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Opinion: Join the Fight to Prevent MTA Service Cuts

March 5, 2010

By ASSEMBLYWOMAN VANESSA GIBSON

Thousands of west Bronx residents use mass transit every day and those services are vital to the quality of life we all share. Whether it is the young people traveling to school and tutorial programs or the many adults who take buses and subways to get to work, medical appointments and shopping, access to affordable public transportation is crucial to all of our families.

I am a strong supporter of the transit services our families need and have been working in the state Legislature to protect local bus and subway routes from the absolutely unacceptable cuts proposed by the management of the MTA. These cuts will cost many families hundreds of dollars a year by dismantling the existing student MetroCard program and would harm our residents by completely eliminating the BX18 bus route which travels through Morris Heights. The service cuts proposed by the MTA would also impact many west Bronx residents by reducing the number of hours of the BX32 bus route runs, eliminating the BX41 and making major changes to the Access-A-Ride program.

The elimination of student MetroCards would place a toll gate in front of the doors to our schools as many low income and working families in the west Bronx struggle to pay for the cost of access to an education for their children and I am working with my colleagues in the state Legislature to force the MTA to restore this essential program.

I was one of the first state legislators to take action to support the student MetroCard program, and three months ago, on Dec. 17, I wrote a letter to Jay Walder, the executive director of the MTA, asking him to reconsider this devastating policy. I have also introduced state legislation that would require the MTA to have a free fare student MetroCard program for our children so that the kids in the west Bronx and throughout New York City will continue to have access to the quality education they deserve.

I am taking a leading role in supporting continuation of bus service on the BX18 route as well. This bus service is crucial for residents of the Highbridge and Morris Heights communities and is an essential transit link for many families living along Sedgwick and Undercliff avenues. Without the BX18, those residents would be forced to walk along potentially hazardous streets and would be virtually cut off from more eastern portions of the south Bronx.

The MTA’s own data indicates that the BX18 has a significant number of passengers with 1,780 weekday and 1,130 weekend riders using this valuable bus service. Many of those passengers use the BX18 to get to work and eliminating this service would cause substantial hardships for them and other families in our community.

Now is the time for every resident to help in this important fight to protect bus and subway service in the west Bronx by signing one of the many petitions circulating in our community or by writing to: MTA Community Affairs, 347 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017.

Working together we can speak with one voice in defense of the public transit services that are essential to our community. I am committed to standing up for the residents of Claremont, the Concourse, Highbridge, Mount Eden and Morris Heights and ask you to join me in the fight to restore these essential bus and transportation services to improve the quality of life in Bronx County and the State of New York.

Assemblywoman Vanessa Gibson represents the 77th Assembly District.

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Opinion: BCC Must Rethink Decision to Evict High School

February 5, 2010

By ROLAND LEGIARDI-LAURA

Rebecca Thomas’ thoughtful article requires elaboration:

1) Bronx Community College claims rapid growth in enrollment is the single cause forcing it to expel University Heights Secondary School (UHHS). This is an unstable basis for a specious argument. Several years from now, when the economy recovers, and students return to four-year institutions, BCC will become a ghost town. It’s illogical to evict a successful high school for what is only a temporary aberration.

2) BCC doesn’t use its own space efficiently. Classrooms and entire buildings sit empty because of poor planning or poor maintenance. The successful educational culture of UHHS must not be sacrificed because BCC’s administration is near-sighted and verging on incompetence. If, as one UHHS student pointed out at the recent town hall meeting, BCC claims they will have nearly 4,000 new students, how will they seat them all by capturing one building that handles 400—one tenth of their purported growth? BCC will gain marginally by commandeering this building but the impact upon the high school will be devastating and permanent. An independent entity must be mandated to survey the entire campus, and offer an alternative plan.

3) BCC Vice-President, Mary Colman, is outrageously trying to pit the students of BCC against UHHS students. To argue that BCC must choose between either their “own” students or those of the high school, is an attempt to force a wedge between people who are all in the same boat. BCC doesn’t have to sacrifice one group of deserving kids to serve another. With thought, both can be well served on this huge 56-acre campus.

4) UHHS has been successful (three consecutive A ratings from the Department of Education, putting it in the top 13 percent of high school citywide; millions of dollars in scholarships won annually by its students) for two very important reasons:

a) Studying on a college campus not only inspires youngsters to strive toward higher education: a high percentage of UHHS students take college level courses at BCC. This engenders a high graduation rate: 85 percent in 2009 compared to roughly 60 percent citywide and between 36-52 percent in the Bronx – depending upon whom you believe. The most important fact supporting this assertion: The vast majority of UHHS graduates – 81 percent – go on to college.

b) The campus is a safe haven in the most dangerous borough in New York City and the poorest urban county in the United States. Students don’t pass through metal detectors or suffer the indignities of being wanded entering their building. If you attend a school that feels like jail and treats you like a prisoner, you are more likely to behave like a prisoner than a scholar.

