De Blasio doles out crowd pleasers at Brooklyn Heights town hall
Money for parks, new schools, youth center
With Councilmember Stephen Levin at his side, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced new investments in local parks, new schools, a doubling of the Boerum Hill Historic District and funds to reopen the Gowanus Houses Community Center, among other projects at Wednesday’s town hall held at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights.
He also used the power of the mayorship to connect aggrieved residents of Levin’s District 33 (Greenpoint, Brooklyn Heights, Downtown, Boerum Hill) directly to commissioners and other officials filling almost a quarter of the seats in the St. Francis gym, ready to cut through red tape.
For example, when a Brooklyn Heights resident complained that the Buildings Department had consistently approved Saturday construction work at the site of the former Brooklyn Heights branch library, de Blasio called out to a DOB representative, who make the snap judgement that the permit for Saturday work would be ending immediately.