Manhattan Beach Community Group

Cream rises to the top they say. It seems that Louise Albenda’s idea of putting solar panels on the unused Bath House at Manhattan Beach is alive again. MBCG has been pushing this idea for two years. Our calculations are that 900 solar panels can provide 10% of the electricity needs of Manhattan Beach. Or the power generated by the sun can be sold to the Grid to help Con Edison with its growing demands.

New York City Officials have been approached and are very interested in using the MBCG plan for the Solar Bath House as a model for New York City owned vacant, unused buildings throughout the city. It is estimated that one million additional people will be living in New York City by the year 2030. Will there be enough energy? Yes, because the sun is still shining and it keeps on begging us to use its’ free gift.

We will keep you posted.

The is a Public Service Announcement from the MBCG, serving the community for almost 70 years:

It has been brought to our attention that a resident of Manhattan Beach received a telephone call on Thursday, July 22, from a company informing the resident that there is drinking water contamination in the area and that this company has been subcontracted out to do tests in his home.

The Environmental Committee of the Manhattan Beach Community Group (MBCG) has been in touch with the Department of Environmental Protection of the City of New York (DEP) and as of Friday, July 23, 2010, we were informed that DEP has no knowledge of any water contamination in Manhattan Beach. 

We caution residents to be vigilant when they receive calls of this nature.  Please use  common sense with any stranger calling or ringing your bell. Feel free to contact us and we will gladly research any question you have.

MBCG President Ira Zalcman was interviewed today on Channel 12. He discussed the fatality this past week on Shore Blvd, moving the Ocean/Shore Light to Exeter and Shore.  He also stated several hundreds of thousands of Brooklynites work, visit and go to school in Manhattan Beach and have a right to be safe crossing the streets and driving through the neighborhood. Shore Blvd. newly paved, has become more dangerous at the Exeter curve and the DOT needs to  move the light before more people get hurt or killed trying to cross Shore Blvd.

Newly paved Shore Blvd. has become faster and more dangerous at the curve of the road between Exeter and Dover Streets. Last spring a car lost control at this very spot and hit a tree, park bench and  2 cars. Two nights ago there was a fatality a block away.

The first thing we should do is move the traffic light from Ocean Avenue and Shore to Exeter and Shore. People coming off the wooden bridge are at danger trying to cross the street at Exeter and Shore. Let me rephrase that-Great danger trying to cross without a light, without a crosswalk. Also a light at  the Exeter intersection will stop or slow down traffic coming to the curve from both directions. It will serve more pedestrians and drivers at this new location.

Why there is a light at Ocean and Shore is a good question? It should have never been placed there in the first place. It is a block away from the Bridge and a block and half away from the turn in the road.

We will be also asking the police for more enforcement at night when the beach empties on both Oriental and Shore Boulevards. A lit highway sign should temporarily be placed on Shore between Coleridge and Beaumont Streets saying- “Fatality occurred here-Slow down.”

In the meantime, we’re also requesting a decoy parked scooter or police car on Shore and Exeter near the exit/entrance of the bridge.

SLOW DOWN. Tell your friends to slow down. Put your politics away and help us save lives. If you can’t help us, get out of our way. We’re not stopping now. What could be better than saving a life?

Last night, a warm humid summer night, Brian Waldman, age 52 years, parked his car next to the Bay between Coleridge and Beaumont Streets in Manhattan Beach. He parked legally on the north side a little past where the newly paved road curves several blocks before the closest traffic light. If he would have combed his hair, blown his nose, looked for some unimportant item in his glove box, he might be alive today. Instead, he did something you and I have done many times without giving much thought to. He opened his car door on a wide street, stepped out. 

What Brian Waldman didn’t know was that 23 year old Anthony Garcia and his friends had stayed on the beach until the last closing moment. Garcia then drove a car he didn’t own with his suspended license. Feeling good from a day at the beach he exited the parking lot and drove down Irwin Street past two rows of houses. He drove by PS 195 and made a left turn onto Shore Blvd. Heading home via Ocean Avenue which would take him to his home on Sterling Street in Crown Heights, he knew Shore Blvd. was his last stretch of open road. Witnesses walking on the wooden bridge said that they could “hear” him speeding.

Sources close to MBCG stated Garcia parked his car making believe he was a witness. He then tried to flee the scene leaving the car in the middle of Shore Blvd. Soon, the Police would run tape across Shore Blvd. treating it as a crime scene.

We know Garcia committed several crimes last night and has been placed in custody. But who else is responsible for Waldman’s violent death. And it was violent. His car door remained attached to the body of his sedan but looked like someone had shredded it like paper. Glass was broken like Kristallnacht for almost a block. The car driven by Garcia was smashed on the passenger front side. Plastic pieces thrown in all directions. It was a very violent end for Brian Waldman.

Life goes on. The very next morning the street was swept clean, the broken cars gone. No sign that a life was lost. People sat on benches not knowing what had happened a few feet from them. Only Garcia is legally responsible. Only Garcia deserves to go to jail. Not you or I. We’re the good people. Not our elected local officials. Not the people arguing about zoning changes.  No one but Garcia is responsible. Wrong. Like it or not, we’re all connected. Like it or not we are all dependent on each other. It is up to all of us to act like responsible adults. It’s called “for the common good.”

The fears of the MBCG have been realized and it is a sickening feeling. Too many accidents. Too many people only thinking of themselves. Help us make this community safer for everyone who lives here and the many thousands who visit.  If you can’t or won’t help, the least you can do is get out of the way. No more accidents. No more deaths.

Our heartfelt condolences to the Waldman family.

