Meet the Ambassador: Jo Anne Simon to be anointed at 43rd Atlantic Antic celebration
State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon will be named the Sixth Annual Atlantic Avenue Ambassador at the 43rd Annual Atlantic Antic Festival. The award is presented annually by the Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation (AALDC) and this year’s ceremony will take place on Sept. 24, 2017 on the Atlantic Antic Main Stage at 4 p.m., according to the event’s release.
A former sign language interpreter and disability civil rights attorney, Simon is a nationally recognized expert in her field with her work featured in the New York and National Law Journals. Since 1981, Simon has made her home in Brooklyn, where she has served as president of the Boerum Hill Association and chaired its Traffic & Transportation, Land Use and Atlantic Yards committees. She has worked to give Brooklyn’s communities a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, increase environmental justice, increase affordable housing, reduce firearm violence and improve street safety and access to education, the release states.
As the founder and co-founder of organizations including BrooklynSpeaks.net, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Friends of Douglass/Greene Park, Hoyt-Schermerhorn Task Force, the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Task Force, she has earned a reputation as an effective community leader. She is a founding member of the Association on Higher Education and Disability and the former president of Everyone Reading, which advocates on behalf of individuals with dyslexia and related learning disabilities.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.