City prioritizing new Queens jail despite pandemic and lawsuits

To all KGCA members with email addresses on file and Friends of KGCA:

Today we were apprised of the attached plans and drawings prepared by the NY City Department of Design and Construction ("DDC") for the proposed Kew Gardens Jail Parking Garage and Community Space. They are to be presented by DDC via Internet to Community Board 9's Land Use Committee for discussion (via Internet) Thursday evening, March 25.

Aside from confirming that the City is proceeding with the multi-billion dollar, four-borough jails project -- even while the various court cases contesting the project are still pending -- they came as a sickening surprise. These plans had NO community input and they are very different and far removed from those concepts described or implied during previous discussions over the last two years. In this they are like the plans for the jail project itself -- developed in secret by a small group in the Mayor's office with no input from any affected community or the Community Board and let loose upon us as a done deal.

We are not even sure what the City expects from this meeting -- consent, feedback or is it just another procedural box to be checked off and any input from the Community will be irrelevant?

To avail yourself of the DDC presentation, open the attachment below.

Sincerely,

Dominick Pistone, President, KGCA
Murray Berger, Executive Chairman, KGCA

Kew Gardens jail parking lot and community space by queenscrapper on Scribd

Mayor de Blasio has closed off to the press meeting with Councilmember Koslowitz about Kew Gardens tower jail

 

Queens Eagle 

Mayor Bill de Blasio met with Councilmember Karen Koslowitz and Central Queens community leaders to discuss the plan to build a 30-story jail in Kew Gardens on Wednesday afternoon, but the event was closed to members of the press. The discussion about the jail plan took place a few weeks after officials from the mayor’s office banned reporters from two previous meetings.

A spokesperson for Koslowitz told the Eagle that the event was “the mayor’s meeting” and that he believed about 30 people were invited, including members of the Queens Advisory Committee on Rikers. Koslowitz supports the plan for the new jail at 26-02 82nd Ave., near the Queens Criminal Courthouse.

The mayor’s office did not provide a list of attendees, an agenda or the meeting minutes when contacted by the Eagle.

“Not every meeting is subject to open meetings law because some are purely advisory and don’t have a formal government role, nor do the people involved vote on any aspect of the plan,” a spokesperson for the mayor told the Eagle. “Their purpose is to gain valuable initial feedback before having broader community meetings that will be open press. Not every conversation government has with the public is open to members of the media.”

Meeting attendees included de Blasio’s Senior Advisor for Criminal Justice Freya Rigterink and Deputy Director of Close Rikers and Justice Initiatives Dana Kaplan, Patch reported.

Department of Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann and the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit Commissioner Marco Carrion also attended, according to Patch, which has led local coverage of the Kew Gardens jail plan.

De Blasio acknowledged community opposition to the proposed jail, which would rise 30 stories at a site next to the Queens Criminal Courthouse and dormant Queens House of Detention. The facility would house all the women detained in New York City, the mayor’s office said Friday.

When we ask a community to do something for the whole city, which is what we're doing here, then the community has a right to say, here are things that would help our community, including things we've been trying to get for a long time and haven't gotten," de Blasio told attendees, according to a recording obtained by Patch. "How can we say to the community, we're asking you to shoulder a burden but we want to do something back that's really going to make a difference?" 

Journalist banned from reporting on community meeting about Kew Gardens jail.

Kew Gardens Patch

 Reporters were banned from a heated meeting in Queens about a much-contested plan to build a new jail in Kew Gardens.


Dozens of Queens residents argued Thursday night with Mayor's Office representatives for more than two hours over the proposed jail, which is one of five possibilities to replace the detention center on Rikers Island, attendees later told Patch.

"They don't seem to get the message," Queens resident Sylvia Hack said. "This is the wrong project for the wrong community."

Patch planned to be one of those attendees, but a spokesperson from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice refused to allow our reporter entry, saying it was closed to press. Patch reached out to that spokesperson on Monday for comment.

"They aren't public meetings," Eric Phillips, a spokesperson for the mayor, wrote on Twitter. "The general public isn't invited en masse




Several Queens locals expressed their anger that a journalist had been barred from reporting on the plans, which they argue would only worsen mounting congestion near the Queens Criminal Court, Queens Boulevard, the Van Wyck Expressway, Grand Central Parkway and Union Turnpike.

