Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

By David Mark Greaves

There are those who look at the tree-lined streets and quiet elegance of brownstone Brooklyn, an almost-bucolic setting compared to the frenzied densities of Manhattan and figure they can cash in by erecting structures that destroy the essence of the initial attraction.
An example of this is the 14-story tower going up in the middle of Greene Avenue, between Bedford & Classon Avenues. 
This construction site, the scene of demonstrations and much political contention, was visited by Community Board 3 District Manager Charlene Phillips and Board President Brenda Fryson on a “do diligence” mission to actually see the threat firsthand before they appear at an August 8th City Council meeting on the board’s rezoning proposal.
“What has happened in a number of communities, particularly the downtown area with the Atlantic Yards, is that developers are coming in and they are building as quickly as they can in order to have the foundations in before the rezoning rules come into effect,” said Ms. Fryson.   These structures going up are either commercial or residential properties that are out of scale or out of context with the neighborhood, “so in some areas you’ll see these tall buildings sitting in the middle of a block of row houses and that is legal under the present zoning.”
What Community Board 3 started almost a year and a half ago, under the leadership of Bea Jones, was a whole rezoning package for the southern portion of Bedford-Stuyvesant.  Referring to the democratic nature of the process, Ms. Phillips noted that, “Each of our five public gatherings about this rezoning was well attended by the community and  they were very engaged in what was going on andthey really have played a part in this Bed-Stuy south rezoning.”
Following the proper steps, the board has the approval of the borough president’s office, saying, “Marty himself was very helpful” as they made their testimony to “preserve the character of the neighborhood, with its beautiful brownstones, apartment houses, small stores.”
The major issue in the proposal was height of the buildings.  “It depends on what the area is,” says Ms. Fryson.  “For instance, most of Fulton St. is in the proposal rezoned to R7D. That means that any developer who comes in can build up to seven stories but if they provide affordable housing they can go up to as many as ten, but no higher than that.” Giving “much props” to the Brooklyn office of City Planning, “they came down and walked every block with us,” she says,  “The plan that came out the other end of this process-no more curb cuts on residential blocks and keeping small mom-and-pop stores-we think is a pretty good neighborhood preservation, economic development and affordable housing plan for Bedford-Stuyvesant.  And those were our three objectives.”
Affordable housing means below market rate and the formula the city uses to determine what that is, is based on the Area Median Income, which HUD defines for Kings County as $71,300 in 2007.  
Discounts are then made from that number, or one like it, to reflect the local economic reality and how local is a matter of concern because census tracts in the district vary from $11,822 in 255, to $38,438 in tract 285.01.  An interesting feature about tract 285.01 is that it is right next to 285.02 with a median household income of $11,859 and there are several tracts in this area of north Brooklyn with these relationships (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census).
It is economic relationships such as these that prompts Ms. Fryson to say, “Now we have to go to the north as quickly as possible,” and develop a similar plan of neighborhood preservation, economic development and affordable housing.  
Any drive down Flushing Avenue explains why speed is of the essence.  Structures are going up blindingly fast.  “That’s what could have happened in the south. So it is a very serious issue that we are going to try to work on and as fast as we can to get the south approved, then we’re going to go start on the north.”
Stay tuned.  Zoning is about to become even more interesting.  Next board meeting is 7:00pm  on September 10th at Restoration Plaza, 1368 Fulton Street.

