Climate change advocates protested in Albany last year against the Iroquois Pipeline Company’s expansion plans.
Photo courtesy of Food and Water Monitoring
After months of conflict with fellow board members and Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson’s office, Bronx Neighborhood Board 11 Chair Bernadette Ferrara and Vice Chair Al D’Angelo officially announced their resignation Thursday night. was dismissed from his position as a committee member.
Despite CB11’s investigative committee recommending that the board retain both men in their leadership positions, CB11’s full board meeting on April 25th recommended that both men serve their terms as chair and vice chair. The motion to do so was denied.
Eliezer Rodríguez, CB11 board member and chair of the search committee, said before the vote that the committee met on three separate occasions for approximately nine hours to discuss the suitability of both Ferrara and D’Angelo for the position. He said he had a long meeting.
“This was not an easy task,” Rodriguez said. “My understanding is that nothing like this has ever happened before. This is historic.”
Next school year, the city will open satellite mental health clinics inside seven Bronx schools, Mayor Eric Adams announced last week. The new clinic will serve more than 6,000 students between the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn, and the initiative will more than triple the number of Department of Education (DOE) school-based mental health clinics. Become.
Satellite clinics provide students with access to individual, group, and family therapy and crisis management. School staff will also receive guidance and training from clinic experts to reduce unnecessary 911 calls and emergency room visits.
In addition to school-based clinics, 34 more schools in the South Bronx and Brooklyn will have a pipeline for “rapid referrals” to NYC Health + Hospitals’ outpatient mental health clinics, increasing access to mental health The total number of schools will be up to 50. 50.
Bronx residents and elected officials are weighing in on proposals for new Metro-North stations to be built in the Parkchester/Van Nest, Hunts Point, Morris Park and Cope City neighborhoods. The massive project has widespread support, but not everyone agrees with the zoning changes that would likely accompany it.
Metro-North’s proposal would provide single-person rides from the East Bronx to Penn Station, Westchester County and Connecticut, and provide more open pedestrian spaces, such as the plaza at Morris Park. The project has already been in the works for five years, with construction first breaking ground in 2022.
But there is more to this proposal than just the train station. Approximately 7,500 new housing units will be added near Parkchester/Van Nest and Morris Park stations, with approximately one-quarter of them permanently designated as affordable housing, according to the Department of City Planning (DCP). It is said that 2.5 million square meters will be added to the area. At the foot of the commercial space. The plan will bring an estimated 10,000 jobs to all four new stations.
Environmental advocates and local elected officials are sounding the alarm over a proposed gas pipeline expansion, which they say would increase the state’s dependence on fossil fuels and increase greenhouse gas emissions in Hunts Point. are doing.
If approved, the expansion proposed by the Iroquois Pipeline Company would “completely undermine” the state’s climate change goals, said Emily, a New York City organizer with the nonprofit advocacy group Food and Water Watch. Skydell said.
The expansion, officially called the Iroquois Company Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project, will add new compressor stations along a 414-mile route, including two in the Hudson Valley region and two in Connecticut. Added more gas to utility customers National Grid and Con Edison, which has a station in Hunts Point. If approved, the project is expected to be operational by January 2027.
Nearly four months after the collapse of parts of Billingsley Terrace in Morris Heights in 1915, Bronx City Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez on Thursday announced a new law aimed at establishing stricter regulations regarding apartment building safety and landlord participation. announced a bill.
Sanchez, who represents New York City’s 14th Ward in the Bronx, stood in front of City Hall on April 25 and said more should have been done to prevent the collapse in December, when more than 100 people were evacuated.
“There are questions about what the Department of Buildings could have done to prevent this tragedy, and whether there are adequate systems in place to let tenants know if they are doing enough to keep tenants safe,” Sanchez said. It remains.” “The reality is that there are systemic problems here in New York City.”
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