"How did they throw you out? It's a public space," Hack said. "They can't decide any such thing. It's our community center. They had no right to throw you out."

"Something of this scope needs to be a transparent process," added Andrea Crawford, a Kew Gardens resident and member of the jail project's neighborhood advisory committee.
Crawford argued Thursday's meeting, should have been open to the press because local community associations, such as the Community Preservation Committee, had invited others who don't sit on the advisory board.

"It's a demonstration of their trying to prevent light being shed on this very poorly constructed farce that they're engaging the neighborhood," Crawford added.

 "A meeting to gather 'input from Queens residents' certainly should be open to the local press," said Patch editor-in-chief Dennis Robaugh. "The only reason to exclude the press is to limit public debate and discussion on an important neighborhood and city issue."

This is basically government repression against the press (Well, the press they don't want or desire, because some reporters were allowed to come in). Also according to the mayor's spokesperson in a pathetic play on semantics, an attempt to repress the general public despite it's claim on the flyer above feigning to desire input from the community about the tower jail.

Then there is this that Maya Kaufman, the Patch reporter that was bounced out of this public meeting, told me about the "neighborhood" advisory committees that were assembled by the city for this and the three other tower jails planned for the other boroughs using the ruse about community participation and transparency:

"Theoretically the NAC meetings are just open to the chosen group, but in Queens we’re seeing community members try to open up the meetings to the community at large by sharing notices on social media. So, this specific meeting had many not on the NAC."

City Limits (from January 2018)


The city is pursuing a unique path to getting approval for the four new jails that will take over housing detainees and inmates when Rikers Island closes: There is one environmental review, and one Uniform Land-Use Review Procedure, for the four very disparate sites.
That could mean that the voices of each individual neighborhood are less audible than they would be if the city proceeded jail by jail. However, the city has created four Neighborhood Advisory Councils to create a forum for getting community input into the plans for each facility.

 City records are not crystal clear on whether people attending these meetings are NAC members or non-members there to observer or speaker.

These are the individuals selected to advise (or advocate) for the Kew Gardens tower jail:

Jane Stanicki	Hour Children	Queens
Mary Abbate	Queens Community House	Queens
Murray Berger	Kew Gardens Civic Association	Queens
Robin Spigner	District Leader	Queens
Rosemary Zins	Queensborough Community College	Queens
Seth Willens	Community Board #9 (sitting in for Andrea Crawford)	Queens
Sister Tesa	Fitzgerald Hour Children	Queens
Steve Bell	Kew Gardens Civic Association	Queens
Sylvia Hack	Community Board #9	Queens

You think after the Amazon HQ2 debacle, Mayor de Blasio would have learned a lesson about keeping citizens in the dark about their policies and plans for neighborhoods. But as with the bike lanes and homeless shelters that have been induced on eastern Queens, this has been standard operating procedure.

Say “NO” to the Mayor’s neighborhood jail proposal

Voice your positions using the contact information and link listed at the end of this newsletter. Deadline for public comments is October 29th, an email link and pdf form are attached below – please act now. This is urgent. Here’s what you need to know . . . HOW DID WE GET HERE? On August 15, 2018 Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office announced a plan to close the Rikers Island jail, replacing it with four gargantuan "jail" micro-cities in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, each borough except for Staten Island. The proposed Queens jail would be constructed adjacent to Borough Hall, at the junction of Kew Gardens, Forest Hills and Briarwood.

