state laws regulating hospitals and that the hospital is actually expanding instead of replacing obsolete facilities.Bob Furman, Park Slope Health Care Task Force Co-Chairman said last week, %u201cMethodist acts asContinued on Page to