5) The DOE must help solve this problem. If BCC has its heart set upon full 24-hour use of Nicholls Hall (current home of UHHS), then the DOE should build a new state-of-the-art high school on the BCC campus for the University Heights community. Once it is up and running and UHHS is moved in, Nicholls Hall can be reprogrammed for BCC’s needs. UHHS must remain on this campus. It is the only high school in this council district. In the meantime, BCC and UHHS can share Nicholls Hall. The building is only used by the high School during normal school hours. What about evenings for college students? What about weekends? This is a workable interim solution while building the new school.

6) Where is the Teachers Union (UFT) in this battle? Many dedicated teachers have spent their entire careers working at UHHS. It is unconscionable to allow the city to squander the work of these successful pedagogues who have labored for decades building a strong school. Inaction by the union won’t be tolerated by its rank and file. The UFT must protect its teachers from reprisals by an ungrateful or embarrassed DOE.

7) Finally, UHHS’ school community— parents, students, alums, teachers, staff and many former students now attending BCC, spoke unequivocally at the meeting – “We will negotiate in a public forum. But we will not be moved!” As Captain John Parker said to his small band of Minutemen on Lexington Green facing the better-armed British army on April 19, 1776—“Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a way, let it begin here.” We know who won that war.

Legiardi-Laura has been a guest teaching-artist at University Heights High School for the past eight years.

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No one likes an F

November 5, 2008

By JUDY NOY

With reference to the “Local Schools Get Graded” article in your October 2008 issue, no, no one likes an F. Several schools receiving failing grades have been subject to closing or replaced with other schools, some with different staff.

In your article, Chancellor Joel Klein is mentioned as having said in a recent interview with reporters that the yearly grades are a fair and accurate reflection of how each school has performed. Apparently there are differences of opinion since the article also reports that PS 79 teachers called their school’s grade “grossly unfair.” And how can grades be deemed “fair and accurate” when the test scores of students whose first language isn’t English are included when the DOE decides what grade to give the school?

Imagine being in a class in a foreign country and being required to take an exam in a language you didn’t know. While various factors are taken into consideration when grading a school, it’s possible that the more ELL students a school has, the higher the possibility that school will receive a lower grade.

In an August 2007 article, the New York Teacher reported how it was good news that 45.6 percent of eighth graders passed their State math exams. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as being “ecstatic” over the results. But how is this good news? This translates to mean that almost 55 percent failed. Forty five percent shouldn’t be cause for celebration.

This August, the Daily News reported that “state tests released this summer showed that only 43 percent of eighth graders are proficient in reading.” Even if these percentages are higher than the previous years, it is still a dismal showing. We read about teachers being required to teach the tests (math and reading), sometimes at the expense of other subjects. And still many students are unable to pass.

Some are blaming teachers for students’ poor results. This is totally unfair. While teachers are drumming the subject matter into their students’ heads in class, studying should be the job of each individual student outside of school.

But teachers themselves can only do so much. In some cases, they have felt so pressured that they’ve been caught giving answers during exams. Others have changed failing grades to passing so the student wouldn’t be left behind. This isn’t doing the student any favors since, if they’re passed through to the next grade without sufficient knowledge of the subject matter, they may fall further behind. Passing students through who aren’t ready may be one of the reasons for the high dropout rate by the time they get to high school.

As an incentive to do better, students are being paid to do well on their exams. According to an article in the New York Teacher in August 2007, City

Hall announced the launching of a new two-year pilot program last fall for low  income families from several New York City neighborhoods, offering money to participating parents and students, giving cash to students who did well on the state standardized tests, and to their parents.

When I was a young student attending school, graduating on time and passing all tests and Regents were expected and even taken for granted. It’s shocking that some of today’s kids and their parents have been given monetary incentives and rewards. Has anyone even considered how the students who consistently do well and their parents feel who do not receive compensation?

It may be helpful to keep students together in classes who are at similar academic levels. If students are placed into homogeneous classes, not only could this make a teacher’s job easier, but the teacher can more easily focus on what to spend extra time on. The school should subsequently receive a better grade since there’s a better chance of the students improving their grades.
After all, isn’t that the ultimate goal?

Judy Noy is proofreader for the Mount Hope Monitor.  She resides in Norwood.