Urgent Call to Action: We must not allow this to happen – join us! Public comments on the Mayor’s Borough Based Based Jail System proposal are due to the City by October 29th, 2018. Only emails or mailed comments will be considered. Send emails expressing your views to: Howard Judd Fiedler, A.I.A.  Director of Design Unit, NYC Department of Corrections Click this email link provided boroughplan@doc.nyc.gov to contact Mr Fiedler. A compose-email window to his office, will automatically open for you to easily compose and send your message. To compound your effort, we suggest cc'ing or forwarding your email after you have sent it, to the below representatives as well: Borough President Melinda Katz: info@queensbp.org Council Member Karen Koslowitz: koslowitz@council.nyc.gov State Senator Joseph Addabbo, Jr.: addabbo@nysenate.gov  State Senator Leroy Comrie: comrie@nysenate.gov Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal: rosenthald@nyassembly.gov Kew Gardens, Richmond Hill - Community Board 9: communitybd9@nyc.rr.com Forest Hills, Rego Park - Community Board 6:  qn06@cb.nyc.gov  Briarwood, Kew Gardens Hills - Community Board 8: qn08@cb.nyc.gov  If you prefer to print the comment form, please click this link for the pdf and post to: Howard Judd Fiedler, A.I.A.  Director of Design Unit, NYC Department of Correction 75-20 Astoria Boulevard, Suite 160 East Elmhurst, NY 11370   Sign our petition, follow us on social media & more: If you haven’t already signed our online petition please click here. To join our email list for updates and future actions, click here.

Jails, jails, everywhere!

From the Times Ledger:

There was tension last week as Kew Gardens residents expressed their opposition to the city’s proposal to reopen the existing Queens Detention Center complex as part of the city’s plan to shutter the Rikers Island prison over the next 10 years.

Hundreds of Kew Gardens residents attended the Queens Scoping Hearing, held Wednesday, Sept. 26 at Queens Borough Hall, located at 120-55 Queens Blvd. City officials were unable to finish their sentences amidst the loud interruptions in the Helen Marshall Cultural Center.

Misael Syldor, of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform — who was born and raised in Queens — delivered the testimony.

“At Rikers, people come out worse off than when they go in,” said Syldor. “The proposed facility in Queens is an opportunity for us to be closer to our loved ones, legal representation, and other services that will help them rehabilitate and become productive members of our communities.”

Audience members were divided on the closing of Rikers Island and the implementation of community-based borough jails. Residents who stood up to speak stated that there was no community involvement on the city’s plan to reopen the Queens jail complex.

In August, the de Blasio administration announced a proposal to redevelop Queens Detention Complex — located at 126-02 82nd Ave., adjacent to the Queens Criminal Courthouse — and the neighboring municipal parking lot into a corrections center with space for 1,510 prisoner beds.

“Why is $10 billion being funneled into the jail plan when that money can be used for creating affordable housing, our public schools and creating new roads,” asked Grace Wong. of Fresh Meadows.

Residents stressed the issues of overcrowding, parking availability, nearby schools, and transportation in the neighborhood.

Andrea Crawford, counsel to the Kew Gardens Improvement Association, said the city’s plan to build the jail complex will “cripple the neighborho­od,” and has no economic benefits to the community.


From CBS2:

Residents gave city representatives an earful in the Bronx Wednesday night in response to a plan to build a jail to help replace Rikers Island.

The opposition was loud and clear as families from Mott Haven spoke out angrily against the city’s plan to open a jail at an old tow pound on Concord Avenue.

“Some of us residents have made lives and raised families on Concord Avenue for over 70 years,” resident Myra Hernandez said. “We are enraged.”

Hernandez lives two blocks from the proposed site in the Bronx.

“For anyone to propose that this is going to be beneficial for these communities that are oppressed and marginalized, has no clue,” she said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to close the jails on Rikers Island and move towards a borough-based jail system. It would build facilities on the Concord Avenue property in the Bronx, Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Centre Street in Manhattan, and 82nd Avenue in Queens.

From the NY Times:

When the city moved its youngest inmates from Rikers Island to a juvenile detention center last week, the goal was to shield them from the violence of the adult jail and place them in an age-appropriate setting, as required under a new state law.

But so far the mayhem has followed them.

Since last week, when the city’s youngest offenders began moving into Horizon Juvenile Center, there have been at least five violent episodes. These brawls among inmates have caused dozens of injuries to correction officers assigned to the center, union leaders said.

On Wednesday, 20 correction officers suffered minor injuries when a fight involving 16 inmates from two rival gangs broke out about 11:30 a.m., correction officials said. The officers’ union said the fight started when one group of teenagers, who were in school at the facility, spotted members of a rival gang in the hallway.

