What’s News, Breaking: Tuesday, February 13, 2024
‘SUFFICIENT PROOF’ FOUND IN
ALLEGATION AGAINST DIOCESAN PRIEST
PROSPECT HEIGHTS — A BELOVED BROOKLYN CATHOLIC PRIEST WHO FOUNDED DESALES MEDIA OVER A DECADE AGO has been placed on administrative leave after an ecclesiastical body found sufficient proof of inappropriate behavior with an adult woman — a violation of the code of conduct and Priestly Holy Orders. Msgr. Kieran Harrington, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn for 22 years, has resigned from his post as the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, to which he had been named in 2021, after an allegation was lodged against him last March. According to a diocesan statement, the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Adult Allegation Committee (with professionals in law, law enforcement, psychology and human resources) conducted a thorough investigation and found sufficient proof of inappropriate behavior with an adult — a violation of the code of conduct and Priestly Holy Orders. Monsignor Harrington has resigned from the Pontifical Mission Societies and is now on leave of absence from priestly ministry during an evaluation of his suitability in this vocation.
Msgr. Harrington served as vicar for communications in the Diocese of Brooklyn from 2006-2021 and concurrently served as rector of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, and completed that building’s restoration.
Photo courtesy Diocese of Brooklyn
✰✰✰
BISHOP BRENNAN LAUNCHES LENTEN
PILGRIMAGE OF 40 DIOCESAN PARISHES
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — THE ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN WILL OBSERVE ASH WEDNESDAY, the first day of Lent, on Feb. 14 and will launch its 2023-2024 Diocesan Lenten Pilgrimage. As part of the Pilgrimage, Bishop Brennan invites the faithful to join him in visiting 40 parishes throughout Brooklyn and Queens, with that number set because the penitential season of Lent has 40 days, excluding Sundays. Bishop Brennan starts the Lenten Pilgrimage at the Cathedral Basilica of St. James, where he will preside at a noon Mass and distribute ashes. A Eucharistic Adoration, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament will then be held at St. James Cathedral-Basilica, which is the first stop on the Diocesan Pilgrimage (schedule online). Lent begins early in the Latin Rite (Western) branch of Christianity, with Easter occurring on March 31 this year.
St. James Cathedral-Basilica was the first Catholic parish founded in Brooklyn in 1822, and 31 years before the Diocese of Brooklyn was established.
✰✰✰
COLLEGE BOARD PENALIZED FOR SELLING
STUDENTS’ DATA WHEN THEY TAKE EXAMS
STATEWIDE — THE COLLEGE BOARD MUST PAY $750,000 IN PENALTIES TO STUDENTS WHOSE PRIVACY WAS VIOLATED THROUGH THE SALE OF PERSONAL DATA, according to the terms of a settlement agreement that NY Attorney General Letitia James and New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty A. Rosa have secured. The College Board was found to have — for years — collected students’ personal information when they took the PSAT, SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) exams in school, and then licensed this data to colleges, scholarship programs and other customers who used it to solicit students to participate in their programs. The agreement stipulates that the College Board must pay $750,000 in penalties and will be prohibited from monetizing New York students’ data.
In 2019 alone, the College Board improperly licensed the information of more than 237,000 New York students who took their exams, and then improperly sent promotional materials to students who signed up for College Board accounts in connection with exams or AP courses.
✰✰✰
DCP’S VALENTINE’S DAY WARNING:
BE ON ALERT FOR ROMANCE SCAMMERS
STATEWIDE — AS VALENTINE’S DAY APPROACHES ON WEDNESDAY, NEW YORKERS NEED TO GUARD THEMSELVES AGAINST ‘ROMANCE SCAMS,’ warns the Department of State’s Division of Consumer Protection. DCP offers guidelines and tools about romance scams, which occur when a criminal lies about his or her identity and uses romantic interest to manipulate or steal from the victim. Thieves use different variations of these scams to deceive unsuspecting persons who are trying to find love — with seniors, widows and widowers being particularly high targets. The DCP’s guidelines, designed to help identify and outsmart scammers who prey on people’s emotions and trust, advise potential daters to do a reverse image search on Google, to turn off or cover web cameras when they’re not in use and to talk with a trusted friend or family member about online interactions.
