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State Senator CallsInsurance HeadLax and InefficientBY LIBBY HAYMANState Senator Thomas Bartosiewicz (Greenpoint-CrownHeights) has blamed the State Department of Insurance for failing to exercise its regulatory authority so that banks have been making illegal profits in the business of selling credit life insurance to borrowers by overcharging for the insurance. In addition, Bartosiewicz says that banks are %u201c diverting%u201d dividends paid on the policies to the banks rather than to consumers.Superintendent Albert Lewis of the State Department of Insurance on the other hand calls Bartosiewicz%u2019 charges %u201c irresponsible%u201d and %u201c scandalous,%u201d in a letter to the State Senator dated September 6.The insurance, which takes the form of a life insurance policy guaranteeing that a loan will be paid back even if the borrower dies, is sold by banks as a part of negotiating a loan.Bartosiewicz, a member of the Senate Insurance Committee, charged a number of anti-consumer practices connected with credit insurance, and issued a report, %u201c Credit Insurance: The Banker%u2019s Bonanza.%u201d He also wrote to Albert Lewis, the Superintendent of the New York State Department of Insurance calling attention to what he called %u201c a widespread practice of overcharging consumers for credit life insurance.%u201d The State Senator had obtained the information cited through telephone surveys of major lending institutions in the Albany and Brooklyn Areas. In a statement on September 3, Bartosiewicz said that overcharging was takingplace %u201c because the Insurance Department has not exercised its regulatory authority,%u201d and that overcharging alone was costing consumers %u201c more than $27 million.%u201dBartosiewicz also says that dividends paid by the companies providing the insurance are %u201c merely refunds of excess premiums paid for by consumers,%u201d so that they should be returned to borrowers, not to the banks, as they are now. Asserting that the latter practice was costing consumers another $12 million, Bartosiewicz said, in his letter to Lewis, that the two practices are a %u201c $40 million swindle%u201d and called for civil penalties and refunding of excess premiums.Lewis wrote in response to Bartosiewicz on Sept. 6 that the Department%u2019s proposed %u201c Regulation 27A%u201d would deal with the problem cited and that Bartosiewicz%u2019 charges were %u201c irresponsible and scandalous.%u201d As of Monday, September 10, Bartosiewicz had not yet received Lewis%u2019 letter, copies of which had been mailed to newspapers. Bartosiewicz said that the regulation noted by Lewis is not in effect, nine months after the Insurance Department has held hearings on the matter and that violations of existing laws continue.Bartosiewicz expressed concern over (he credit insurance practices because he said many borrowers are sufficiently insured and do not need the additional insurance. They arc nevertheless pressured by banks to buy the credit life insurance as if it is a condition for getting a loan.Heights Block DeveloperWill Soon Be ChosenThe City%u2019s Housing and Preservation Department before the end of the month expects to come up with its final selection of who it thinks will be able to develop Block 207, a 1.28 acre block bounded by Henry, Poplar and Hicks Streets in the North of Brooklyn Heights.Nancy Wolf, chairperson of the Ad-Hoc Community Committee of Block 207 says that she hopes %u201c the decision will be made soon%u201d between the two finalists recommended: Poplar Street Associates headed by Wids de la Cour and David Hirsch and Recycling for Housing Partnership headed by Jerome Kretchmer and Bernard Rothside.Herb Siegel, a planner for HPD says that HPD is still checking financial data and qualifications of the developers such as if they have %u201c the ability to construct a rentalhousing project%u201d with %u201c conventional financing.%u201dIn May eight developers presented plans to the City for the City owned lot. HPD had worked with the Ad-Hoc Committee to develop guidelines for proposals. Part of the guidelines required that seven existing buildings be renovated and a garage and a public playground be built.After HPD%u2019s choice is made the developer%u2019s proposal will go to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, according to Siegel, %u201c to make sure the renovation fits in with %u201c the historic quality%u201d of the landmarked neighborhood.%u201d The proposal will then wind its way through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure starting with Community Board Two, then to the Planning Commission and the Board of Estimate.%u2014I.V.S.City Will RebuildProspect Park StreetsSeveral Streets in Prospect Park are being reconstructed at a cost of $4.19 million, Mayor Edward Koch and Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden announced.A major traffic and bus route, Flatbush Avenue is being upgraded as a part of the city%u2019s ongoing capital reconstruction program. The Avenue will be reconstructed from Empire Boulevard to Caton Avenue as well as repaving of Empire Boulevard, from Flatbushto Franklin Avenues; Washington Avenue from Empire Boulevard to Lincoln Road. The project is expected to be completed in the spring of 1981, according to the City%u2019s Transportation Commissioner Ameruso. The City is also planning to use $100,000 in Federal Community Development Programr 1 - %u2022 - n m o m t i n e 1 U I 1 VJ .3 l V.Z p iv / * iw v y *.%u00ab ^ .. V. v* %u2022 %u2022 %u2022 ...............and install a %u2018sign sculpture%u2019 at Flatbush and Ocean Avenues which depicts the area's commercial revitalization logo.The Borough Hall Subway (Occhiogrosso Photo)Commission May Give BoroughHall Station Signs Landmark RatingBY IRENE VAN SLYKEThe Landmarks Preservation Commission heard testimony on September 11th why the interior of Brooklyn%u2019s Borough Hall IRT Lexington Avenue Station should be declared a landmark. Included in the hearing was proposed landmark status for the %u201c mosaic tile, glazed tile, faience and terra cotta plaques and moldings%u201d of interiors along most of Lexington Avenue stations in Manhattan.With the 75th Anniversary of New York City%u2019s subway system, Pat Rich, of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) says, landmark status is a way %u201c to honor the subways, to show a feeling for the importance oftheirarchitectural details.