By Danielle Douglas

Statistics abound on the State of Black Men in America-high rates of
unemployment, incarceration and parental absenteeism. Bringing about solutions to these and the host of other problems that confront brothers has been a topic of discussion for some time. Yet a holistic approach has remained forthcoming, that is, until now. With his recent three-day
conference on being Black and Male in America, Kevin Powell offered a comprehensive look at all of the roads that lead to sustainable empowerment for Black men.
Held two weeks ago in downtown Brooklyn, the conference kicked off with the activist and writer’s keynote address that put forth a definitive plan of action, rooted in self-determination. Powell called for brothers to: develop a spiritual foundation, become politically aware, obtain cultural knowledge, engage in economic empowerment, embrace healthy diets and exercise, seek out mental health and share positive information with each other.
One of the most important points of the night was the need to change the language of the conversation. Instead of being mired in talk of shortcomings and blame, taking personal responsibility and being proactive as opposed to being reactive, suggests Powell can affect real change. Over the course of the following two days, a team of proactive practitioners from all streams of the river hosted interactive panel discussions and roundtables that addressed all of Powell’s goals. The participants were divided into sessions geared towards their age group, with boys ages 10 to
17 in workshops dealing with such concerns as the deconstruction of messages and images in Hip-Hop.
Men over the age of 18 were taken through sessions with an interrelated message of self-improvement-be it economic, education or health-for the
larger good of the community. As Powell noted in his address, young boys look up to the men in their community, much like he did as a child, so living as a good example would have immeasurable effects.
The roles in which Black men play in the lives of young boys was a reoccurring theme throughout the conference-intentionally scheduled on the
weekend of Father’s Day. Speakers within the various sessions urged participants to take a more proactive role in their community by mentoring young men.
In the panel discussion later that night on Hip Hop, Manhood and Mentoring, Dr. William Jelani Cobb, professor of history at Spelman College, stressed the importance of countering negative images of manhood that permeate Hip-Hop with mentoring. Lumumba Bandele of Malcolm X Grassroots concurred, but suggested there must be criteria by which mentors are selected, since not all adult men are in a healthy state to influence young men.
During the discussion, Powell emphasized the importance of using Hip-Hop as a teaching tool to reach a generation immersed in the culture. Excerpts from two groundbreaking documentaries on the subject, The Hip-Hop Project and Byron Hurt’s Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, were shown as examples. Giving the Generation Y cohort a clear picture of why messages of misogyny and violence are promoted in the genre, suggested actor and author Hill Harper could serve to help them understand greater mechanisms of capitalism.
The final day of the conference, started with a screening of Ray Upchurch’s documentary Daddy Hunger, a piece exploring the effects growing up without a father can have on Black men and women. Some 56% of Black children, according to the film, don’t have their fathers in their lives. Upchurch himself didn’t meet his biological father until he was 40, but thanked his “step-up” father for showing him how to be a man.
Defining what it means to be a man was a key point of the panel discussion that ensued after the film. Panelist David W.C. Matthews, director of health services for CitiWide Harm Reduction, said current understanding of what it means to be a father and a man needs to change. Traditional definitions of both roles were, as he and other panelists noted, entrenched in patriarchy, or a system that seeks to dominate women. Obviously, they said, the model is faulty and hasn’t produced anything but more problems.
Scholar and author Dr. Michael Eric Dyson wrapped up the conference with a summation of many of the points made throughout the weekend-long event.
To keep the momentum from the conference going, starting Monday, September 10th Powell will host monthly meetings and workshops as an extension of the forum. For more information check out http://www.blackandmaleinamerica.org.

