DANIEL DROMM, Democrat for City Council

From NYPost: by Jeremy Walsh

The same day last week that the MTA approved a doomsday budget that eliminated two subway lines in Queens, elected officials in Jackson Heights called the agency’s attention to a potential lost funding source: the 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue transit hub.

“It is absolutely shameful that the MTA is considering throwing students under the bus before pursuing revenue from these valuable properties,” City Councilman-elect Daniel Dromm said of the new budget, which includes charging students for trips to and from school. “The MTA must focus on all revenue opportunities before they talk about any service cuts or massive fare increases for students.”

State Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority “needs to look deep into their reserve fund and find appropriate sources of funding.”

Assemblyman Michael DenDekker (D-Jackson Heights) also urged alternate methods of increasing revenue.

“Before the MTA starts to implement any service cuts at all, it should check all available financial resources, such as the leasing of MTA property and all other revenue sources they have,” he said.

The $132 million 74th Street station project took five years to finish, Dromm’s office said. It boasts 14 commercial spaces that could be rented out to tenants.

At the time, elected officials said the MTA Real Estate Committee had received a stunning number of applications for the storefronts. But when the new facility opened in November 2006, merchants complained that the MTA charged much higher rents than other landlords in the neighborhood.

MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said 11 of the commercial spaces at the station are either currently occupied or licensed and awaiting the tenant to move in.

The largest of the spaces, a 4,000-square-foot storefront on the street level, is empty right now because the vendor is having problems with his architect, Ortiz said.

“What we said was, ‘As a sign of good faith ... would you increase the amount that you give the MTA up front as a security deposit?’ And he did that,” Ortiz said. “He’s assured us he’s coming.”

Dromm’s office pointed out another transit hub, the Fulton Street station in Manhattan, was recently renovated with 20,000 square feet of commercial space that goes for $150 a square foot annually.

The 74th Street station was the 14th-busiest of all the MTA’s subway stations in 2008, serving 16.4 million passengers that year.

Labels: CommunityOrganizing, EconomicDevelopment, MassTransit, Press, QualityofLife

From New York Daily News by Clare Trapasso:

They wait on the city's streetcorners, often shivering in the cold, hoping someone will drive by and offer them a job. Soon, they will be able to come indoors.

Beginning next month, day laborers will be eligible for job training and social service programs in three Queens neighborhoods under a new $1.2 million initiative paid for with federal stimulus dollars.

But advocates say they won't be satisfied with anything less than full-fledged immigration centers.

Councilman-elect Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said he plans to advocate for permanent centers during his term.

"We need to address the problems that day laborers face holistically, rather than piecemeal," Dromm said.

Labels: CommunityOrganizing, EconomicDevelopment, ImmigrantRights

From Village Voice: by Candice M. Giove
As shoppers scurried to snatch up last minute gifts inside the Queens Center Mall, local elected officials and community organizations painted the shopping destination's landlord, Macerich, as the latest Grinch in the ongoing fight for living wages -- just days after the city council rejected a Kingsbridge Armory plan that had no living wage requirement.

Most of the 3,100 retail workers in the sprawling urban mall earn $7.25 an hour.

Standing on a snowy corner of Queens Boulevard, Santa symbolically held gift-wrapped boxes marked "living wages." A menacing green Dr. Seuss character represented the mall owner. Activists from Make the Road New York, a citywide organization focusing on economic justice, demanded that the landlord place a living wage clause in its leases -- which would require stores to pay $10/hour with benefits, or $11.50 without.

The mall, which lures over 26 million consumers a year and is considered one of the most profitable malls in the country, has already completed a $275 million makeover, adding thousands of square feet of shopping space and parking to the already busy site.

Like many major commercial property owners in New York, Macerich saved $48 million in taxes through the Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program between 2004 and 2009. Make the Road New York predicted that by 2018 those abatements will total $129 million.

Even after years on the job, most mall employees barely climb the earnings ladder, the report said. Their examples include Juan Cucalon, a 28-year-old, $8.25-an-hour cashier at Victoria's Secret who struggles to pay a $400 rent with monthly earnings of $600, and Saa'datu Sani, whose earnings rose to $8.47 an hour at J.C. Penney after eight years.

The group and the officials plan to continue their campaign against Macerich with street demonstrations and letters. "Just like the story of Scrooge, where the ghost visited him on many occasions," said Councilman-elect Daniel Dromm, "we're going to come back, and we're going to visit this mall on many occasions until we get what the community needs."

Dromm, whose predecessor, outgoing City Councilwoman Helen Sears, was the lone supportive vote for the Kingsbridge Armory plan, said that he would pay special attention to ensuring that developers kept their promises.

