What’s News, Breaking: Wednesday, November 16, 2022

November 16, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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APP-BASED DELIVERY WORKERS WOULD EARN $23.82 UNDER PROPOSED PAY RATE: A first-of-its-kind proposed minimum pay rate would boost the hourly earnings to $23.82 per hour for NYC’s more than 60,000 app-based restaurant delivery workers. Making the announcement today, NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga indicated that the pay hike — if fully implemented, would consist of a $19.86 base rate, $2.26 to cover workers’ expenses, and $1.70 to reflect the absence of workers’ compensation insurance, because the apps consider the delivery persons to be independent contractors rather than employees.

The proposed rate, which would be finalized after a public hearing and consideration of public comments, would be $17.87 upon taking effect, and would increase to $23.82, adjusted for inflation, when it is fully phased-in on April 1, 2025, and must be paid to delivery workers based on trip time—time spent delivering—and on-call time—time spent connected to the app, waiting for a trip offer.

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BOROUGH PRESIDENT REYNOSO LAUNCHES HEALTHY PREGNANCY CAMPAIGN: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso within the past hour launched a multimedia, Multicultural Healthy Pregnancy Campaign as part of his historic maternal health agenda. Responding to an acute crisis in maternal health – which is most acute among Haitian women in New York City – Borough President Reynoso launched his Maternal Health Taskforce this past April, allocated the entirety of his FY2023 capital funding to maternal health improvements at Brooklyn public hospitals, and earlier this month launched the ‘Born in Brooklyn’ baby box initiative to provide new parents with baby supplies and post-partum resources.

This morning’s announcement is his latest in a string of maternal health announcements with the goal of making Brooklyn the safest place in New York City for Black and Brown women to give birth.

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JUDICIAL PANEL REINSTATES PROVISIONS OF CONCEALED CARRY LAW: Multiple provisions of New York State’s concealed carry gun law were reinstated on Tuesday, Spectrum News 1 reported, when a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit moved to allow the law’s enforcement while the court battle over it continues. The concealed carry law, which took effect in September, adds requirements on obtaining a concealed carry license, and it limits where guns can be taken in public.

The legal challenge continues between a gun rights group and the state, which argues that it is working to protect its citizens from the increase in mass shootings.

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SERIES CHRONICLES HEALTH EFFECTS OF NATURAL GAS PIPELINES: National Grid’s Greenpoint Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility in Greenpoint is the subject of a documentary series released this month to give thought to the costs beyond dollars of this energy source’s production. Titled “The Other End of the Pipeline,” and produced through Wayward Z film with Sane Energy Project, the four-part series’ second installation introduces viewers to Elisha “EW” Fye, who lives in Cooper Park Houses, situated in the shadow of National Grid’s Greenpoint Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility, and who, like many of his neighbors, suffers from health problems.

Installation 1, released last week, focuses on a Pennsylvania resident fighting to stop the pipeline construction under a creek. Part 3, which will be released next week, focuses on community resistance to a proposed expansion of a compressor station along a massive pipeline that, if approved, will increase the gas flowing into Con Edison’s downstate New York delivery system.

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Johari Jenkins-Taylor
Photo courtesy Con Edison

CON EDISON NAMES REGIONAL & COMMUNITY AFFAIRS DIRECTORS: Con Edison has named Johari Jenkins-Taylor and Kimberly Williams as Regional And Community Affairs Directors For Brooklyn and Manhattan respectively, where they lead teams that build and strengthen relationships with elected officials, community boards and business organizations. Johari Jenkins-Taylor, who joined Con Edison in 2011, most recently served as a Brooklyn Regional & Community Affairs manager and led community engagement on numerous projects.

Jenkins-Taylor has developed and enhanced relationships with elected officials, government agencies, and community and business leaders, and she serves on the boards of Brooklyn’s 651 Arts and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

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MEN’S BUSINESS ATTIRE REQUESTED FOR CLOTHING DRIVE: City Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-33^rd District) and State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon are teaming up for a clothing drive this month to benefit a Downtown Brooklyn men’s shelter. Constituents are invited to donate new or gently used men’s clothing — in particular job interview suits, dress shoes and sneakers, winter coats, hats, and scarves.

Donations will be accepted at Councilmember Restler’s office at 410 Atlantic Ave, Monday-Friday, 9 a.m-5 p.m., through early December.

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COMMUNITY TASK FORCE ESTABLISHED ON GOWANUS REZONING: City Councilmembers Shahana Hanif (D-39) and Lincoln Restler(D-33) have created a dedicated community task force to hold City agencies and private developers accountable for multiple community benefits agreements as part of passing the Gowanus Rezoning. Facilitators from James Lima Planning + Development will guide the Gowanus Oversight Task Force, with members taking part in public meetings, serving on planning committees and working directly with city agencies and policy experts to make sure the promises made to the Gowanus community are realized.

Applications deadline is November 30. (Apply via this form.)

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DOE FUND HEADS THANKSGIVING SALAD GIVEAWAY: Participants of The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able reentry program will distribute hundreds of free, healthy, locally-sourced Thanksgiving salads to residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant next Wednesday, November 23. Sponsoring the event is Good Food Works, a social enterprise of The Doe Fund that uses innovative vending technologies and mission-driven hiring to increase access to affordable healthy food and quality jobs in communities throughout New York City.

The event also marks the beginning of The Doe Fund’s Firesoul campaign, which will inspire and activate individuals throughout the holiday season to address homelessness with practical tools and resources, including connecting volunteers to the Adams administration’s Street Homelessness Advocacy Project.

