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Editorials______________________Sixties %u201cCommunity Control%u201d Mounts The SeventiesThe battle cry of a community organizing in the early 1960%u2019s became %u201c community control%u201d as a reflection of the frustration of civic workers and residents over having little or no role in the planning and development of their blocks and neighborhoods. In those days, urban renewal was still going strong; the anti-poverty program was in its hey-day; and the rumblings of school decentralization were beginning to be taken seriously.Often it all seemed very confusing. Issues were new and complicated to many people. In public forums, personalities often overwhelmed reason with rhetoric. Officials and bureaucrats were wheeled in and out of meetings and hearings at a confusing pace. But there was one badge of val idity for speakers at those times and that was where they hailed from. At meeting after meeting, hearing after public hearing, the standard introduction to comment, protest or testimony from speakers and shouters was to start by detailing how long he or she had lived in the neighborhood. Being %u201c from%u201d the place being talked about gave special legitimacy to the words which were to follow in the reasoning of many.The passionate fear of %u201c outsiders%u201d isn%u2019t as severe today as it was in the Sixties, but %u201c where you live%u201d is still a standard question in politics, public appointments and in public debate. For some, saying you live in one place when you actually live at another goes beyond the %u201c little white lie%u201d category as a few hopeful city commissioner candidates discovered.Only last month, the question of residence was raised at the selection nightprocess for a new district manager for downtown area Community Board Two.As the three finalist candidates slugged out their community credentials, place of residence wasn%u2019t much of an issue: two of the three candidates volunteered they lived in the Board district, and repeated it when questioned. The only problem is that the winning candidate, Evelyn Williams, apparently doesn%u2019t live where she says she does. Williams and her children actually live seem to live in a house she owns at 92 Lincoln Road, a residential block south of Prospect Park. That%u2019s where she is listed in the telephone book, too. The address she gave the Board, however, 43 St. Felix Street, is where she is registered to vote, but she sure doesn%u2019t live there. She has no name on the mailbox, no telephone listing. When asked for her home telephone, the community manager-designate gives the number of a man, who says he is her uncle, who does live in the building and does take messages for her. The house at that address is owned by him.And so what does this all mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe it%u2019s just one of those little deceptions that we seem to find everywhere in public life these days. Only the members of Board Two can decide how important these facts are to them. \\Miat bothers us, though, is that this kind of subterfuge, which is all-too-common in party politics, seems to have creeped into the non-partisan arena of public life as well. It%u2019s frightening to think that the Watergate legacy may have been a poisoning of the entire public service process through the enoouragement and acceptance of gratuitous deception and subterfuge.Sound Off Readers Talk BackStill SearchingI was most interested to read Aldo Bianci%u2019s article in the Community Forum entitled %u201c In Search Of The Perfect Brownstone%u201d (Phoenix, July 26th).In our search for a Park Slope Brownstone, we came to realize that we, as potential brownstone buyers were actually in competition with a number of the 7th Avenue Real Estate brokers, as well as the speculators with whom they worked. Too often, the better brownstones at better prices were being purchased by the brokers, leaving the less desirable listings for people like us. When the brokers were not buying, it seemed that we were competing with the speculators who are trying to buy everything that can be turned into floor through co-op apartments %u2014 for huge profits. Needless to say, we have been completely disenchanted with trying to find a decent brownstone through the brokers on 7th Avenue.Where are the ethical brokers who are trying to do an honest job of finding housing for people? Why do people with houses for sale knowingly list them with brokers who will just bring in the speculators looking for a fast profit? Why do people sell their houses to brokers when there are people who want to settle in the neighborhood and who would need and appreciate the house more than the broker, just looking for a big profit?I think the Park Slope community, and the real estate people should ask themselves what is happening to their neighborhood. Are the real estate interests turning Park Slope into a huge profit-making thing for the benefit of a few? %u2014Marilyn Finer,Fifth Street.Talking TaxesAs you know, small homeowners face the prospect of a 113 percent hike in their property taxes, when market value tax assessments are ordered.The Esposito Bill, A6136, seeks to repeal the one-hundred-eighty-seven year old law, which orders market value assessment, and to retain the present system of assessment taxes that exists in New YorkCity, leaving to other local governments the right to decide what system they prefer.On June 13, Mr. Esposito sought to