Page 506 - Demo

E d i t o r i a l sBe True i o Y our SchoolIt was only a few years ago that public education in New York City was a washout. Fewer than three quarters of the students who entered the first grade ever made it to high school graduation. And even then it was questionable if a sheepskin really meant the student could read or write. Teachers fled the city. Students fled the schools. Administrators fled the blame. That tide has turned, now, and it is refeshing to see teachers enthusiastic about their classes and students excited about the coming school year in our back to school supplement.The change hasn%u2019t been overnight, as first educators in the City and State had to take responsibility for the problems. We believe the steps taken over the past years, on both the State and City levels will continue to give public school students a groundswell of hope that the hours spent facing a blackboard are not wasted; that education is an irreplaceable tool for the future. Projects such as the Regents Action Plan, meant to strengthen the learning process, and a new set of standardized tests designed to beef uptne monitoring ot learning are just two ways educators have taken positive steps towards making New York students competitive with the rest of the country.Our own Central Board of Education under the new leadership of Robert Wagner, Jr. has indicated that it will turn some decisions over to the local community school boards%u2014putting money in the hands of people who know best how it should be spent. Even the Borough President, with his handyman%u2019s program, has contributed to the educational process by giving local boards the opportunity to create better learning environments without drowning in the requisition red tape of the Central Board.Because restructuring the schools in New York City is by no means an inexpensive process we urge Governor Cuomo and Mayor Koch to continue their commitment to the schools and to the education of our youth. There is still much work to be done, and the educational policymakers don%u2019t hold the pursestrings. Educating our children has become an ever-increasing challenge that must be met on every level of education and every legislative body if it is to be successful. And with the minds of schoolchildren in the balance it is a challenge that must be accepted.f f o M M V N I T Y p O R U M VIEWS OF READERSReader Gives Needed Advice To Brooklyn%u2019s New Post Office ChiefI thought Phoenix readers might like to see this letter I sent last month to Brooklyn%u2019s New U.S. Post Office general manager, Linda Sanchez, about my experiences with the system she has been named to head - Roberta Halporn, The Center for Thanatology Research and Education, Inc.Dear Ms. Sanchez:Welcome to Brooklyn. The fact that an obviously vigorous and experienced person like yourself has been appointed to the position is a hopeful sign of a serious commitment to the improvement of services.Our firm sells books and journals by mail order, and our existence depends on the efficient support of our postal needs. I have been so disheartened by the continual deterioration of services in the last few years that I tend to use other forms of carriers whenever possible.Most of our problems stem from the handling by the Tunes Plaza station, though some flow from problems at the G.P.O. In writing this list of problems for you to inspect, it has occurred to me that it is possible that no one at Brooklyn GPO has realized that the type of population Times Plaza is now serving is at odds with its original construction, as a small station serving an impoverished neighborhood. My own little firm alone is using $50 worth of postage weekly, just for our regular business, and in addition, we mail a journal eight times a year. Yet we have only been on Atlantic Avenue for five years. It may be worthwhile for your staff to conduct an informal survey of the area, to show you the huge change in customer type, both residential and business, in the last five years.Our problems lie in the following areas:1. Mail delivery. We receive a minimum of five misaddressed pieces a week! Some are for addresses as much as five streets away. I am naturally very conscientious about redelivering these pieces, but am constantly concerned about where our mail is going.2. Package delivery. We are, of course, being sent packages constantly that will not fit through our door slot, as well as packages for our tenants. We have been in the same location for five years, we have a sign on our door that states that we are open to accept delivery between 12:00 noon and 6pm, and the only stable person in the whole PO population we see is the package delivery man. Yet we ALWAYS receive notices of packages at the station. He never seems to attempt to deliver them when he knows we are open.When we attempt to call the station to request re-delivery at the time when we are open, it takes between 10 to 14 dialings before we can reach them on the phone. And when we finally spend time in despair, and physically go to the station, it inevitably turns out that the %u201cpackage is now on the truck.