A 52 year old male from Sheepshead Bay was killed tonight, July 12th at approximately 9:30 PM, when he exited his parked car on Shore Blvd. He was parked alongside the Bay between Coleridge and Beaumont Streets. The car that him had several occupants and was going westward and stopped a block away from the impact. Debris could be seen for most of that block.

The car door that was hit looked like it was shredded. Glass was strewn like confetti. Witnesses said the car that caused the accident was speeding. When this writer left the scene of the accident NYC Highway Police were beginning to do their measurements. Shore Blvd. was taped horizontally across and closed to traffic in both directions.

More information as it becomes available.

Get information on code enforcement, property tax exemptions, foreclosure prevention, building permits, low interest home repair loans and more on Thursday, July 22nd, 7:30 PM at Kingsborough Community College, Building U, Room 220.

This meeting is hosted by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development located at 100 Gold Street, Room 6E4, New York City 10038.

This announcement is a public service from the Manhattan Beach Community Group (MBCG).

NYC Comptroller John Liu won the hearts and minds of the Manhattan Beach Community Group at their June monthly meeting last night. It took two months of waiting to get him but it was very much worth the wait. Besides being personal and engaging, he was direct and honest to the difficult questions asked of him by members of the group.

It was very refreshing to have a citywide elected official be that honest and respectful of the citizens he represents. John Liu won many of us over.

We thank him for making the time to come visit us. We are thankful for getting to know him in southern Brooklyn and hopes he visits soon and often.

His efforts to make the Office of Comptroller transparent is highly commendable. We wish him the best in helping the City of New York save money, cut waste and weather this difficult economic time. It became crystal clear to us in Manhattan Beach that we have the right man in the right job.

You Rock John!

Check out sheepsheadbites.com for video and excellent reporting of this meeting.

June 3, 2010, 9:18 am

City Tightens Rules on Artificial Turf

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The synthetic surfaces used in playgrounds and sports fields around the country have been a hot-button issue for years. Many park officials find that replacing grass or asphalt in play spaces with artificial turf, often material from shredded tires, allows for year-round use and cheaper maintenance. But environmentalists and parks advocates say the trend ignores potential hazards from lead and other toxins found in some of the materials, and from the extreme heat that they produce.

This week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed a bill that requires the parks and health departments to work together in ensuring a thorough review of materials going into future playing fields. The new law also establishes a nine-member advisory committee, appointed by the mayor and the City Council speaker, which will review the type of material proposed for any playing field and make suggestions for alternate materials. Its recommendations will be nonbinding but will be posted online.

Melissa Mark-Viverito, the city councilwoman who heads its parks and recreation committee, said the bill was prompted by problems like the temporary shutdown of the soccer field at Thomas Jefferson Field in East Harlem last year because of elevated lead levels.

Parks Department officials at the time deemed the episode an aberration. They also defended the use of artificial turf as more environmentally friendly than grass because it does not require herbicides and other chemicals or millions of gallons of water for upkeep.

But Geoffrey Croft, a longtime critic of artificial turf as head of the watchdog group NYC Park Advocates, said the health, safety and environmental concerns raised by the materials — and the 150-degree temperatures they can produce by soaking up sunlight and emitting heat on a warm day — make the new law long overdue. (A photograph that he sent to The Times, shown below, reflects such a reading.)

He noted that the law stops short of requiring the evaluation of the more than 130 synthetic fields already in place around the city or the crumb rubber infill that is used in them. It also leaves it up to city officials to come up with credible advisory committee members.

But he called it a step in the right direction. “It will shed some light on future products,” he said. “This should have been done a decade ago, before the city exposed the public to these various dangers.”

Dear Neighbor,

      While I am pro-development, it is important that we carefully consider what impact any additions to our community will have.  Recently, I was advised that a developer wanted to construct a nine-story multi-use building along the subway tracks from Sheesphead Bay Road to Avenue Z.  This is an as of right project as long as 178 off-street parking spaces are provided.  Building plans indicate that a single elevator will carry cars to floors two, three and four.

      Anyone who is familiar with this area of our community knows how congested it already is, with an entrance to an express subway station, three bus lines and a busy commercial strip. Adding a magnet for hundreds of cars queuing up to enter the upper floor parking areas, plus ambulettes and livery cars dropping off and picking up patients, will turn this street scene into one of perpetual gridlock.

      When I learned that the developer was planning to ask Community Board 15 for a special permit to allow him to reduce the required number of parking spaces by over 40 percent, I realized that a bad situation for our community could become worse.  The developer alleges in his environmental assessment statement that his project “is not expected to result in significant adverse impacts on street conditions, roadway conditions and parking,” and “…is unlikely to have a significant effect on traffic flow…parking conditions…and vehicular and pedestrian safety.”  What is he basing his conclusion on?  No traffic study has been conducted.  The developer failed to study the transportation issue and will attempt to mislead the Board of Standards and Appeals about it - giving the facts no chance - giving the shoppers, bus riders, residents and existing businesses no consideration.  That is why I am demanding that an independent traffic study be done by the New York City Department of Transportation before this project is allowed to go any further.  I have already met with Brooklyn Transportation Commissioner Joseph Palmieri, who assured me that he would be looking into this matter.  I called on Community Board 15 to pass a resolution for a DOT traffic study to be conducted prior to either the Buildings Department or Board of Standards and Appeals considering this project.  The Community Board passed the resolution and also denied the developer’s request for the special permit at its May 25th meeting.  I commend the members of the Community Board for their action in representing and protecting the community and will continue to work with them to monitor this situation.