After the fight, unions representing correction officers and social workers, as well as two City Council members, criticized the mayor and city officials for moving the young inmates before addressing safety and security concerns.



Oh, shit!

Group forms to resist Kew Gardens jail

From Forest Hills Post:

A number of Kew Gardens residents have come together to launch a campaign to block the reopening and expansion of the Queens House of Detention.

About 25 residents have formed the Community Preservation Coalition, a group that aims to stop the Mayor’s plan to reopen the shuttered 126-01 82nd Ave. facility.

The group is comprised of many of the same people who led the successful effort to the save the Lefferts Boulevard Bridge, according to coalition member Dominick Pistone, who also heads the Kew Gardens Civic Association.

The coalition argues that the mayor’s proposal for a 1,500 inmate jail at the Kew Gardens site— adjacent to Queens Borough Hall and the District Attorney’s Office— would be out of scale with the surrounding buildings and exacerbate traffic in the neighborhood.

Pistone said the mayor is calling for a “monster facility that’s totally out of scale with the neighborhood.”

The coalition intends to launch a public awareness campaign after the City holds a public hearing on the project next week, Pistone said.

The hearing, which will be held at Queens Borough Hall at 6 p.m. on Sept. 26, is part of the Environmental Review Process that is required for the site to be rezoned. The public will have the opportunity to hear more about the project and to ask questions.

The City needs to rezone the site for the jail expansion to move forward.

The group launched a petition against the jail on Sept. 18, and Pistone said the group and will begin to distribute fliers about the group’s concerns in coming weeks. He said the coalition knew that the City was considering reopening the jail, but was shocked as to the scale of the expansion.

While the existing structure is 497,600 square feet and housed about 500 inmates, the new facility would be 1,910,000 square feet and house 1,510 inmates.

Kew Gardens jail requires zoning change

From the Forest Hills Post:

The mayor’s office has released the first details about plans for four borough-based jails, which includes the redevelopment and expansion of the former Queens Detention Complex in Kew Gardens.

The overhaul would significantly expand the size of the facility at 126-01 82nd Ave., which closed in 2002. The existing building is 497,600 square feet and housed about 500 inmates; the new facility would be 1,910,000 square feet and house 1,510 inmates.

The jail reopening is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to close the troubled Rikers Island jail facility and shift the city’s jail inmates to smaller jail facilities. The mayor’s office plans for the four facilities to offer 6,040 beds, which would accommodate the roughly 5,000 people in detention daily.

The mayor’s office says that the smaller facilities would be safer and enable inmates to maintain contact with their families and communities, and to have better access to their legal representatives and the court system. The new facilities would also give inmates increased access to rehabilitative and reentry services, as well as to more sunlight and outdoor space.

The Kew Gardens facility would also offer a centralized care area for inmates with an infirmary and a maternity ward.

The new development would offer parking for visitors to the jail and for the general public. A total of 429 parking spaces would be available within the detention facility, and the public would have access to an adjacent above-ground parking lot with 676 public spaces at the northwest of the property.

A community space would also be constructed along 126th Street, the mayor’s office said.

The city has not yet an anticipated a completion date or an estimate of the length of the construction period, but it would need to seek zoning changes in order to expand the existing facility.

The mayor’s office said that the city would need to make an amendment to the zoning text to modify the “requirements for bulk” such as the floor area, height and setback, as well as the parking requirement. The city would seek a special permit to de-map 82nd Ave. between 126th Street and 132nd Street.

Former jail to be housing that's "affordable" (whatever that means)

From the Daily News:

A once-infamous juvenile detention center in the Bronx will be transformed into more than 700 units of affordable housing.

The City Council Thursday approved plans to turn the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Center in Hunts Point into a $300 million, 5-acre campus dubbed The Peninsula that will include 700 units of affordable housing, ground-floor retail, light industrial manufacturing space and other amenities.

“It’s a big day for justice in the Bronx. As we move to build more than 700 affordable homes, open space and small businesses in Hunts Point on the site of the old Spofford facility, we are seeing a community rising and the righting of old wrongs,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement.