Activists were also angry over what they portrayed as unrealized guarantees for a community space at the mall. "They're unwilling at this point to open that space up to desperately needed community programs like English as a second language or an afterschool program," Friedman said.

Their report claims that local teens become mall rats, vacuously hanging out in the food court, while a tourism office stands as the only community-oriented space in the mall.

Labels: CommunityOrganizing, EconomicDevelopment, Grassroots, LeFrak, Unions

From TimesLedger: by Anna Gustafson
Rego Center spurs worries, Dromm visits Community Board 6

Mitigating traffic around Rego Center should be a top priority for City Councilman-elect Danny Dromm, members of Community Board 6 told the incoming legislator at their meeting last week.

CB 6 Chairman Joseph Hennessy, other members and area resident Hersh Parekh said they were worried that the Rego Park shopping center slated to open in February could bring with it burdensome traffic. Rego Center will include such stores as Costco, T.J. Maxx and Kohl’s.

“We’re very concerned about the traffic,” Hennessy told Dromm. “We’d like to meet with the developer and the [city] Department of Transportation.”

Dromm, who will replace outgoing Councilwoman Helen Sears (D-Jackson Heights), attended the CB 6 meeting Dec. 9 to introduce himself to board members. Councilwoman-elect Karen Koslowitz represents the majority of the area covered by CB 6, but Dromm has constituents in part of Rego Park. He will represent the area where Rego Center will be located.

The center is a 6.6-acre site at the intersection of Junction Boulevard and 62nd Drive next to the Long Island Expressway and directly behind the Rego Park Mall, which includes an Old Navy, a Sears and a Bed, Bath & Beyond. The site is managed by Vornado but owned by Alexander’s Inc.

According to a Nov. 2 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the development will be a 600,000-square-foot shopping center on four levels and will include a parking deck with about 1,400 spaces. As of October, 138,000 square feet had been leased to Costco, 134,000 square feet leased to Century 21 and 132,000 square feet leased to Kohl’s.

District Manager Frank Gulluscio and Hennessy said Vornado officials told them T.J. Maxx had also signed a lease.

Parekh, a Rego Park resident, said at the meeting he wasworried that traffic from the center could make parking impossible for residents.

“I know traffic is a very, very big concern for people,” Dromm said. “We need to get on top of that.”

Dromm told community board members that education was one of his main concerns and said he hoped to work to bring more seats to a district notorious for its crowded classrooms.

“Education has always been my passion,” said Dromm, a former public school teacher.

The incoming lawmaker said he also wanted to work on health care issues in the borough, particularly in light of the closure of St. John’s Hospital in Elmhurst. Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica closed at the same time as St. John’s last February. Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills closed not long before St. John’s and Mary Immaculate shut their doors.

Dromm said he is looking into bringing in health facilities to “alleviate overcrowding in area hospitals.”

Labels: CommunityOrganizing, Education, HealthCare, Transportation

From Queens Chronicle: by Willow Belden

Since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority renovated the subway station at 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, several retail spaces on the station’s street and mezzanine levels have stood empty, and elected officials say that should change.

Assemblymen Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) and Michael Den Dekker (D-Jackson Heights), along with City Councilman-elect Danny Dromm and several community leaders, gathered outside the station Wednesday morning requesting that the MTA rent out the spaces.

They said the transit authority could bring in much-needed revenue and added that the neighborhood would gain a more welcoming face without boarded-up storefronts.

“Before the MTA starts to implement any service cuts at all, it should check all available financial resources, such as the leasing of MTA property and all other revenue sources they have,” DenDekker said.

Peralta echoed those sentiments. “Suitable funding sources, like the ones at the 74th Street station, are available yet they are not included in the financial equation,” he said.

Dromm added that the community is suffering because of the vacancies.

“People get out of the subway, and the first thing they see are these boarded-up stores, and it’s really a blight on the neighborhood,” he said.

The MTA says it has already rented out six stores and four news stands at the station and added that it is working to have tenants in the rest as soon as possible.

One of the largest empty stores, a 4,000-square-foot facility, is slated to become a bakery and coffee shop, according to spokesman Kevin Ortiz, but is running behind schedule because of problems with the architect. Ortiz said the tenant has paid a security deposit but couldn’t say when the cafe will open.

Labels: CommunityOrganizing, MassTransit

From NY1:
JACKSON HEIGHTS, NY, December 16, 2009 -- Despite the city's economic crisis, the MTA has failed to lease valuable commercial space at the 74th Street/Roosevelt Avenue station in Jackson Heights, Queens. After the station was renovated with millions of dollars of taxpayer money, the MTA has missed out on significant income by not leasing these properties.