%u201dPeople have not always felt that the subways decorations were ofany value and Rich recalls that in the past %u201c ads were placed on top of mosaics.%u201d But now the New York Historical Society in Manhattan has devoted a show to the subways called %u201c Artists and Architects of (he New York Subway%u201d with memorabilia and artifacts dating back 75 years. Photographs show decorative ceramic mosaics, panels and name tablets that adorn the city%u2019s oldest subway line, the Eastside IRT, and included are the mosaic spires of Brooklyn%u2019s former City Hall piercing blue clouds, now part of the landmark proposal.August Belmont, the financial backer of the city%u2019s first subway was the man responsible for the extravagance of decorating the subways. He ordered that $500,000 be spent to decorate the subway station according to %u201c Uptown,Downtown, A Trip Through Time on New York%u2019s Subways,%u201d a history of New York%u2019s Subways. When the subwaysopened , %u201c Uptown, Downtown%u201d says, an IRT brochure described the decorations %u201c as %u201c instructive and decorative, as well as practical, and will have their effect on public taste just the same as anything else that tends to uplift and refine.%u201dEven though people have not always been aware of the value of mosaics and faience, landmark status, Rich explains, is %u201c an effort to respect those elements that are most significant.%u201d The LPC will consider a vote to grant landmark status sometime in October after which the LPC%u2019s recommendation will go to the Board of Estimate.Parkway Groups Seek InputAfter Gun Violence at FestivalBY LIBBY HAYMANThe annual West Indian-American Day Parade, which has grown to a day and night-long spectacle attended by a million people became this year the occasion for crime, violence, and a murder. Sponsored by the West IndianAmerican Day Association, this was the 12th annual parade. Community groups, already concerned before this year%u2019s parade because they were able to have little or no input into parade planning, are now waiting for further reports before deciding how to avoid serious problems with the parade next year.The homicide connected with the parade, the shooting of a person said to have been a bystander, took place at Nostrand Avenue and Eastern Parkway at 7:53 in the evening of September 3rd. Officer Joe Smith, of the 71st Precinct, has since arrested Noel Robinson, of 760 Rogers Avenue, for the murder. Officer Smith would not discuss the case in detail because it is being prepared for presentation to a Grand Jury.A police officer who was working during the parade said that, of the six Labor Day parades he had worked on, this was %u201c by far the worst,%u201d with a %u201c terrible%u201d number of shootings. A report on the extent of crimes caused by the parade is still being prepared. Police and others cited the length of the parade, which went far into the night, as well as the sale of liquor from food carts all along the parade route, as causes for the violence.Spokesmen for community groups agreed that more input is needed. Owen Augustin, head ofa number of City agencies calling for extensive police and sanitationservices that day. Augustinwas concerned, he said, because the Coalit ion had been working to clean and maintain the Parkway all summer, and all that could be undone %u2018in just one day.%u2019 In fact, Augustin felt that extra police and sanitation had been provided, but that police did not enforce the laws effectively because they seemed afraid of stirring up trouble by giving summonses.Augustin said that the CoalitionYet another round of questions, answers and protests was added last Thursday to the already impressive file of the public record concerning the design, planning and construction of the Red Hook sewage treatment plant in Fort Greene's Brooklyn NavyYard, in a public hearing co-sponsored by the City and Community Board Two.Heavily attended by residents in the Farragut Houses, a development which overlooks the plant site, and spotted wth familiar faces that have followed phase-by-phase each part of the unfolding project over the past several years, the hearing lasted for some three hours as representatives from the City%u2019s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) tried vainly to convince residents that the plant would produce no inconveniences to the neighborhood. Residents were mainly concerned with thecase on an average of 153 days of each year. However, they also contended that there would be atwould see it as a %u201c duty%u201d to be involved in parade preparations next year.The Chairman of Community Board 9, Ed Hightower, said that the Board would %u201c await the full police report%u201d on the parade, but that the Board might need to %u201c play an active role%u201d in dealing with the question of whether %u201c an affair of this kind should be held on a city street.%u201dmost only one or two days when such odors would be readily noticeable, instead of just being a malingering, background odor.%u201cOur community should not be subjected to any kind of odor, obnoxious or otherwise,%u201d Jerry Renzini, President of the Bridge Plaza %u201c Action 12%u201d Block Association, told the assembled crowd of about 80 at one point. He and subsequent speakerssuggestedthat the plant should be relocated from the already industrially-congested Navy Yard area and moved someplace where its presence would not be sorely felt.DEP officials, however, seemed unimpressed by (he protests and gave no sign of changing plans, which have been under design since 1972. Foundations for the plant arc already being dug in the Yard at an estimated $35 million, and they arc expected to be completed within a year. The plant %u2018 %u25a0 1 r %u2018 i .. 1 . * . ......%u2022.11.3 u 11 i atuiv u tu atm i . %u2019 |) v. i a 11 u ti,picking up and rinsing sewage from Red Hook and Gowanus to Fort Greene, sometime in 1987.--L.Z.G.m u L^a.Muiii la iiv v v a v c u u n u v u i, * r' r* 1 /%u2022'> %u201e 1. :. reported that prior to the parade he had written to the Mavor andpossibilities of smells wafting out*' %u25a0 > t i %u25a0 i r v r 'n u m ii m u p ia m , which l/ l. i lupiusentatives confirmed could be theFarragut Tenants ProtestProposed Sewer PlantSeptember 13,1979, The PHOENIX. Page 3