Spofford was a hulking concrete complex that was shuttered in 2011 after years of criminal justice activists urging its closure.

All 700 of the units will be income-restricted and the development will be mixed income — with apartments reserved for those making from 30% to 90% of the area median income, and 75 units set aside for formerly homeless people.

WOW! 75 units for the homeless. At this rate we should have them all housed by 3026.

Jail plan pisses off the Bronx

From PIX11:

Community members held a town hall Thursday night to voice their concerns over a proposal to build a new jail in the south Bronx neighborhood.

The jail would be built at the corner of East 141st Street and Concord Avenue. It’s currently the site of an NYPD impound lot.

Hundreds packed the auditorium of P.S. 65 Mother Hale Academy, which is just down the street from the site.

The meeting opened with chants of “We will fight, we will win!”

Meanwhile, in Kew Gardens...

Koslowitz ok with jail (and shelter for now)

From the Queens Chronicle:

The city will start housing homeless families instead of single men at the Comfort Inn in Kew Gardens beginning in June, and the hotel will stop being used as an emergency homeless shelter altogether by Feb. 12, 2019.

That’s according to Human Resources Adminstration Commissioner Steve Banks, who made those promises in a Monday letter to Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills).

In return, Koslowitz — who shared the correspondence exclusively with the Chronicle — said she will renew her support for the reactivation of the Queens House of Detention as a jail, should the facilities on Rikers Island close as planned.

The lawmaker exclusively told the Chronicle two weeks ago that she was yanking her support for the QHD proposal, citing a larger-than-planned influx of homeless men the city was housing at the 123-28 82 Ave. hotel just a block away.

“It was a matter of a few weeks that it all transpired, right after it was in your paper,” Koslowitz said Wednesday. “I got the commitment Friday. The commissioner called me on Friday and I told him I wanted it in writing.

Koslowitz ok with either jail or shelter but not both

From the Queens Chronicle:

Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) is threatening to withdraw her support for the proposal to use the old Queens House of Detention in Kew Gardens as a jail again should the facilities on Rikers Island close in the coming years as planned.

The reason? The expanded use of the Comfort Inn across the street as a homeless shelter for single men.

“This is unacceptable. I will not support a prison and a homeless shelter,” Koslowitz told the Chronicle on Tuesday. “I’m not going to do that to my community.”

The Department of Homeless Services initially rented out 42 rooms inside the 123-28 82 Ave. mixed-use building — featuring 84 hotel rooms and 38 apartments — in late September with little advance notice.

But as of Tuesday, Koslowitz said there were 132 single homeless men housed there, eight more than the week before and 48 more than the DHS initially promised the capacity would be.

“The last I heard, it was 84. That’s what they said the number was going to be,” she said. “I have said something to the administration and I will say something further. I’m just too angry.”

Koslowitz, the head of the Queens Council delegation, officially came out last October in support of again using the Queens House of Detention — an incarceration facility until 2002 and a film production studio since — as the borough’s jail once Rikers closes.

According to the lawmaker and her colleagues, housing prisoners down the street from Queens County Criminal Court will save the city millions of dollars in inmate transportation costs each year.

Koslowitz said Tuesday she still believes that is true, but the cost savings simply don’t outweigh the community opposition to a larger-than-expected homeless shelter.

Pols oppose jail at Fort Totten

From the Queens Tribune:

State Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside) and Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) said that they are opposed to a proposal to create a new city Department of Correction training facility at Fort Totten.

Braunstein said that, according to a document his office received that was dated Sept. 26, the city has moved to re-use a portion of Fort Totten to create permanent home for a city Department of Correction training academy. In 2015, the city’s Fire Department—in collaboration with the city’s Office of Management and Budget and Design and Construction Department—initiated the first of two consultant studies on the proposal. An analysis of requirements for the site is expected to be completed this month, according to the document.

“I strongly oppose the creation of a new DOC training facility at Fort Totten and find it outrageous that the city is secretly considering this proposal, which could have a detrimental impact on our parkland,” Braunstein said. “Recently, Community Board 7 notified my office that DOC was considering a facility at Fort Totten. Upon receiving this information, my requests to various city agencies have failed to result in any substantive information. It is absolutely unacceptable that a proposal of this magnitude was not shared with elected officials and the community board for over two years.”