By Errol Louis

The Plummer Plunge
After all the hoopla over renaming Gates Avenue for Sonny Carson, here’s where we stand. As of this writing, City Council staff member Viola Plummer – who shouted insults at Councilman Leroy Comrie during the city’s council debate on the issue and later told reporters she might “assassinate his ass” – has been suspended without pay for at least six weeks, and maybe forever.
Plummer’s boss, Councilman Charles Barron, says he may go to court to undo the suspension, which was ordered by Council Speaker Christine Quinn after consultation with the council’s lawyers.
I can’t help but think the scorching summer sun has been getting to some of these politicians. While all this energy and hot air was being wasted on the purely symbolic issue of what to name four blocks in Bed-Stuy, Mayor Bloomberg and the rest of the council were fighting over how to carve up the city’s $4 billion surplus. I imagine they were happy to watch black leaders fight it out, wasting time while the money was being divided up and sent to other communities.
That’s the difference between our politicians and theirs. They fight over billions, while we fight over bull.
* * *
Trash Talk
A group of allegedly liberal politicians on the West Side of Manhattan are, once again, bargaining away the health and very lives of children in Harlem, the South Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.
Right now, Manhattan generates 40% of the city’s garbage. Nearly every last scrap of it – all the rotting food, dirty diapers, restaurant waste and nonrecyclable office trash – gets trucked outside the borough to other neighborhoods for sorting, packing and shipping to landfills.
This results in heavy concentrations of diesel-truck traffic, rodent infestations and smog in a handful of neighborhoods like the South Bronx – which, not surprisingly, have sky-high levels of asthma.
For years, a coalition of dedicated community activists in the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance has pushed for a fair-share policy in which each borough handles its own waste.
Their years of protests, lawsuits and persuasion led to a 20-year waste plan, shepherded through the City Council and the state Department of Environmental Conservation by the Bloomberg Administration. The plan shifts the city back to using waterfront transfer stations and curbs the practice of exporting Manhattan’s garbage to other boroughs.
One part of the approach calls for the reopening of an unused marine transfer station on the Gansevoort Peninsula near the Meatpacking District for recycling only – the cleanest kind of trash, like glass, metal and paper.
But because the facility would take up a sliver – less than one acre – of the 550-acre Hudson River Park, the state Legislature has to amend the law that created the park.
That’s where Assembly members Deborah Glick, Richard Gottfried and Linda Rosenthal have dug their heels in, lobbying their colleagues to vote against the transfer station before the legislative session ends this week.
The trio has trotted out the dishonest “We need more study” excuse to derail the plan. They claim that another site, Pier 76 at 36th St. – now used as a city tow pound – would work just as well.
That’s garbage. According to City Hall, which studied the issue exhaustively, upgrading the Gansevoort station would cost $60 to $80 million, while the price of converting Pier 76 would run from $300 to $500 million. Glick and her allies surely know this.
They also know we’ve been down this road before. The old Hudson Bus Depot on 16th St. was closed years ago to make way for this same waterfront park – and one result was the expansion of an MTA bus depot on 100th St. in asthma-plagued Harlem.
Sadly, Glick and her let-them-eat-pollution colleagues are being backed by a contingent of black and Latino pols, notably Harlem Assemblyman Denny Farrell, who doubles as the Democratic boss of Manhattan. Farrell made an impassioned pitch to his colleagues in the black and Puerto Rican Caucus to kill the Gansevoort station plan.
It worked. The Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus refused to take a stand on the issue, much to its shame. That is a wakeup call to those who care about residents of low-income neighborhoods: The Albany politicians, white and black, are going to sell us out unless we fight back.
* * *
Meeks Makes a Move
A bill called the Financial Services Diversity Initiative, sponsored by Queens Congressman Greg Meeks, is making its way through Congress. The bill, if passed, will encourage financial institutions to promote workforce diversity, including placing talented youth in internships, summer jobs and full-time positions within the industry and partnering with inner-city high schools and girls high schools to establish financial literacy programs and provide mentoring.
The bill would also push for more recruitment at women’s colleges and colleges that serve minority groups; and encourage the placement of employment ads in media outlets oriented to people of color.
“In New York City, financial services is the number one industry. Based on the recent census data, New York City is considered a majority minority city,” says Meeks. “It is compelling that the majority population is extremely and severely underrepresented in the city’s major industry.”
Kudos to the congressman for keeping his “eye on the prize.”