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My Space: A Waste of Space

May 8, 2008

Not too long ago, I was at a neighbor’s house helping her translate a few documents while she studied for her citizenship exam. Her grandson was there, sitting by the computer, looking at MySpace. “Nothing new there,” I thought. But when I came to leave a few hours later, I noticed he was still glued to the screen. I decided to ask him about it. He told me that he spends three to four hours a day surfing through MySpace, and double that on Saturdays and Sundays. So in total he spends 30 to 40 hours a week on MySpace. That’s like having a full-time job!

I spoke to his grandmother, and learned that he is doing poorly in school, and may end up repeating a grade. Could his MySpace addiction account for his poor performance?

It’s stories like this one, that lead me to believe that time on MySpace is time wasted.

It gets in the way of schoolwork, and it discourages students from attending after school programs, as many can’t wait to get home and turn on the computer and “talk” to their friends. MySpace, then, has become the new “hangout.” When you log in, you can see which of your friends is online at that moment. Then you can start chatting, and chatting, and chatting…

MySpace

Hanging out, therefore, no longer requires being outside. Some parents like that. Better my kids are inside, they think, than out on the street experimenting with drugs or committing petty crimes like vandalism. And I see their point, to an extent. But kids can still get into trouble online. For MySpace brings with it a whole new set of problems. Outside, 14-year-old girls rarely engage with 30-year-old men. But online no one’s monitoring who’s talking to whom, so a child can freely talk with an adult. The concept of “hanging out” at home is not as safe as some parents may think.

MySpace can be even worse than television. Many parents purchase computers for their children in the hope that they will become computer savvy and attractive to employers in today’s technology driven job market. But what are they really learning if all they do is visit MySpace? At least some TV channels are educational. MySpace exists purely as a network for social gathering. It is a means for one to advance his or her social network and cultivate existing relationships. Some even use it to arrange intimate encounters. There is nothing educational about it.

What’s happening is that our children are in danger of becoming the next generation of lazy adults. They cannot focus on a task for any period of time because they lack the discipline and training to think creatively and critically. Their brains are only receptive towards information that is for entertainment purposes – information like MySpace. Surfing the internet for hours on end is not an experience that will prepare youth to be tomorrow’s leaders. Instead, we’re creating a new generation with limited working skills, meaning our community will continue to battle with high crime and poverty.

Some of the problems derived from using MySpace lie with parents. In low-income communities like ours, working class parents often hold more than one job, so the last thing they want to do when they arrive home is to engage with their children’s nonsense. They are tired and the computer serves as a means to keep their children busy, consequently limiting interaction between them and their children. Parents, however preoccupied, need to become more involved in their children’s development. Allowing a child to spend 30 to 40 hours a week on MySpace could be seen as a form of neglect.

The picture I just painted of young people forever surfing the Internet is a sad one. But it’s one that is easily corrected – even if that means parents telling their children: “No more MySpace under my roof’s space.”

Jose Roman is a regular contributor to the Mount Hope Monitor. He lives in Mount Hope.

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Graffiti: An Organized Crime

March 5, 2008

By JOSE ROMAN

When we walk up and down Burnside and Jerome avenues, we see graffiti work illustrated on the walls of our community. Yet we rarely witness this graffiti being produced. It’s something we see everywhere in the Bronx, but we don’t know much about it.

Graffiti Some residents claim that graffiti makes the community beautiful; others think it makes it ugly. But these opinions do nothing to advance our knowledge of the graffiti subculture. For while graffiti is both art and vandalism, it’s also something else: a basic level of organized crime.

All Graffiti Writers Belong to a Group

The graffiti subculture is a basic level of organized crime because, similar to traditional organized crime, members belong to a group. Take, for instance, the Italian Mafia of New York City. All Mafiosi belong to one of five families. Similarly, each Bronx graffiti writer belongs to a group within the subculture. These groups are known as “crews.” An example of a crew active in the Mount Hope neighborhood is D.F.A., which stands for “Down for Anything.” All of the members of the crew support and rely on each other, as do the members of individual families within the Italian Mafia.

Graffiti Writers Scheme

The graffiti subculture is also a low level of organized crime because of the way the tools of the trade are obtained. Traditionally, organized crime groups obtain the tools they use to commit their crimes illegally and strategically. For example, members of the Mafia buy drugs and guns, and they do so strategically to avoid arrest. Graffiti writers also get their spray paints in a strategic fashion. Graffitists refer to this process as “racking” – the process of obtaining paint through shoplifting or other means. One strategy is traveling to states where laws governing the purchasing of spray paint are more lenient. In such a state, Connecticut for example, the graffitists will purchase one spray paint but steal many more. SKID, a graffiti writer who co-founded D.F.A, says: “You never rack in the city. That’s why I go out of state to rack my paint.”

