EAST END CIVIC ASSOCIATION MEETING NOTES

Tuesday May 18, 2004 7:30 - 8:30

WOW the planters on Stephenson Blvd surprised everybody in town. The process went smoothly; people stopped to comment how nice it looked and to wish us luck. People even offered contributions to the workers for this project. Now we ask everyone to go out and keep them watered. Anne asked for people to volunteer to pick a planter they would personally tend to. One pot got knocked over and put back.  All agreed it has been a show of positive community spirit.

Stephenson Blvd was discussed more as people wondered why there was so much litter and was it from the workers at the construction site. Persico is the name of the construction company. Hopefully they will be finished soon.

Housing was the next topic. The housing committee was discouraged by the response to our request to investigate and follow up on several houses with illegal apartments. The response was to issue violations when and if they could gain access and the amount of the fines are hardly enough to discourage the offset of high rents. A fine of $25??? Is that all we can ever expect? That doesnt make any sense.

The housing committee called the NYC building department to inquire what they do? They said there had to be a health or fire hazard. So what do you do? Report a gas leak? No  - that would be breaking the law. It seems the only answer is to get political. Show up. Be loud. Make a protest. Maybe thats what we need to do.  We must find out if the mayor did indeed set up a task force to find out whats going on with the housing situation or just instead referred us to the fire department. We will be asking him personally at the next meeting what he and the city intend to do about the housing.

Speaking of politics, our guest speaker tonight was Jim Miasano who is one of 17 Westchester Country legislators. He is also a neighbor on Wilson Drive.  I can not do him justice by trying to repeat all that he spoke about. But I will tell you he was darn interesting. His topics were: the job of country government; the districting and re-districting of New Rochelle, the voting rolls; the social services Westchester is mandated to pay for; how the budget is worked out; the sewers and storm drains and the LI sound and Hudson Park. We all learned so much and hope Jim will come back again.

It was pointed out that an article in the Sound and Torn newspaper where a landlord may have to pay $22,000 fine for overcrowding in Mamaroneck. We are not alone. A village Trustee was quoted as saying "This fine sets the tone for how serious the board is about overcrowding". They are working on new legislation to increase the penalties against code violations tied to overcrowding.

For more information on this click on the link below:

http://www.thejournalnews.com/weekly/042304/a01ti0423fine.html