Good Morning, Brooklyn: Tuesday, September 20, 2022

September 20, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

JUDGE DEARIE APPEARS TO BACK DOJ ARGUMENTS ON CALLING DOCUMENTS CLASSIFIED: U.S. District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed to review documents taken from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, appears to believe the U.S. government’s position that documents marked as “classified” were indeed classified against the wishes of the former president, reports the New York Law Journal, in a story reprinted from the National Law Journal on Tuesday. Judge Dearie, of the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn federal court), after listening to arguments from both the Department of Justice and attorneys for Mr. Trump earlier today, indicated that the review of documents could begin as soon as tomorrow, Wednesday, September 21.

Judge Dearie, who seemed uninterested in political attacks, also came across as skeptical of Trump’s power and authority to declassify the documents.

✰✰✰

JOINT PRESENTATION ON BQE REPAIRS: The Department of Transportation will hold a presentation on Thursday for the communities that will be affected by planned repairs on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that will cause traffic detours. Assemblymember Robert Carroll (44th AD), whose district encompasses several neighborhoods, organized this meeting that the Transportation Committees of Community Boards 7, 12 and 14 are hosting. The meeting, which starts at 6:30 p.m. at The Parkside Educational Complex, 713 Caton Avenue, will also be CB14’s first opportunity to hear directly from DOT as residents in the northern end of the district as Caton Avenue and Linden Boulevard will be most directly impacted.

DOT presented the proposed BQE repair and detour plan to Community Boards 2 and 6 in June.

FLATBUSH MAN SENTENCED IN BASEBALL CAP SHOOTING: A Flatbush man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the fatally shooting of a 38-year-old baseball dad, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced yesterday. The 22-year-old defendant, Adonis Barnett shot victim Gerald Cummings, who had confronted him over his son’s stolen ‘Don C’ Oakland Raiders leather and snakeskin baseball cap, valued at several hundred dollars.

Barnett was convicted of first-degree manslaughter last April following a jury trial.

✰✰✰

‘BIG APPLE CONNECT’ BRINGS MUNICIPAL BROADBAND TO NYCHA: The city has launched “Big Apple Connect,” a landmark digital equity program that will bring free high-speed internet and basic cable TV to approximately 300,000 New Yorkers living in more than 200 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments by the end of 2023. Big Apple Connect will provide residents of NYCHA developments a free bundle that consists of in-home, high-speed internet connection, including a modem and router; basic cable TV service, including a cable box and remote control; and common area Wi-Fi hotspots, selected in consultation with NYCHA.

The program — initially piloted at eight public housing developments across the five boroughs, has now been expanded to more than 100 developments — at NYCHA’s Langston Hughes Houses in Brownsville.

✰✰✰

STARBUCKS SHAREHOLDES CONCERNED OVER WORKERS’ RIGHTS: City Comptroller Brad Lander announced on Monday that the New York City Pension Funds have filed a shareholder proposal that calls for an independent, third-party assessment of Starbucks’ (SBUX) adherence to workers’ freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. Workers at hundreds of stores have voted to unionize, yet Starbucks leadership has spoken publicly against unionization efforts, and regional offices of the NLRB have issued at least 20 complaints against Starbucks.

The New York City Retirement Systems own 1.78 million shares in the company, valued at $155.06 million as of June 30, 2022. The investor coalition collectively owns more than $163 million in shares.

✰✰✰

ATTORNEY GENERAL JAMES: FIX PUERTO RICO’S INFRASTRUCTURE: Structural problems in Puerto Rico must be corrected to prevent further devastation from hurricanes, says New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is calling for increased action to support Puerto Rico in the face of Hurricane Fiona. While Attorney General James says she is fully supportive of all relief efforts for Puerto Rico — which is a U.S. territory and whose people are American citizens — “the truth is, band aids and prayers aren’t enough. We need to look at the structural problems — both natural and human made — that have allowed and perpetuated this continued vulnerability and devastation.”

Attorney General James said that action must be taken “to address issues with the power grid, the financial underpinnings of the island, and the resources available to communities during these times of crisis.”

✰✰✰

YOUTH FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS OPEN: BRIC, a leading, multi-disciplinary arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn, has opened the application process for the 2022-2023 Youth Media and Youth Curatorial Fellowships. Open to New York City-based sophomores, juniors, or seniors (ages 13-19) wishing to develop their media creation and curatorial skills, the fellowship will for the first time include a stipend. (Apply via https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScWZFvMYld5GkaU02w4ngZVqrgvwKv4WGOGl_Re7MgDL7RKKg/viewform before the October 2 deadline).

Both fellowships provide professional insight and hands-on experience, culminating in two public events: “Concrete Stories: BRIC Youth Media Festival,” and the 3rd Annual Youth Contemporary Art Exhibition respectively, in Spring 2023.

✰✰✰

CUNY ‘UPSKILLING’ PROGRAM EXPANDS: New York City College of Technology and Kingsborough Community College, both in Brooklyn, are among several City University of New York schools that are participating in the latest phase of the successful Upskilling Program, thanks to nearly $2 million that the New York State Department of Labor, BNY Mellon and JPMorgan Chase have invested. The Upskilling Program offers accelerated training for New Yorkers to secure jobs or obtain course credentials that can help them advance their careers in high-demand fields. As part of this second phase expansion, CUNY plans to offer nearly 50 free and low-cost courses — designed and delivered by CUNY Adult and Continuing Education departments at 11 campuses in partnership with employers including NYU Langone and Amazon Web Services.

The courses are in high-growth industries such as health care, technology, business operations and marketing.

✰✰✰

TREE PLANTING SETS NEW RECORD: The New York City Parks Department, using the NYC Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI neighborhoods), a tool grounded in climate and racial justice, has prioritized planting trees in heat-risk neighborhoods. Among the 13,000 new trees planted during Fiscal Year 2022, approximately 3,000 of the new plantings are in heat vulnerable neighborhoods, including in the Brooklyn communities of Seagate, Coney Island, East Flatbush, Bushwick, Crown Heights, Flatlands, Sunset Park.

The Parks Department is celebrating a massive climate milestone reached in tree canopy expansion; more trees have been planted on city streets this past fiscal year than in the past five fiscal years, with over 13,000 planted in FY22, representing an 87 percent increase citywide from the previous fiscal year.

✰✰✰

BLUE BLOODS FILMING IN BAY RIDGE: Filming for Blue Bloods, Season 13 will take place on several Bay Ridge streets tomorrow, Wednesday, September 21. Local residents and businesses should be aware that scenes will be shot in an area from 93^rd to 96^th Streets, and 4^th Avenue to Fort Hamilton Parkway. A site on Harbor View Terrace will also be filmed, with the area surrounding Narrows Avenue and Shore Road, between 79^th and 83^rd Streets.

Blue Bloods, starring Tom Selleck, is an American police drama television series following the fictional Reagan Irish Catholic family working in law enforcement.

✰✰✰

CELEBRATING GEORGIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso will mark Georgian-American Heritage Celebration at Borough Hall on Thursday, September 22, following a tradition from his predecessors that celebrates international cultures. Registration is necessary, via https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=x2_1MoFfIk6pWxXaZlE77wcKb1jRGg1ApY3AOAOqMKpURDRBU1JOWFZTRVNQMkNIVlFIQ1hPN1E2Ui4u

Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The nation, which is part of the Kartvelian language group, sits on the coast of the Black Sea and is bordered to the north and northeast by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan.