Chin Says Cuts to After-School and Daycare Programs Remain

Councilwoman Margaret Chin

In response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s executive budget, Council Member Margaret Chin noted that while the mayor has committed to fund 2,600 teaching positions, the budget still includes cuts to daycare, after-school programs and other services in the Lower East Side and Chinatown.

“The mayor’s budget once again takes aim at working families and minority neighborhoods in New York City,” Chin said in a statement. “These are programs that New Yorkers rely on in order to hold down a job, make a living and support their families. In Chinatown and the Lower East Side, we stand to lose 70 percent of our elementary and middle after-school programs.”

Chin said these cuts prove the programs “are not a priority for this administration. Instead, the City Council will be called on to restore these programs to what are already significantly reduced levels. Since 2009, we have lost 61 percent of our daycare and after-school programs. As a city, we should be focused on expanding after-school and daycare and making high-quality programs available for all our public school students,” Chin continued.

Citywide

Stringer Calls for MTA to create Temporary Reduced-Fare Cards for Seniors and Disabled People

This week Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer demanded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reform its process for replacing lost or stolen reduced-fare MetroCards for seniors and disabled people, calling the current system “a ridiculous, time-consuming maze that burdens the very people we’re supposed to be helping and makes it harder for them to get around our City.”

The borough president said that reduced-fare MetroCard holders face formidable obstacles if their cards are lost or stolen. When they call MTA to request a replacement, Stringer noted, the wait for a new card can frequently take up to three months.

In the meantime, those who want to ride a bus at reduced fare must present evidence of their age to bus drivers and come up with exact change of $1.10. To ride the subway, they first have to find a station agent. Next, seniors or disabled get a one-trip MetroCard and a paper voucher that’s about as useful as an old token. It only works if they can find another subway station agent to take the voucher on their return trip.

“All of this takes an emotional and financial toll on New Yorkers, who have a right to expect better service,” Stringer wrote in a letter to Joseph J. Lhota, the MTA’s chairman and executive officer.

In his letter to the MTA, Stringer suggested that there is a simple solution to this problem: provide temporary MetroCards to seniors and disabled riders whose reduced-fare cards have been lost or stolen.

Stringer said the MTA already gives out such replacements when reduced-fare cards are defective, adding: “It’s a smart, sensible solution. These temporary cards last for three months under the current system, which is plenty of time for a new reduced-fare card to be issued. We’d be extending the same courtesy, the same seamless service to seniors or disabled whose cards are lost or stolen. No waiting for station agents. No digging for identification or the exact change every time you want to get on a bus.”

In a letter penned last week to School Chancellor Dennis Walcott, New York State Assembly Speaker urged the Department of Education (DOE) to abate school overcrowding in Lower Manhattan by opening a new pre-kindergarten center in the area. Silver pointed out that while the community has helped build several new schools over the past few years, there is still a kindergarten waitlist nearing 100 students for the Spruce Street School, P.S. 276, P.S. 89 and the Peck Slip School. “This is the most serious overcrowding problem we have ever had in this neighborhood, and it is taking place when we have even more kindergarten classes than originally planned in these four schools,” wrote Silver.

Silver pointed out that a new pre-kindergarten center would free up seat in the zoned schools in the neighborhood for incoming kindergartners, a measure that has been advocated by Silver’s School Overcrowding Task Force and Community Board 1.

“As I expressed to DOE officials at my last School Overcrowding meeting, it is important that the DOE present a plan for creating one of these centers in time for the coming academic year, consider adding an extra kindergarten class to the Peck Slip School, or come up with another option for adding seats in September,” Silver continued. “While implementing these plans would help cut down on our waiting lists, these are not long-term solutions. Our overcrowding problem is getting worse. We need more elementary school seats in Lower Manhattan and we need to begin planning for them now. It takes years to bring a new school on line and we simply don’t have the luxury of waiting. Members of my task force are already searching for possible locations for new schools and I hope the DOE and the School Construction Authority will do the same.”

Construction will continue on the Peck Slip School, and we expect to locate another site for another new public school in Lower Manhattan to meet the needs of all the new families who have moved to Lower Manhattan. We hope that the WTC Performing Arts Center will make progress with a board being appointed and fundraising commencing for this project.

Progress will continue on the East River Waterfront so that residents on the East Side will have access to the water, parks and open space. We will push to build more affordable housing in Lower Manhattan and will continue to urge the city to do so.

SEAPORT

PECK SLIP ADDS SEATS

Last week, the Department of Education (DOE) announced that the Peck Slip School will add 56 seats in addition to the 180-seat extension that was announced earlier this year. The total number of planned seats for the school is now 712.