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GROUPS DEMAND RELEASE OF GANG DATABASE REPORT: The Legal Aid Society, G.A.N.G.S Coalition, elected officials, impacted New Yorkers and others, rallied outside of the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD to demand the release of a long-awaited report on the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) controversial gang database. The groups called on the New York City Council to pass Int. 0360, pending legislation that would abolish the database and preclude the NYPD from creating a replacement.

Advocates have long decried the NYPD gang database as discriminatory, over-inclusive, and full of erroneous data that results in surveillance and the questionable prosecution of Black and Latinx people. Cities across the country, including Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C., have successfully challenged their local law enforcement’s gang databases in court.

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RESTAURANT OF NOTE: Kellogg’s Diner in Williamsburg, which approaches its centennial year, received a thumbs-up in NY Times subscriber-only newsletter “Where to Eat: New York City.” NY Times food writer Nikita Richardson, answering a question from a Brooklyn grad student who needs a café where he can pull all-nighters, writes“ And yes, the staff will keep the $2.75-a-cup coffee flowing until the wee hours.”

Richardson also commends Kellogg’s owner, Irene Siderakis, and suggests learning more about her courageous history.

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REMAINS OF BROOKLYN WWII SOLDIER FOUND 77 YEARS LATER: The remains of a Brooklyn man killed during World War II have finally been accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has announced. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. James Rotunno, 27, had been assigned in 1945 to Company K, 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. Rotunno was killed during a mission while his unit was engaged with German forces during the Battle of Reipertswiller in France, but his body could not be recovered at the time because of the fighting.

Staff Sgt. Rotunno was accounted for in September, but his family only recently received their full briefing on his identification.

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IN MEMORIAM: DAVID DAVIS, PRODUCER OF TV’S CLASSIC SITCOMS: Brooklyn-born producer David Davis, who had a key role in golden age of television in the 1970s for such comedies as the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Taxi,” died on November 4 in Los Angeles at age 86, according to New York Times obituary writer Penelope Green. Davis who had grown up in the business, as did his father Phil Davis, had written for television and radio in the 1940s and ’50s — most notably “Truth or Consequences.”

Davis and actress Julie Kavner, whom he met in 1976 on the set of “Rhoda,” remained a couple until his death.

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BROOKLYN DA: MAJOR GANG STING OPERATION NETS 106 COURT CHARGES: Thirty-two alleged members of two rival Brownsville-based gangs – named WOO and CHOO — are charged with 106 counts, including conspiracy to commit murder, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced Tuesday. The indictments include charges related to 19 shootings that resulted in 14 victims, including two who died as a result of their injuries. Innocent bystanders, including a 3-year-old girl who was leaving daycare, were wounded in the charged shooting incidents.

These indictments are the result of a long-term investigation that ran from Spring 2020 until this month, and that focused on two gang confederacies that operate out of several neighboring housing complexes in Brownsville, District Attorney Gonzalez said.

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NYC’S CHINESE-AMERICAN COUNCIL AWARDED GRANT FROM MACKENZIE SCOTT: The Chinese-American Planning Council, considered the nation’s largest Asian American social services organization, is the latest to receive a grant from billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott, although the amount wasn’t immediately disclosed. This one-time grant will be used to support the organization’s ongoing efforts to promote staff development, expand essential programming, and strengthen organizational infrastructure.

Just last week this newspaper reported that MacKenzie Scott had donated $11 million to the Ascend charter school system in Brooklyn, which will utilize the gift to open up new facilities in central and east Brooklyn: Flatbush, Cypress Hills and Brownsville.

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CAMBA RECEIVES $3.3 MILLION GRANT TO HELP RESETTLING UKRAINIANS: Brooklyn-based CAMBA was awarded $3,377,068 in a round of grants to 17 refugee services providers around the state to assist displaced Ukrainians who have fled their country as a result of Russia’s military invasion and are now living in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday. This new funding, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, will be used to supplement the existing efforts to provide support services through Uniting for Ukraine, and encompassing employment assistance, case management, skills training, English as a second language, and, when necessary, housing and food assistance among others.

CAMBA, founded 45 years ago in 1977, is the well-known acronym for Church Avenue Merchant Block Association, a merchant association in Flatbush working to reduce crime and beautify the community.

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SENTENCED IN ATTEMPTED ARSON OF NYPD VAN: United States District Judge Dora L. Irizarry in Brooklyn federal court today sentenced Samantha Shader to 72 months’ imprisonment for using an improvised incendiary device, commonly known as a “Molotov cocktail,” in an attempt to set fire to a New York City Police Department (NYPD) at a protest in Brooklyn. Ms. Shader, who pleaded guilty to the charge in April, was involved in the May 29, 2020 protest following the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody.

Defendant told a co-conspirator of her intention to “go down to the city to cause some hell” during protests following the murder of George Floyd. Last year, Floyd’s murderer, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, was convicted and is serving a 21-year-prison sentence.

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HAND-TATTOOED MALE SOUGHT IN BENSONHURST ROBBERY: The NYPD is asking anyone spotting an individual with these distinctive hand tattoos are to assist them in tracking down the individual regarding a robbery that took place on October 24, within the 62^nd Precinct, which serves Bath Beach, Bensonhurst and Mapleton. Just after 12:30 a.m. that morning, the unidentified male individual did enter the SRR Convenience store located at 315 Kings Highway, displayed a large knife and demanded money, and removed cash from the register, cigarettes, and a cell phone.

The assailant (whose tattooed hand, bearing words like “hope” is pictured here) is a light-complected male, approximately 30 to 40 years of age, with black hair and last seen wearing all black clothing and black face covering.