By Akosua Kathryn Albritton

The search for Brooklyn nonprofits that are closing the digital divide through broadband installation uncovered a few things. One, dead zones-areas where either cable TV or broadband technology is not supplied-exist in Brooklyn.  They exist because the major cable companies don’t believe it is profitable to invest the wiring.  Another, nonprofits need to connect with one another.  When posed the question, “Do you know of nonprofits wiring buildings or installing WiFi in Brooklyn, Mirielle Massac, Child Development Support Corporation’s (www.cdscnyc.org) PR Director, thoughtfully turned the wheels in her mind and came up blank.  Massac suggested that this columnist set up an operation.  You can imagine that I was honored.
The investigation hit pay dirt.  Keep in mind that it takes many full wheelbarrows before you strike gold or oil.  It included contacting eleven major Brooklyn nonprofits-nine are located in central Brooklyn.  Most didn’t return the call.  Two were ardent telephone taggers.  One VP of Information Technology said, “.their Web site is not a priority.” Reaching the Nonprofit Help Desk (www.nphd.org) was the “Eureka!” moment.  Nonprofit Help Desk’s Executive Director Chaya Abelsky interrupted her out-of-town vacation to talk about the nonprofit and arrange interviews with three staff members.
Nonprofit Help Desk’s mission is to increase the capacities of New York City’s small to midsize nonprofit organizations through technology and operations management services, education and advocacy.  It is one of four arms of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island (JCC).  It is recognized to be the first nonprofit to provide technology services to other nonprofits.  Nonprofit Help Desk was born from JCC Executive Director Rabbi Weiner’s, early adoption of the Internet.  By 1992, Weiner recognized that the Internet and computers could be a powerful social cause and nonprofit management tool.  It was a matter of sharing the message to other nonprofits and then getting them computerized and Web-enabled.  Evidently, he sold his case for technology to the then- Commissioner of Community Development Agency (now Department of Youth and Community Development) Gladys Carrion.  Commissioner Carrion granted funds for the future Nonprofit Help Desk without a Request For Proposal. 
Today, Nonprofit Help Desk gives training in computerized bookkeeping, Internet basics, sets up computer networks and security systems and connects nonprofits to broadband communication technology.  June 2007 ushered in the online social network for nonprofits called Puzzle (www.puzzlenyc.org).  Leah Vincent, Director of Development, oversees Puzzle and explained that though Puzzle is in Beta version, it’s the online space for nonprofits “to gain emotional support, find resources, discuss issues and [just] connect.”
Nonprofit Help Desk’s Technical Services Department arranges the wiring and does the network installation.  Yossef Heskiel directs the four-member department.  Heskiel is a certified Microsoft Systems Engineer and was an Electronics Technician for the US Navy.  He sums up the process in four steps: assessment, recommendation, infrastructure planning & design and implementation.  Three examples of this process are St. John’s Place Family Center (www.stjohns.org), Caribbean Women’s Health Association (www.cwha.org) and Dwa Fanm (www.dwafanm.org).  St. John’s Place Family Center is located in a dead zone on the western end of Crown Heights (1604 St. John’s Place).  It has an employment center, after-school center and day care at one end of the block and the administrative office and social services are at the other end. 
The group had fifteen AOL dial-up accounts which amounted to $700 – $800 in charges a month.  Nonprofit Help Desk visited the offices in 2002 and recommended the installation of fractional T1 lines.  Fractional T1 is a business class data transfer that is half the throughput of T1 data lines.  Though more expensive than dial-up, St. John’s Place Family Center experienced a savings of about $10,000 annually.  The nonprofit’s Executive Director, Louis Rodriguez, is pleased with the installation.  Rodriguez says, “The fractional T1 line enabled us to cut internet-related costs.  We now have better e-mail service at much less cost.We had SharePoint-an Intranet program-installed as part of the T1 installation.  This improves our capacity to share information among staff.”  Nonprofit Help Desk literally ran 300 meters of wires through 2 feet and 5 feet thick walls in the basement to connect the two ends of St. John’s Place.
For the Caribbean Women’s Health Association, it was the case of not needing or using the previous communication system which was a frame relay broadband system.  It’s fine for frequent international communication, but too much for local needs.  The solution for this nonprofit was disconnecting the broadband and installing synchronous DSL.  The nonprofit had been paying about $1,050 a month in Internet fees for 256 kbs; the new system gives 1.5 megabytes through put for $329 a month.  Dwa Fanm operated using dial-up Internet services and didn’t have a computer network.  Their solution involved signing with Roadrunner and configuring a network.  Nonprofit Help Desk monitors and maintains hundreds of nonprofits’ computer systems with their remote technology monitoring system.  This software is installed on the network servers and any glitches are e-mailed to the Technical Services staff’s Pocket PCs.  How’s that for being wired for success?
akosua@plans4success.com

