Borough Park, NY – A town hall meeting with Mayor Bill de Blasio taking place next week in Borough Park may be the first event of its kind ever to be held in the midst of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.
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The meeting, taking place on May 16th, is being hosted by City Councilman David Greenfield.
“I reached out to the mayor a while ago once I heard he was doing these kinds of meetings in the city,” Greenfield told VIN News. “I thought it would be a great opportunity for our community to be able to bring their concerns directly to the mayor.”
de Blasio will be bring his top advisors with him to the town hall event which is intended to give residents of Borough Park, Flatbush, Bensonhurst and Kensington a chance to discuss issues directly with the mayor. To the best of his knowledge, this event is the first of its kind, said Greenfield.
“As long as I have been around, I have never seen this before in Flatbush in Borough Park,” noted Greenfield.
Even as a city councilman, Greenfield said there he himself has run into brick walls on occasion, noting that his efforts to get a traffic light installed at the corner of 18th Avenue and 56th streets near the newly renovated 18th Avenue Park, have so far not borne fruit. Greenfield said that he intends to ask the mayor to do his part to get a traffic light installed to provide greater safety to the many people who have been enjoying the park since it reopened last summer.
The town hall will be held at FDR High School on 20th Avenue and 58th Street. 500 seats are available for the event, and an additional large area will be set up to accommodate the expected overflow. The event is free to the public, but RSVPs are recommended to reserve seating in the main room.
Since announcing the event to the public this past Tuesday, 350 people have already RSVPed and received tickets for the town hall, said Greenfield. Doors will be opening at 6 PM and will close at 7:30 PM. Greenfield encouraged participants, even those who hold tickets for the event to come on time.
“You need to be there by 7 PM to have a guaranteed seat,” said Greenfield. “We reserve the right to give your seat away if aren’t there on time.”
Greenfield is hopeful that there will be a large turnout for the town hall which he described as an opportunity to address issues, both large and small.
“When you are speaking directly to the mayor, there is an extra level of accomplishment and you can literally get things done just by showing up,” said Greenfield.
The town hall meeting is co-sponsored by Community Boards 12 and 14, NYPD 66th and 70th Precinct Community Council, the Boro Park Jewish Community Council, COJO of Flatbush, Chinese American Social Service Center and Sephardic Bikur Holim. To RSVP for tickets, email [email protected] or call 212-748-0281 by 12 noon, May 15th.
the Mayor has done these in literally 2 dozen other city council locales of 51, so the frum naïve people in these areas to think the mayor is coming to them specifically, also its an election year and the mayor represented much of Borough Park before it was redistricted. He knows our issues like tuition yet is best friends with UFT, he claims to like Israel yet loves Linda Sarsour. Greenfield is not his priority , Jumaane Williams is. The mayor has raised property taxes, made it unbearable to drive in NYC, the subways are atrocious, yet says he gave us $25 million to share with Catholics AND Muslims for private school security and said he will fight any tax credit for tuition paying parents in Albany. He came to Borough Park 3 times in the last 3 years all to pay shiva calls to his frum donors. Greenfield saying “as long as I been around” isn’t impressive hes been around 2 terms and half of that was with de bozo.
I like what he’s done with traffic and parking. Crime is down. The neighborhood is getting too old; we need more young families buying homes. Maybe property taxes should be raised more, especially for people who flip houses or own more than one home for ‘investment’. That might make it easier for young families to live here. Overall, I don’t have a problem with this mayor.
It’s better that the Mayor comes into Borough Park to talk to the residents, than for Bloomberg and Kelly to send their strong armed goons (riot squads of the NYPD) into Borough Park, as they did during Chol Hamoed Pesach, of 2006. I just hope that our people will treat the Mayor with derech eretz.
Explanation of how raising taxes on house flippers helps young families.
The almana or yorshim knows nothing about business or real estate, and house flipper looks and talks ehrlich instead of the home going on the market, the flipper swindles them and flips the home to a hug price unaffordable to young families. Tax the flipper to make it not profitable, and the almana gets a better price on sale, the young family gets an affordable price.
When I see a bicycle, I think that’s one less car to fight in traffic or for a parking spot. I saw in midwood, they added parking spots on some wide streets by making the spots diagonal instead of parallel. Maybe try that as an experiment on one wide street in BP? Maybe on one side of 14th avenue?