take his bill out of committee, and on to the Assembly floor, for a fair hearing, and a vote. His attempt lost, 65 to 60.One of those voting against the discharge was Assemblyman Michael Pesce, of the 52nd A.D.The %u201cNay%u201d voters contend that the bill is unconstitutional.This is a flimsy excuse, inasmuch as it is free of the cumbersome language that usually exists in legislative bills.Property owners, already swamped with every kind of tax imaginable, will face great difficulties meeting the property taxes that full market value assessment presents.We urge that readers, if they agree,please contact Mr.Pesce as soon as possible, and ask him to reconsider his vote, and give the Esposito Bill a fair hearing, and a vote. This can be done in view of the Assembly Special Session planned for September.These Assemblymen voted %u201c nay%u201d or were absent, June 13, 1979 : 39th A.D. Stanley Fink; 40th A.D. Edward Griffith (ABS); 41st A.D. Murray Weinstein (ABS); 42nd A.D. Harry Smoler; 43rd A.D. Rhoda S. Jacobs; 44th A.D. Melvin Miller; 45th A.D. Charles Schumer (ABS); 46th A.D. Howard L. Lasher; 47th A.D. Frank J. Barbara; 48th A.D. Samuel Hirsch; 51st A.D. Joseph Ferris; 52,nd A.D. Michael L. Pesce; 53rd A.D. Woodrow Lewis; 54th A.D. Thomas S. Boyland; 55th A.D. Thomas R. Fortune; 57th A.D. Harvey L. Strelzin; 58th A.D. Joseph R. Lentol; 59th A.D. Victor L. Robles.%u2014Virgil Pontone, Bay Ridge Pothole CommitteeCommunity ForumHydr ant Spray Caps Give A Better ShowerBY DONALD MORANRemember the first time you leap-frogged over a johnny pump? Didn%u2019t it seem for a time that it was put there by some beneficence just for that purpose? I did. Of course most of us have since learned the more serious purpose for which fire hydrants stand along our sidewalks; silent sentinels awaiting the fireman%u2019s call to action.How important are these little black barrels with the silver bonnets to us? The New vork Cit Fire Department would be fiopei ss to p out the thousands of fires w'nicl occur < ery day without them.For.unatel' >r us in New York City, our water supply comes to us from reservoirs high up in the Catskill Mountains north of the City. It is gravity fed and needs to elaborate pumping system which might fail us. But there is a drawback. To be of use to the fire engines, the water must be discharged from the hydrant at the rate of at least ten pounds per square inch (psi) pressure. Normally the pressure in the hydrants is maintained naturally at between 40 and 60 psi by gravity alone, thus prov tg an dequate margin of safety.Th watei main which supplies the hydr t on ' ir block also supplies theDomdd Moran has been a firefighterfor 16 yean at Engine Company 240 atProspect an%u00bbt Greenwood Avenues inWindsor Tei/ace.water you drink, cook and wash with. At 4 a.m. when most people are asleep, water use is at a minimum and the hydrant pressure is at its best, approximately 60 psi. Many firehouses have sever, day disc water meters which monitor the local water pressure. As the disc revolves through the days of the week an inked stylus charts the comings and goings of our neighbors through their daily use of water.At 6:30 am the quivering stylus begins to fall. The water pressure is dropping as thousands of Smiths, Garganos and Lopezes begin rising, washing and cooking, just in Windsor Terrace and the Slope alone. Also, the hundreds of factory! processes and businesses in the neighborhood begin using thousands of gallons of water, and don%u2019t forget the heavy duty roof air conditioners humming all along Seventh and Fifth Avenues. All this our water supply system has been designed to accomodate.What our water mains cannot handle is the rash of open hydrants which accompany these summer heat waves. When the mercury-remains steadily above 85 degrees people in the streets begin opening hydrants. (They p r o b a b ly iei inch m e m %u00adbership in the Cabana Club lapse.) As we hastily roll up our car windows while driving down Pacific Street, how we wish we could release our inhibitions and race with the children through the crystal clear water as it arcs through the sunlight and across the street. It seems a harmlessenough refreshment. Let%u2019s hiss the policemen and firemen as they patrol our neighborhood, shutting down hydrants late into the still, muggy night to maintain the minimum pressure needed in the mains for fire fighting.As uncomfortable as high temperature and humidity are to us all, they don%u2019t compare to the frustration of firemen without water, and to the pain and terror of your friends and relatives trapped on the top floor, cut off by a fire clawing its way up the hall stairs to their apartment. Remember the last time you picked up that hot frying pan handle? How long did you hold onto it?Open hydrants will kill- someone we know.Go to your nearest Police Station and obtain a free spray cap and wrench. A spray cap uses only one-tenth the water that flows from an open hydrant and gives a better spray. Nobody from City Hall is coming over the Bridge to deliver. If the Police don%u2019t have any caps, call your District Manager and she%u2019ll get one for you.The next time you see an open hydrant,%u00bb m i . %u00ab 1 m j1C1II111U )UU15U1 Wlldl iiUUl )UUI LlillUlUllive on. Report all open hydrants to the Police or Fire Departments. Better still, encourage your neighbors to get spray caps. Why don%u2019t you go down yourself and be the first on your block with a spray cap?MAug. 2, 1979, The PHOENIX, Page 9