By Feona Sharhran Huff

Crown Heights resident and day care provider Dorice Mata got the scare of her life a little less than two months ago when her 13-year-old daughter, Crystal, approached her gate accompanied by an adult male. According to the man – who claimed to be an off-duty undercover cop that lived across the street from the school – he came to Crystal’s aid after seeing her in tears. Crystal confirmed it, saying that some girls had just robbed her of candy she was selling for a school fund-raiser.
When Mata questioned why the man hadn’t called for police backup at the crime scene, he didn’t have an acceptable answer. So, Mata decided to call the police.
“He then said that the police were probably looking for him and that he was going to head back where he’d just come from,” Mata recalls. “But instead of making a left turn when he reached Albany Street, he made a right.”
Mata had initially felt that his story didn’t gel, but the man’s sudden disappearing act confirmed that something was wrong. On top of that, Mata said he never showed her an official NYPD shield with a badge number and he didn’t have a walkie-talkie on hand – only handcuffs and some type of New York departmental identification.
However, it was her next move that proved to be most valuable. Mata turned to the Internet and logged onto www.familywatchdog.us – a free site that offers information on registered sex offenders in your area when you do a search by a person’s name or location. Mata entered the name of a street near Crystal’s junior high school. When the map popped up, she began browsing through pictures of convicted pedophiles. Then she saw his face. The man who had just stood before her was a convicted sex offender charged with rape. “I got delirious,” Mata vividly remembers.
Mata continued looking at photos, only to discover that another rapist lived in the same building as this man. Plus, to her alarm, she found that Brooklyn communities such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights were home to hundreds of registered sex offenders. Some even live in the same buildings as her relatives.
That same evening, Mata sat down with all of her children to discuss what to do if an adult ever approaches them, especially someone who professes to be a police officer.
According to www.familywatchdog.us, whose motto is “Awareness is the best defense,” Mata handled things accordingly. In addition to its obvious offerings, the site provides tips to help you keep your kids safe, statistics and testimonials. Plus, when you sign up, you can receive e-mail alerts as to when sex offenders become your neighbors, when they leave your neighborhood, or when a particular sex offender changes residency.
The power to effectively protect your children is always in your court. Here are eight things you can do:
1. Communicate regularly. Pamela Y. Burns has an open dialogue policy with her three children, ages six to 17. “My husband and I always want to hear what our kids have to say,” she says. If your children attend a day care or are ever with a baby-sitter, be sure to ask your children what happened while in the person’s care, and other probing questions. Let them know that you will never get mad at what they tell you. Remind them that you’re asking them to be open and honest with you because it’s your job to keep them safe.
2. Teach your children pertinent personal information. Lorrie Ayers, a parent coordinator at Dr. Peter Ray P.S. 305 in Bed-Stuy, says it’s imperative that your children know their first and last name, your full name and their telephone number, as well as home address and the cross streets. She says empowering them with this knowledge greatly helps the police when trying to locate you.
3. Enforce the “buddy system.” Remind your children that as much as is possible they should travel with at least one friend when going somewhere – whether it’s to the park, the arcade, shopping or taking an extended walk. There is power in numbers and if a situation arises, there is someone else with them to call for help.
4. Establish check-in points. Doing so gives you a piece of mind as to the whereabouts of your children throughout the day, especially since school is no longer in session. Burns requires her middle child, 13-year-old Dejonae, to call her when she leaves out the house and returns. Be sure to supply your children with quarters to make routine calls or depending on their age and responsibility level, purchase them an “emergency only” cell phone. When Salaam Davis is out with his 11-year-old daughter Shani and six-year-old son Kedar, he always tells them to stay close by his side, especially when they are in crowded areas such as department stores. His rationale: “If you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”
5. Teach them what to do if they face an attempted abduction. Ayers says if someone ever tries to kidnap your children, they should scream: “This is not my father or mother and they are trying to take me.” Being specific in their cry for help alerts people on the street that this is a serious matter and not a child just playing around, explains Ayers.
6. Tell them what to do when lost or separated from an adult. Chantal L. Collins tells her eldest child, nine-year-old Neah, to find a woman with children if she doesn’t see the police, and tell her she is lost. Collins also points out landmarks or particular spots to return to when they are out. Ayers adds that when it comes to being separated from you on a bus or train, the following rules apply. When on the train: Tell them to get off at the next stop and wait at the token booth. They need to alert the clerk that they were separated. This is where you or another adult should look for them. On the bus: Tell them to stay on and notify the driver, at which point he or she can then call in to the base via radio.
7. Remind your children that adults don’t need help with directions or finding a lost pet. Mata, Burns, Collins, Davis and Ayers are all aware of the “I need help” scam that predators oftentimes try to run on children to lure them into their cars, then quickly snatch them. That’s why they implore their own children and insist that you tell yours to never approach an adult’s car for any reason. “Kids like to be helpful,” Ayers says. “Predators depend on them to be helpful.” Mata tells her children that if they are ever faced with being called to a car, they should run into the nearest store and tell the clerk what’s going on.
8. Keep their records current and readily available. Should the police need a recent photo of your children as well as their present height, weight, hair and eye color, ethnicity, skin complexion, and visible markings to begin their search, you need to have all of this information up-to-date and in a location that’s easy to retrieve. You can either type this information up yourself and store it in a folder or purchase an ID kit like the one offered through www.AMBERAlert.com. Check with your local police precinct to see if they offer any child ID programs, in which case you can register your children’s information with them and they provide ID cards.
For more tips and resources to empower you and your children on keeping them safe, log onto the following Web sites:
National Sex Offender Public Registry
http://www.nsopr.gov
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Department of Justice (OJJDP Publications-Child Protection)
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/missing.html
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
http://www.missingkids.com
NCMEC’s Web site to teach children about dangers on the Internet.
http://www.netsmartz.org
McGruff the Crime Dog
http://mcgruff-safe-kids.com
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Against Children Program Web page
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/crimesmain.htm