“I am so happy that even more children will now have the opportunity to attend a brand-new, state-of-the-art school. I want to thank the DOE for recognizing the desperate need for elementary school seats in Lower Manhattan in this case,” said Council Member Margaret Chin.

“By adding 56 seats today, as well as the 180 added last month, DOE is taking a big step toward responding to the needs of Lower Manhattan’s ever-growing community,” added State Sen. Daniel Squadron.

FUTURE OF THE SEAPORT MUSEUM

Council Member Margaret Chin, chair of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee, hosted a joint hearing with Council Member James Van Bramer last week to examine the future of the Seaport Museum.

At the hearing, the programming and financial future of the museum were discussed. Volunteers from the Army Corps of Engineers are currently repairing and helping stabilize the museum’s historic ships, and professional librarians are re-archiving its collections. The museum plans to open in January 2012 with an admission price of  $5 to encourage visitors. The museum will be open Wednesday through Sunday at the start, but will open seven days a week if the need exists.

“Over the past few years, the Seaport Museum has faced challenges, but we are optimistic about the future success of the museum,” Chin said. “I know there is strong community support and interest in seeing the museum succeed.”

The South Street Seaport Museum has struggled over the last decade to remain open. In 2009, it earned revenue of only $280,000 on a budget of $5.2 million. The Museum of the City of New York took control of the Seaport Museum in October 2011 and will oversee the management and $3 million budget of the museum.

LOWER MANHATTAN

DOWNTOWN ALLIANCE ON SMALL BUSINESS

Last week, Downtown Alliance President Elizabeth Berger testified in front of the City Council’s Small Business Committee, which held a hearing on BIDs’ roles in promoting commerce during the holiday shopping season. The Downtown Alliance holds an annual holiday shopping campaign, which is now entering its fourth year.

“While the Downtown Alliance promotes Lower Manhattan’s restaurateurs and retailers all year long, we take it up several notches during the holidays with a comprehensive drive-to-web advertising campaign that encourages workers, residents and visitors to shop and dine in the district,” Berger said. She cited the Alliance’s extensive print and outdoor advertising, promotions, direct mailings and the brand-new edition of its Shopping & Dining Guide, all part of the 2011 holiday campaign.

Berger added that the Alliance consistently updates its web-based event calendar and searchable map to reflect holiday offerings and uses various social media platforms, including the Alliance’s blog, to promote seasonal events. The Alliance also boasts a holiday-centric webpage, DowntownNY.com/holiday, which features a link to their guide to over 1,300 stores, restaurants, bars, museums, organizations and services, offers from restaurants and retailers, and a list of holiday events in the district. Overall, roughly 30,000 print copies of the guide have been distributed, and thousands of digital copies have been emailed.

The campaign was officially launched in anticipation of Black Friday with a press conference featuring New York City Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz and J&R Music CEO Rachelle Friedman.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Squadron’s office

Following weeks of parents, community board and Community Education Council (CEC) District 2 members voicing their distress over the latest rezoning plan for Lower Manhattan, the Department of Education (DOE) presented a new plan on Monday, Nov. 28. “We are presenting one new proposal…and we will keep it simple,” said Elizabeth Rose of the DOE at Monday’s meeting.

Just weeks earlier, on Nov. 7, the DOE presented a rezoning proposal that displeased many community members and led to its rejection by the CEC less than two weeks later. In the hopes of pleasing the council, community board members and residents, the DOE this time introduced a school map that gave in to the demands they heard after the last rezoning meeting.

According to the DOE, the latest plan creates a zone for the new Peck Slip School scheduled to open in 2015. Until Peck Slip opens, children will attend classes at an incubation site at the Tweed Courthouse. The zones for P.S. 89 on Warren Street and P.S. 276 in Battery Park City will change, along with a portion of the P.S. 397 (Spruce Street School) zone. The P.S. 234 zone in Tribeca will not be touched, unlike in the last proposal. “P.S. 234 will likely have a waitlist because there won’t be any change to the zone,” said Rose.

This time, all parties seemed happier with the proposal, expressing concern only over the need for more schools in Lower Manhattan to fully solve the problem.

“I appreciate this new proposal and consider it much better than the previous one,” said Einar Westerland, a P.S. 234 parent from Tribeca. “Most of us move to certain neighborhoods to send our kids to certain schools.”

The CEC had criticized the earlier proposal because it sent children from Tribeca to P.S. 1 in Chinatown, creating divides that would mean children within the same apartment buildings or on the same streets would be in different zones.

“Families felt the proposal was breaking up their neighborhoods, and child safety and transportation issues were also involved,” said Eric Goldberg of the CEC before the DOE presented their proposal. “Based on that feedback, we told the DOE we had to focus on creating a zone for Peck Slip and no other aspects.”