%u201dThere have been several occasions when we received no notice at all, and were called by a sender to ask why the package was returned. In this fashion one of my tenants lost an air express package from Australia that was returned there several months later.3. Pickup of mail. As I said in the introduction, we mail two journals on a quarterly basis. One set has 100 subscribers, and another has 350. We hand carry our otherpackages to the station, but these are simply too heavy. It takes days to have them picked up. The last mailing we did took four phone calls, and four days to get the sacks on your truck. I am sure you understand the frustration we have at spending such a huge amount of postage and being unable to get the materials into the system.4. Inadequate supplies at Times Plaza. The station never seems to have enough varied sizes of sacks to give us. And though we have requested it numerous times, never enough of the varied denominations of stamps we need for a week. I%u2019ve finally given up askingfor them, but it means our shipping clerk has to waste more time, traveling more often to the station, and then standing on a long line to purchase more stamps.5. Bulk mail slowdowns. The problems we have had with our promotion mailings lie, however, in your building at Cadman Plaza and beyond. The most recent %u201cbulk%u201d mailing we did was an invitation to a party to open a new art show subsidized by the Brooklyn Council on the Arts. There was a difference of opinion on the weight of our deposit, but the bulk mail center took so long to inform us ofNorth Sloper Gives ATURA Opponents AGood Look A t How The Project Will Help A reavacant shells along 5th Avenue Corridor would be developed.BY LEW SMITHI feel that I, as a homeowner and long time resident in the North Slope, (that area above 1st Street to Flatbush) and as a small business owner, must answer Pam Miller%u2019s comments of ATURA.It is beyond my belief that the same people continue to see no farther than the nose on their faces. A few years ago the same people were yelling for a small supermarket on the long vacant lot at Baltic and Fifth Avenue. I was one of the few around that area who tried unsuccessfully at the Community Board to convince them that we would need a large supermarket as new houses would be built, new people would be coming in and the long Lew Smith is a resident of Berkley Place in Park Slope and a long-time member of Community Board She.%u00a7 I G N OF THE P i r n sThe fiesta on Court Street was a good place for pictures of all types. (Phoenix/Koch Photo)The Community Board at the insistence of the Fifth Avenue Committee and other socalled community groups, went ahead and okayed a plan for a small supermarket and three story houses in the place of a large supermarket and two story condos; I was the only person on the CB6 Board that voted against the plan. Needless to say the houses vote came back to haunt them as it has taken three times as long to get them built and occupied and they are not the design that was approved.The Fifth Avenue Committee allowed the developer to make these suburban type houses. But the powers to be felt a larger supermarket than the one voted on was needed and they compromised and allowed a 29,000 sq. ft. supermarket to be built instead of a 15,000 sq. ft. one. Look at the mobs at any given time at any given day and you know that a larger supermarket should have been built.Now Pam Miller and others seem to feel that a smaller supermarket is needed. As the new houses are built, and the workers come into the area, and the old residents of Ft. Greene and Brooklyn Heights and Prospect Heights, as well as the Flatbush area begin to shop in the area, a small supermarket will be ludicrous and business will go somewhere else. In order to attract business you must have the stores and the wares to sell. A large supermarket of 50,000 sq. ft. will be a big help to the entire area and will certainly help all avenues around it. People in the office buildings and in the new apartments, and don%u2019t kid yourself, there are many new buildings being renovated where people will move into our area, will need places to shop. Rose Associates have assured all of us that the retail shops will be geared to the office workers and the people that live and work in the surrounding areas. Fifth Avenue from Flatbush to 3rd Street will never be the viable shopping center it was when I moved here, unless we get an anchor at the head of the Avenue, and certainly ATURA would be that. All we are getting are drug stores and car services who sell drugs. We all need more in all our communities.There is one thing I do agree with and that is the large movie complex planned. With movies doing a drastic business in the past year and more and more people staying home to watch VCR%u2019s, a smaller complex is called for.All in all, I feel that we need this project to save all of our areas and certainly it will not be like Fulton Mall as the area will call for other types of business in order for the owners to stay in Brooklyn and shop.%u2014Lew Smith, Berkely Place.Pag# 34, THE PH O EN IX, A ugust 28,1988