Yet the MTA is currently trying to close a nearly $400 million budget gap by planning dramatic cuts to bus and subway service. Also on the chopping block are the free MetroCards that half a million of New York City’s students use to get to school. City Council Member-elect Daniel Dromm along with Assemblyman Jose Peralta, Assemblyman Michael DenDekker and many community leaders, demanded that the MTA pursue leasing these commercial properties to generate revenue to prevent drastic service cuts at a press conference held in front of the Roosevelt Avenue station.

“It is absolutely shameful that the MTA is considering throwing students under the bus before pursuing revenue from these valuable properties” said City Council Member-elect Daniel Dromm. "The MTA has neglected the Jackson Heights community by failing to lease these properties. The MTA must focus on all revenue opportunities before they talk about any service cuts or massive fare increases for students."

“The MTA needs to review their operational policy every time they feel they need to make cuts, because it is not working. If it’s not the hard working men and women of this State that is usually affected, then it is our senior population. Now, they turn their darts on our students, making it much more difficult for them to get to and from school,” stated Assemblyman Jose R. Peralta. “The MTA needs to look deep into their reserve fund and find appropriate sources of funding. The funding situation turns even more confusing when suitable funding sources -like the ones at the 74 Street Station- are available yet they are not included in the financial equation.”

Assemblyman Michael DenDekker said, "Before the MTA starts to implement any service cuts at all, it should check all available financial resources such as the leasing of MTA property and all other revenue sources they have."

The impact of these abandoned-looking storefronts on the community is also a main concern. These vacant storefronts have been a blight to the neighborhood with a boarded-up streetscape that promotes vandalism, graffiti, crime, and sanitation problems. The MTA's failure to maintain this property has negatively impacted the surrounding small businesses and residential community.

Meanwhile, transit hubs like the Fulton Street station are anything but neglected. According to the New York Times, the Fulton Street station enjoys 20,000 square feet of retail space after its recent renovation, and is reported to command about $150 a square foot annually. Why the MTA hasn’t been able to take advantage of its own commercial space at Roosevelt Ave station isn’t exactly clear.

Located at 74th Street, Broadway, and Roosevelt Ave in Jackson Heights, Queens, the transit hub benefited from a $132 million renovation in 2005. The main objective of the overhaul was to ease movement within the facility, one of the few in the system that allows transfers between an underground stop and an elevated line. As one of the only dual bus and subway stations in the city, it is the second busiest in Queens, with over 42,000 people using the station daily.

Labels: CommunityOrganizing, Mass Transit, QualityofLife

From Times Ledger: by Jeremy Walsh

The wound is still fresh for gay and lesbian constituents of Queens and state senators like Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst), who voted against same-sex marriage two weeks ago.

Organized by groups like the LGBT Coalition of Queens and the Western Queens Same Sex Marriage Alliance, protesters marched on Monserrate’s office in East Elmhurst Saturday and Sen. George Onorato’s (D-Astoria) office Sunday.

Although the politicians and their staffers were not in the offices, the group got plenty of looks — both positive and skeptical — from Corona residents as they marched north from Roosevelt Avenue.

“I want everyone to hear that I am not a second-class citizen,” said Sara Pomar, a same-sex marriage activist from Woodside. “It is irrelevant, my sexuality, but we all deserve the same civil rights.”

City Councilman-elect Daniel Dromm, a longtime Queens activist for gay rights who will represent Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst come Jan. 1, said Monserrate indicated he supported same-sex marriage in a survey he filled out for the Empire State Pride Agenda. He and the Queens Democratic Party are endorsing state Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) to challenge Monserrate in the 2010 Democratic primary.

“He violates the rights of the LGBT community, he violates the rights of the immigrant community, the African-American community, the Latino community because we are all in this struggle together for equal rights,” Dromm said, calling on same-sex marriage supporters to campaign throughout the borough, including Howard Beach, the home turf of state Sen. Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach), who also voted against the bill.

State Assemblyman Michael DenDekker (D-Jackson Heights) accused Monserrate of not representing his constituents.

“If he did he would have looked and saw that the three Assembly members that make up this district all co-sponsored the legislation,” he said.

Elmhurst resident Sebastian Maguire called Monserrate a liar over his recent claim in a NY1 interview that no one had contacted him to encourage him to vote for the bill.

“Raise your hand if you personally called him, approached him, anything,” he told the crowd. At least a dozen hands went up.

Richard Allman, president of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, said the influential group would be focusing its political efforts on Queens in 2010.

“Yes, Sen. Monserrate, in addition to this being political, it’s personal because you’re standing in the way of me and the man I love and that I intend to spend the rest of my life with,” he said. “And you will be stopped.”

German Morales, an Elmhurst resident who is HIV-positive, warned that gay rights and the rights of HIV and AIDS patients are interconnected.

“I love him. He’s my friend,” he said of Monserrate. “But he’s not my political friend anymore.”

Labels: CivilRights, CommunityOrganizing