At the meeting, Lower Manhattan parents seemed content with the proposal but still unhappy with the direction in which their local schools were headed as neighborhood populations increase.

“Being on the waitlist is so painful, especially for the child,” said Christine Brogan. Her son was zoned for P.S. 234 but was waitlisted and eventually sent to P.S. 130 on Baxter Street in Chinatown. When room finally opened up in P.S 234, he transferred there. “Waitlists affect the entire district,” she added.

Like Brogan, many parents asked the DOE to simply create more schools. It was the common theme of the night, what many believe will be the only solution to this problem. CEC and community board members already predict new schools will have waitlists before they even officially open their doors.

“We opened a new school last year,” said Rose, of the Spruce Street School. “We have been opening a lot of schools in District 2 in the last few years.” Rose also pointed to Peck Slip, the Foundling School and P.S. 281 at 35th Street and First Avenue, which are to be opened. District 2, which also reaches to the Upper East Side, will have another new school open there in the next few years.

As with the previous proposal, the CEC has until Dec. 14 to approve this latest plan so pre-registration for kindergarten classes in late January won’t be disrupted. Since the entire CEC wasn’t present at Monday night’s meeting, they could not make a joint statement on how they felt about it.

However, Shino Tanikawa, CEC president, said after the meeting she was “personally happier with some aspects of the new proposal.” Goldberg also felt the DOE had heard parents’ feedback and incorporated it into this proposal.

“Even with the Peck Slip School, there are not enough seats,” said Tanikawa. “I still wish the DOE would develop better projections.”

There is still the remaining problem of the Southbridge Towers, cooperative buildings in Tribeca. Similar to the previous plan, Southbridge could be divided between the Peck Slip and Spruce Street schools.

“This will basically cut our community in half,” said Danielle Bello, a Southbridge resident. “I urge the CEC to keep our kids zoned for Spruce Street. By forcing kids to be included at Peck Slip, you’re basically slicing and dicing this community up.”

The CEC plans to vote on the proposal at its Dec. 14 meeting.

Lower Manhattan’s Peck Slip School has been given an additional number of seats for students, and it hasn’t even opened its doors yet.

The news came yesterday as advocates such as the Community Education Council, Community Board 1 and Assemblyman Sheldon Silver pushed for a solution to overcrowded schools in the Downtown area.

There will be 20,000 square feet added, or two floors built on top of the Peck Slip building, which will add 180 seats for prospective students. This will bring the total number of spots to 656. Previously, there were only 476 planned for the new school.

According to the DOE, this plan will cost an extra $9 million, which will be paid for by shifting funds within the existing capital plan for 2010–2014. The expansion will also include a gym, which Silver pointed out.

“I am thrilled that the parents of Lower Manhattan will have this expanded, state-of-the-art new school,” Silver said in a statement. “I have been advocating tirelessly for more classroom seats to serve our growing population Downtown, and this expansion of the Peck Slip site is a huge win for our community and for our Lower Manhattan children.”

The DOE noted that there is an additional 20,000 feet in the Peck Slip building currently in use by the U.S. Postal Service. The USPS has yet to say if it will give this space to the Peck Slip School, but has indicated it is a possibility. The news of Peck Slip’s expansion came as an amendment to the 2010–2014 capital plan.

Currently, the Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers St., the DOE’s headquarters in Manhattan, is serving as the school’s incubation site—meaning classes are being held there until 2014. Hovitz questioned how these classrooms would accommodate this increase in size. “Is there really enough room at Tweed to incubate this sizable school?” Hovitz said.

Not only does the question of Tweed’s space come into play, there could still be the possibility that this expansion of Peck Slip won’t be enough to provide seats for Downtown’s growing population.

The opening of Peck Slip is highly anticipated in order to relieve pressure at other local schools such as P.S. 234 and P.S. 89. For the past few years, these schools have seen longer waitlists for their kindergartens and larger classroom sizes as the population in Downtown neighborhoods increases.

“We were very happy to get those seats, I think it’s great for Downtown and Downtown school kids,” said Eric Greenleaf, professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “We’re very appreciative to the DOE, but at the same time we need a lot more seats.”

Greenleaf, formerly a parent on P.S. 234’s PTA and member of the CEC, has calculated the number of students that will be entering kindergarten by 2015. According to his numbers, Downtown schools will need room for over 1,200 kindergartners in the next four to five years.

Although he has predicted that even before Peck Slip opens it will have a waitlist, he remains optimistic about the latest announcement.

“It’s more than a small dent because it makes a huge difference; 180 seats is a lot,” he said.