Graffiti Writers Plan Their Crimes

The graffiti subculture in the Mount Hope area is also a basic level of organized crime because, like organized crime groups, they plan ahead before they execute their crimes. In organized crime, individuals engage in illegal activities such as gambling and prostitution, racketeering, and human trafficking. Because they’re well planned out so as to avoid detection, many of these crimes go unnoticed by the general public. In the same way, graffiti writers execute their graffiti work all throughout the neighborhood, and yet personally go unnoticed by the local residents and property owners. “We bomb late when everyone is sleeping,” SKID says.

“Bombing” is the process of writing one’s tag on numerous buildings, walls, and fences, and the like, all at one time, without being noticed or caught. As such, when a graffitist goes out to produce his work, he will be accompanied by one or two other writers from his crew. As one writer executes his work on a property, the others are on the lookout. DOLT, another graffiti writer from the D.F.A. crew, says, “When we go bombing, we always carry our cell phones and have each other’s back. I have their back, and they got my back.” The graffitists call each other if someone is coming in the direction of the writer who is producing the work. That way the writer avoids being arrested and charged with vandalism.

In the Bronx graffiti subculture, from joining a crew to becoming an active member, all of these activities are thought out and planned. As such, the graffiti subculture is a basic level of organized crime, whether or not the members of the subculture recognize it.

Jose Roman, a regular contributor to the Mount Hope Monitor, is currently completing a master’s thesis on the politics of graffiti. He lives in Mount Hope.

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No Snitching: The Rule of the Street

December 6, 2007

By JOSE ROMAN

The New York Police Department’s CompStat database lists the number of serious crimes by category for each police precinct in the city. The 46th Precinct’s figures can be found at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs046pct.pdf.

According to CompStat, there were 82 murders in our precinct in 1990. In 1995 there were 43. So far this year there’s been 15. The murder rate is falling – as are other major crime such as rape and robbery.

Still, 15 murders in a small precinct such as ours is a significant number. In fact, it’s one of the highest in the city. Why is this? Why does our community continue to record high rates of violent crime, and why are some crimes such as rapes and murders not being solved in our community?

These crimes are not going away, and perhaps they are being repeated, in part because there is a rule in the street that says you never speak to the police.

The no-snitch rule demands that you never speak to the police. For many, going against this rule is to become a “sellout” – a person who betrays his or her community. Such a label implies that one is a traitor who is not to be trusted.

How may this rule of the street affect crime? Well, it may prevent the police from making arrests of criminals who commit wicked crimes such as rapes, robbery and murders. And when the police and the community aren’t talking, criminals may become emboldened.

But there are historical reasons as to why community residents are not talking to the police. One historical reason the no-snitch rule exists in our neighborhood is that in the past the 46th Precinct has served more as the oppressor of the community, rather than the protector. Several infamous cases of police brutality created tension and mistrust that has lasted to this day. In December 1994, local resident Anthony Baez died following a struggle with Police Officer Francis X. Livoti Jr. on Cameron Place. That Livoti wasn’t convicted of anything until 1998 (and only then for violating Baez’s civil rights) made matters worse. Then, in Morris Heights, just weeks after the Baez incident, two detectives were accused of using excessive force in the deaths of two robbery suspects, Hilton Vega and Anthony Rosario.

The no-snitch rule, therefore, was a reaction to the fear and mistrust created by these incidents (and others before and after), and a way to fight back against the police and correct the balance of power.
The no-snitch rule is also fueled by the fear of reprisal. When I first moved to Mount Hope in the early 1990s, it was pointed out to me that another local resident was responsible for the killing of two Jamaican men who lived across the street from my building. It happened at the corner of 179th Street and Creston Avenue. Apparently they had been murdered over a drug dispute. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what had happened, yet no one told the police. The killer continued to live in the community and be involved in drug activity for years to come. Being the curious child that I was, I remember asking my family why the “bad guy” was still around. The response I got was, “Mind your own business.” I was told that if I didn’t mind my own business, then I could put my life and that of my family at risk. I never asked a silly question again.

No SnitchI think that the 46th Precinct has a better relationship with the community today than it did in the 1990s. But the no-snitch rule is still followed in our neighborhood, as it is elsewhere in the city. Certain clothing stores on Burnside Avenue and Fordham Road even sell T-shirts and sweat shirts with no-snitch logos. The clothes are sold as a street campaign to enforce and remind residents of the rule. As such, the relationship between the community and the 46th Precinct is one of mixed feelings.

Is the rule destroying our community, or is it empowering it? Is the rule unavoidable? I don’t know. But if local residents and the 46th Precinct are prepared to meet in the middle, they can provide the answers to these questions.

Jose Roman lives in Mount Hope.

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