DCP warns the public not to share personal or financial information, and to safeguard privacy even when using trusted online dating platforms.
✰✰✰
CITY OFFICIALS: TUESDAY’S REMOTE LEARNING’S
TECHNICAL PROBLEMS ARE ‘A TEACHABLE MOMENT’
CITY HALL — OFFICIALS AT CITY HALL HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE ON TUESDAY, FEB. 13, TO ADDRESS THE MASSIVE TECHNICAL GLITCHES that the Department of Education encountered during a snowstorm-related remote learning day. Schools Chancellor David C. Banks, at the press conference (broadcast on Spectrum NY1 News), said just before noon that 90% of the students were eventually able to log on. He told of one tenacious student who tried 20 times to log in, and succeeded on the 20th try. Banks called this a lesson in perseverance, and said the remote learning issues become a “teachable moment,” said Banks. The officials also primarily blamed IBM for the problems. As of noon on Tuesday, IBM and the DOE were still working to rectify the problems that led to error messages with such platforms as Google Classroom and Zoom.
On Monday Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks had declared they were “ready to pivot to online learning.” Frustrated with being blocked from their platforms, some kids did take “an old-fashioned snow day,” remarked the anchors on NY1.
✰✰✰
WIDESPREAD TECHNICAL PROBLEMS DISRUPT
SNOWSTORM ‘REMOTE LEARNING’ DAY
CITYWIDE — PARENTS AND TEACHERS TRYING TO LOG INTO THE NYC DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’S REMOTE LEARNING SYSTEM on Tuesday, Feb. 13, encountered major technical difficulties. The city on Monday had declared a remote learning day in advance of a snowstorm. Chalkbeat and several broadcast news networks reported that families and educators were struggling to log into their remote learning platforms, which locked them out and required IBM authentication. One Brooklynite, Adam Schwartz, who teaches at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, told Chalkbeat that he could not log in to start his classes and that his second-grader daughter could not access her Zoom classroom.
Some parents lamented on X (formerly known as Twitter), that their kids were marked “absent” when they couldn’t log in; teachers also complained that they were blocked from logging into the platform for taking attendance.
✰✰✰
LPC TO CONSIDER LANDMARKING THE BROOKLYN EDISON BUILDING
DOWNTOWN — THE NYC LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION (LPC) is set to consider calendaring the Brooklyn Edison Building as an individual landmark, at its 9:30 a.m. meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 1 Center St., 9th floor (or via LPC’s YouTube channel). Located at 345 Adams St. at Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn, the 13-story Brooklyn Edison Building is a Renaissance Revival style office building designed by McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin and constructed between 1922 and 1926. Calendaring is the first formal step in the designation process. Once calendared, LPC will hold a public hearing on the proposed designation at a future date, followed by a public meeting during which the Commission will vote on the designation.
The city acquired the 13-story building in 1989. Tenants include the Department of Finance, the Department of Probation, the Board of Elections and various other city agencies. The ground floor houses retail including Panera Bread and other food outlets.
✰✰✰
CANCELED: BK BP’S ‘STATE OF THE BORO’ ADDRESS, OUTDOOR EVENTS, DUE TO WINTER STORM LORRAINE
DOWNTOWN — BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT ANTONIO REYNOSO has postponed his 2024 State of the Borough address, originally set for Tuesday, February 13, in light of the rapidly-developing snowy and hazardous travel conditions brought by what is now being called ‘Winter Storm Lorraine.’ The forecast calls for 5 to 8 inches and possibly more, Mayor Adams said in a press conference Monday. Residents are strongly encouraged to stay off the roads and use mass transit. However, MTA warns that trains with outside tracks will be taken out of service. NYC public schools and CUNY colleges have announced they are switching to remote learning for the day.
