Good Morning, Brooklyn: Monday, May 9, 2022

May 9, 2022 Dozier Hasty

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SOUTH SLOPE SCHOOL GETS NEW ‘GREEN’ SCHOOLYARD: P.S. 295K/New Voices School of Academic and Creative Arts schools in the southern portion of Park Slope (South Slope) will be getting a newly- renovated “Green” schoolyard, thanks to a collaboration between the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and The Trust for Public Land. Green infrastructure elements incorporated in the playground’s construction will capture approximately 430,000 gallons of stormwater each year, helping to improve the health of New York Harbor and reduce the risk of flooding for residents and businesses in the area.

Students from each of the two schools housed in the building on 18th Street built the playground, (funded in part with $340,000 from DEP’s Green Infrastructure program) to reflect their neighborhood’s unique identity, culture, and character.

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NO INJURIES IN DOMINO PARK SHOOTING: A gunman opened fire outside at Domino Park on the Brooklyn waterfront in Williamsburg Thursday night, sending panicked picnickers scrambling for cover, cops and witnesses said. A man seen running north on River St. near South 3rd St. pulled a gun and fired off at least four shots at someone behind him. No one was hit by bullets or injured during the mass exodus out of the park, police reported.

As the gunman was still at large by press time, police on Friday conducted a digital canvass around the park to see if they could recover video depicting the gunman.

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SENTENCED FOR BRIBERY SCHEME: Two former National Grid facilities’ managers were sentenced in Brooklyn federal court last Friday for their participation in a years-long bribery and kickback scheme. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon presided at the sentencing, for which Patrick McCrann received a year and one day of prison, with a $10,000 fine and $200,000 forfeiture; and Richard Zavada got a year and one day in prison, with a $10,000 fine and $330,735 forfeiture.

The defendants had each pleaded guilty to a violation of the Travel Act in October 2021.

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START-UP FIRM RESEARCHES SMART CAR TECHNOLOGY: Start-up Actasys — a Brooklyn-based company — is advancing new applications for clean-tech innovation. The firm, which began at the NYSTAR-backed Center for Future Energy Systems at RPI, is bringing that research to the smart-car segment of the auto industry while laying the groundwork for the future of self-driving cars.

Using research funded by NYSERDA and corporate partners, Professor Amitay’s lab developed a synthetic jet actuator – a device that uses electricity to generate a strong jet of air to keep sensors and cameras clear for automobile safety and driving assistance systems. Keeping those sensors clear is key to achieving the ultimate goal – vehicles enabled to drive themselves.

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Bronfman Fellowship winner Dahlia Miller of Brooklyn
Photo courtesy Bronfman Fellowship

BROOKLYN STUDENT AWARDED BRONFMAN FELLOWSHIP: A Brooklyn teen member of Congregation Beth Elohim is one of 26 students selected for The Bronfman Fellowship’s 36th cohort of intellectually curious 11th-graders from across North America. Dahlia Miller dances with Mark Morris Dance Group’s Student Company, balancing this passion with her junior-year studies at The Beacon School in Manhattan, where she helped found Teens Turn Out, a youth-led voter-preregistration initiative. Active at Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Dahlia works as a madricha, serving as a youth group board member, participates in a Rosh Hodesh group for teen girls, and has volunteered throughout the city as part of Repair the World’s Summer Teen Service Corps.

The 26 Fellows, who come from a broad spectrum of the Jewish community, will participate in a transformative, free Fellowship-year experience beginning with a summer in Israel, where they explore a rich, complex tapestry of Jewish texts and ideas in conversation with one another and a faculty team of leading rabbis, educators, and artists.

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New principal, Daniel Sharib, Xaverian ‘96
Photo courtesy Xaverian High School

SHARIB BECOMES PRINCIPAL OF HIS ALMA MATER: Xaverian High School’s new principal, announced at the same time that his predecessor was tapped for a key diocesan role, is Daniel Sharib, an alumnus from the Class of 1996. Starting July 1, he becomes Xaverian’s tenth Principal of the leading Catholic high school in Bay Ridge, after having served as Assistant Principal for Academics since 2016, and after 22 years of service to Xaverian.

Mr. Sharib succeeds Deacon Kevin McCormack, whom Bishop Robert J. Brennan appointed as Superintendent for Catholic Schools with the Diocese of Brooklyn.

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NEW SINGLE-DAY RIDERSHIP RECORD FOR SUBWAY: New York City Subway set a new record for pandemic-era single-day ridership on Thursday, May 5, carrying 3,497,122 riders. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, this record surpasses a pre-pandemic ridership figure of 3.491 million on the subway observed on March 13, 2020, and beats the previous pandemic-era record set on December 9, 2021, when the subway carried 3.42 million.

The MTA is encouraging ridership, by implementing a new fare-capping pilot program that makes fares more affordable and flexible. The cap on weekly fares through the OMNY contactless payment system includes a “Lucky 13” feature, in which starting with the 13th ride of each week, every additional ride on subways or buses is free for the rest of that week.

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IPS NEWS: NEW LAW MANDATES STUDY OF PAYROLL INDUSTRY: The state Department of Financial Services is now required to conduct a study on the payroll-servicing industry, after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill S.3577/A.7786 late last week. The study has been ordered in the wake of the MyPayrollHR scandal which caused major financial disruptions for workers and small businesses, after its president redirected $26 million in payroll funds to his personal account. This led to MyPayrollHR accounts being frozen, and paychecks being distributed with funds that did not exist.

This legislation will require the New York State Department of Financial Services to work with the Department of Taxation and Finance on the industry study, with the goal of exploring prevention techniques could be applied moving forward.

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JEFFRIES CONDEMNS LACK OF ACCESSIBLE HEARINGS: U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-8/Central Brooklyn) expressed anger that hearings on the district map revisions were not made accessible to New Yorkers living downstate or in the five boroughs. He criticized Judge Patrick McAllister for ignoring his request to immediately add hearings at sites accessible to all New Yorkers, instead of scheduling a sole hearing in Bath, New York, some 300 miles away from the city, with no provision for virtual attendance.

“The so-called public hearing featured very little public testimony, as compared with volumes of citizen and community input leading up to the creation of the congressional map signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul,” said Rep. Jeffries. “The New York State Court of Appeals and the Special Master must open up the redistricting process and hold additional public hearings to avoid disenfranchising the Black, Latino and Asian American residents I am privileged to represent.”