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Policy Positions
Construction
- End self-certification and the fraud associated with it.
- Conduct a complete investigation into the systemic corruption at the Department of Buildings.
- Do background checks on all contractors for ties to organized crime.
- Place an independent review authority to do random audits of the Department.
- Remove the "flexibility" in interpreting the Building and Zoning Codes that has created so many problems over the last few decades. Make sure that the inspectors, plans examiners and commissioner all take a BALANCED approach to the law, instead of being in favor of the developer 99 times out of 100.
Zoning and Land-Use
- Rezone our neighborhoods "contextually" so that the zoning reflects the current development patterns; this will remove the incentive for the kind of damaging speculative development that we have seen over the past two decades.
- Recognize and designate our historic treasures in Flushing that are not currently protected by making them official landmarks.
- Remove the ability of developers to build on open courtyards by not allowing them to subdivide them from the rest of the complex!
RKO Keith's Theater
- Remove the landmarked RKO Keith's from its current owner, Thomas Huang (a convicted felon), and restore the building back to grandeur for public use as either an active theater or performing arts high school.
Education
Make sure that Districts 25 and 26 remain the best school districts in New York City by:
- Retaining good teachers through increased pay comparable to the surrounding suburbs.
- Increased funding for arts education, so that our own children can flourish in the largest Arts community in the world.
- Careful watch over the massive corruption at the Schools Construction Authority that wasted over $1 billion of taxpayers' funds last year in crooked contracts;
- Add Half-Day Pre-Kindergarten to give our tots an early start.
Affordable Housing
- Arrest landlords who discriminate based on ethnic background of applicant.
- Replace "80/20" (80% Market-Rate housing/20% Low- and Moderate Income Housing) tax incentive with new law requiring that all buildings over 16 units must include permanent affordable housing units, with the percentage of units increasing with the number of total units built.
- Eliminate the "credit" loophole that allows builders of luxury apartments to place it in another part of town, under a technicality in the "80/20" law.
- Eliminate the Erstadt Law so that legislators in New York City, and not those in Albany, determine housing regulations in New York City.
- Make apartment improvement increases (such as new windows, etc.) a temporary surcharge and not a permanent rent increase.
- Require landlords to open their books when they demand increases based on lack of profits.
Rebuilding at the World Trade Center site
- A large component of any development must include a memorial and park to those who perished.
- Any new development should not be out of scale with the surrounding area.
Transportation
- Renovate the Murray Hill train station. Include ADA / handicapped accessibility and lighting along with a beautification program to make this station better.
- Stop the closings of the token booths by the MTA. We need human beings down in the subway for senior passes and safety.
- Build a bus depot in downtown Flushing at the municipal lot!
- Make sure that the new bus fleet is powered by natural gas instead of gasoline, thereby lowering pollution emissions across the city by more than 10%.
- Restore X51 bus service to full schedule.
Downtown Flushing
- Address the discrimination of residents and shoppers by some downtown Flushing businesses.
- Clean up the Flushing River and waterfront!
- Create a Business Improvement District!
- Signage must be in English as well as another language. Signage laws MUST be enforced in order to make downtown more attractive.
- Expand streetscape improvements (new lighting, benches, garbage cans, curbs, etc.) to include all of downtown Flushing.
- Enforce sanitation laws in downtown Flushing. Make pouring restaurant grease down the sewers an arrestable offense.
Public Safety
- Expand community patrolling throughout the district, especially in the downtown Flushing area.
- Open a rape crisis / domestic violence counseling center to respond to the increasing number of incidences in the 109th Precinct.
- Increase salaries for those officers who reside within New York City - keep our tax money inside the city.
Parks
- Restore the Kissena Park Watershed by "daylighting," or bringing the creek back up to the surface.
- Redesign Martin's Field so that the park respects the 1200 who are buried beneath.
- Create better connectors to Flushing-Meadows Corona Park than currently exist today.
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