Politics

In her State of the City address last week, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed tackling the need for job growth in three ways:

• Harnessing the potential of some of the city’s strongest industries, notably the design and manufacturing industries.

New York City Design Week will be a global event to highlight the city’s designers.

Additionally, a new state-of-the-art shared manufacturing center will provide shared space and equipment for professionals and students.

• Creating job opportunities in neighborhoods with high unemployment.

Plans include creating a $10 million small business loan fund exclusively for businesses in low-income neighborhoods.  

By Paula Katinas

Councilman Vincent Gentile said he was delighted that the city gave the New York Giants a ticker tape parade after the team’s Super Bowl win. But Gentile said he also thinks war veterans deserve the same treatment.

Gentile joins a growing chorus of Council members calling on the Bloomberg administration to host a parade for veterans returning home from the war in Iraq.

“I think we can all agree that the New York Giants deserve a parade for winning the Super Bowl. But if a football team gets a parade, shouldn’t our veterans? Do they not deserve their own day in the sun down the Canyon of Heroes?” Gentile asked.

By Paula Katinas
Brooklyn Eagle

Bay Ridge — Before you make Fourth Avenue beautiful, you have to make it safe for pedestrians.

That was the message delivered by members of the Fourth Avenue Task Force on Long-Term Planning, a group organized by Borough President Marty Markowitz to come up with ways to turn the avenue into a Brooklyn version of Paris’s Champs-Elysees.

Members of the task force’s Committee on Beautification, Medians, and Co-Naming met with representatives of Community Board 10 in the board’s office at 8119 Fifth Ave. on Feb. 13 to discuss its progress and to solicit ideas from Bay Ridge residents.

Bay Ridge — As of Feb. 12, churches were no longer permitted by the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to use public school buildings for their worship services. That’s the day on which a ban imposed by the DOE officially went into effect.

Up to now, the city has allowed approximately 60 church congregations to use public schools to conduct worship services during non-school hours.

State Sen. Marty Golden is one of several lawmakers upset with the city’s decision. He charged that the city is discriminating against religious groups.

“Organizations based on faith deserve the same rights as all other groups, and because of their beliefs, should not be held to a different standard,” he said.

BROOKLYN — Congressman Bob Turner (R-Brooklyn/Queens) applauded the signing of a partnership agreement between the Army Corps of Engineers and the New York City Parks Department to begin a Storm Risk Reduction project at Plumb Beach in Brooklyn.