Con Edison is activating 250 mutual aid workers to augment company crews in restoring any outages caused by Storm Lorraine, the company said in a release.
✰✰✰
UNSTABLE BUILDING EVACUATED; WORK BEING DONE WITHOUT PERMIT
BOROUGH PARK — EMERGENCY PERSONNEL EVACUATED AN UNSTABLE BOROUGH PARK BUILDING ON SUNDAY, Feb. 11, after its residents felt it shaking, according to News 12 Brooklyn and CBS News. The building has three storefronts with the addresses of 4113-4119 13th Avenue, including Wallach’s men’s clothing store and an orthodontics practice. Several upstairs tenant residents were evacuated. According to NYC Department of Buildings documents, the site had been issued a violation for construction work being done without a permit at the cellar level. Excavation had been done “throughout the entire cellar along with structural partition/walls compromised, causing the high potential of the internal collapse.” Shoring and steelwork were also being done. But “no structural documents [were] filed for the excavation.” A full vacate was issued.
The building’s owner of record is Kosher Mehadrin Operations USA LLC, with the contact person being Martin Rotter. The Sept. 6, 2023 sale and real-estate closing was well-publicized at the time.
✰✰✰
FOUNDATION MEMORIALIZING BROOKLYN TEACHER ANNOUNCES THREE NEW BOARD MEMBERS
FLATBUSH/MARINE PARK — A NATIONAL FOUNDATION NAMED IN MEMORY OF BROOKLYN NATIVE Peggy Lillis, which reflects for awareness and education and policy-shaping for the illness Clostridioides difficile, has announced three new board members. Also known as C. diff, the illness is an inflammation of the colon, of which a major cause is antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Born in Brooklyn, Peggy Lillis raised sons Christian and Liam while working full time concurrently as a paraprofessional for the NYC Board of Education, a waitress; and later as a kindergarten teacher at P.S. 198. The new board members are Dr. David Shlaes, Ph.D., M.D., who brings a 40-year career in anti-infectives and anti-virals as a physician, professor, pharmaceutics research and author; Paul Feuerstadt, MD, who brings to the board a deep medical knowledge of C. difficile infection and other infections of the bowels; and attorney Debbie Trinker, who has more than 26 years of domestic, international legal and regulatory experience with FDA-regulated products.
The nonprofit was established in response to the April 2010 death of Peggy Lillis at age 56, an alumna of Brooklyn College and beloved schoolteacher.
✰✰✰
NEW YORKERS GETTING REFUNDS FOR WRONGFULLY-BILLED COVID-19 VACCINES
STATEWIDE — NEW YORKERS WHO WERE WRONGFULLY BILLED FOR GETTING COVID-19 VACCINES WILL BE REIMBURSED, thanks to an agreement that NY Attorney General Letitia James reached on Monday, Feb. 12, with Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care clinics. The Office of the Attorney General’s investigation found that Northwell-GoHealth wrongly charged up to 731 patients for COVID-19 vaccines, resulting in patients paying a total of $14,996.05 in improper fees. Northwell-GoHealth also sent 72 unpaid bills for COVID-19 vaccines to collections. As agreed, Northwell-GoHealth has reimbursed all the impacted New Yorkers.
The agreement also stipulates that Northwell-GoHealth strengthen employee compliance with applicable laws for COVID-19 vaccine billing, and pay a $25,000 penalty.
✰✰✰
WINTER STORM EXPECTED TO BRING 5” OF SNOW; SCHOOLS SWITCH TO REMOTE LEARNING FOR TUESDAY
CITYWIDE — A WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FOR TUESDAY, FEB. 13, has prompted the NYC Emergency Management Department to issue a Travel Advisory. The Winter Storm Watch, in effect from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, is forecast to bring 5 to 8 inches of snow at rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour. Commuters should prepare for hazardous travel and low visibility, especially for the morning commute, and are urged to remain off the roads to allow crews to operate and respond to weather conditions.
All New York City public schools, the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Catholic schools and academies in the Diocese of Brooklyn were directed to pivot to remote learning. Monday afternoon, Deacon Kevin McCormack, the diocese’s superintendent of schools, issued the directive to Catholic school principals.
✰✰✰
COLTON PRAISES LOCALS WHO STOPPED WEEKEND, PERMIT-LESS CONSTRUCTION
BATH BEACH — HUNDREDS OF NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENTS JOINED ASSEMBLYMAN WILLIAM COLTON (D-47) AND COUNCILMEMBER SUSAN ZHUANG AT THE SITE OF A PROPOSED HOMELESS SHELTER at 86th Street and 25th Avenue on Sunday, Feb. 11, to voice their opposition to the project. Colton and Zhuang had convened an emergency press conference after neighborhood residents alerted them of a construction fence being erected on city property and the lack of a NYC-issued permit. The site’s developer, Tejpal Sandhu of 86th Street NY LLC, had commenced work on a construction fence on the city-owned sidewalk during a major New York holiday. Work stopped, however, when workers were unable to produce a permit for that particular construction. Colton expressed outrage that the work was begun on a weekend without the requisite special permission. While a demolition permit was approved, a subsequent permit was disallowed.
Colton said of the developer, “Even worse, they disrespected area residents by beginning construction on the first day of the Lunar New Year, when many Asian people are celebrating, which also happens to be the Jewish Sabbath.”
Photo courtesy Office of Assemblymember William Colton
Photo courtesy Office of Assemblymember William Colton
✰✰✰
RECALL OF COTIJA CHEESE PRODUCTS EXPANDS TO NATIONAL BRANDS, RETAILERS
NATIONWIDE — THE RECALL OF COTIJA CHEESE BEING ATTRIBUTED TO LISTERIA MONOCYTOGENES, A TOXIC ORGANISM, HAS SPREAD to several salad kit brands, due to cross-contamination, reports the US Food & Drug Administration. The product is being recalled due to a sourced cheese ingredient having possible cross-contamination with recalled Cotija Cheese by Rizo Lopez Foods, Inc. with an active recall and outbreak investigation. The brands now under voluntary recall include: Marketside Bacon Ranch Crunch Chopped Salad Kit (by Braga Fresh), Bright Farms, Campesino, Casa Cardenas, Dole, Don Francisco, Don Pancho, Dos Ranchitos, El Huache, Food City, Fresh Express, H-E-B, La Ordena, Marketside, President’s Choice, Ready Pac Bistro, Rio Grande, Rizo Bros, Rojos, San Carlos, Santa Maria, Tio Francisco, Trader Joe’s, and 365 Whole Foods Market (including their ricotta cheese). More information on the brands and expiry dates can be found online.
Stores and the public are warned not to eat, sell or serve recalled brands of cheeses, sour creams (cremas) or yogurts manufactured by Rizo Lopez Foods, Inc., or products made with recalled dairy products. Check your refrigerators and freezers for any recalled products.
✰✰✰
SOLAR ECLIPSE TO PASS THROUGH NY IN APRIL
STATEWIDE – GOVERNOR HOCHUL ON FRIDAY REMINDED NEW YORKERS THAT this April, large portions of the state will experience a total solar eclipse, reports NBC News, the first such event to happen in New York in nearly a century. The eclipse’s “path of totality,” in which the sun is fully obscured by the moon, will pass through western and northern New York state from 3:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on April 8, bringing darkness to Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, with the full event lasting more than two hours from start to finish; NYC will experience a partial eclipse, with the sun 89% obscured — although since even 11% of the sun’s power is enough to permanently damage eyes and vision, viewing the celestial event safely will still require the use of darkened eclipse glasses.
The state’s I Love NY tourism agency has launched a special eclipse webpage to help locals and visitors watch the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle; exact times and safety information are available online on its website.
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’.