Braunstein called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to abandon plans for the facility at Fort Totten, while Vallone added that Bayside was the wrong community in which to locate such a facility.

From QNS:

In a letter addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio on Jan. 11, state Senator Tony Avella raised concerns with the city’s “serious lack of information” in reference to certain project propositions by the Fire Department and Department of Corrections (DOC). The FDNY has proposed building a wind turbine at the Bay Terrace location, while DOC considers using it as the site of its new training academy.

After an alleged runaround from city agencies, Avella has filed a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request for documents pertaining to both proposals.

“What are you hiding?” Avella writes. “I would appreciate a full briefing on your plans by all those involved.”

Fort Totten — formally an active U.S. Army installation in the Bay Terrace section of the neighborhood — is currently used by the U.S. Army Reserve, NYPD and FDNY. Certain portions are designated public park areas.

For FY 2018, DOC allocated $1.1 billion to fund a “New Jail Facilities” project, prompted by Mayor de Blasio’s push to close Rikers Island and create neighborhood-based and decentralized jail sites. Avella questioned whether DOC’s interest in Fort Totten pertained to this move.

“I hope this is not a hidden plan to place a jail on the Fort,” Avella writes. “Such an attempt would be fought vigorously by the whole community.”

One of the Rikers jails slated for closure

From PIX11:

Before the summer is over, one of the nine jail facilities on Rikers Island will be shut down.

That was the announcement on Tuesday from the Bill de Blasio Administration, which said that the move is the first step in a larger process of completely closing Rikers by 2027.

The announcement raised questions about the overall shutdown process, and also sparked criticism by the correction officers' union of City Hall's motives.

"Nobody's being realistic in talking about how they're actually going to shut the jails down," said Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, or COBA, the correction officers' union.

In fact, Husamudeen said, relocating the facility's 580 inmates to other facilities on the 400-acre island will crowd cells and halls at those other facilities, making overall conditions less safe.

BDB looking to hire Rikers closure consultants

From Metro:

Mayor Bill de Blasio officially began the process of shuttering Rikers Island on Thursday by issuing a request for proposal to develop an action plan to close the controversial jail complex and find alternate solutions.

“We have a moral obligation to close down Rikers Island and transition to a smaller, safer and fairer jail system,” the mayor said. “To make that a reality, we’ll be looking at where we can create more off-island space by expanding existing buildings or finding new sites and maintaining an honest dialogue with communities and elected officials.

“We’re moving aggressively on the long road to closing Rikers Island, and this is a crucial step forward,” he added.

The consultant will work with the city’s goal to operate detention facilities that go beyond confinement by providing behavioral, health, developmental and re-entry support for inmates, as well as offer improved access for service providers, lawyers, visitation and transportation to court.

Proposals will be due in mid-December with the consultant chosen in early January, the mayor’s office said, adding that “there will be robust community consultation workshops and engagement with neighborhood residents.”

Vallone mailer is a laugh riot

Independent? Really? Well, let's look into this further.

"Opposed every bill that tried to hand cuff our public safety or police department."
I'm not sure how you hand cuff public safety and I'm pretty sure it's one word - handcuff. Also, the bills were overwhelmingly passed anyway after you asked the Speaker to vote no to cover your ass politically, so this isn't really something to brag about.

Next, Vallone completely made up that there was a threat of a homeless shelter coming to Bayside so he could then take credit for stopping it. DHS said many times that they weren't even looking at Bayside.

You kept Northern Blvd "car friendly", which is why there have been at least 4 accidents there in the last month after you failed to stop the city from installing a barrier and bike lane there.

Voted against ZQA! Yet simultaneously voted in favor of MIH...which is actually worse.

Fighting against a jail in College Point, but happily endorsed the guy who wants to put one there - Mayor de Blasio.

Great dictator pose.

Kew Gardens opposed to Dizzy Lizzy's jail plan

STATEMENT BY KEW GARDENS CIVIC ASSOCIATION AND KEW GARDENS IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION -- October 4, 2017

The Kew Gardens Civic Association, representing Kew Gardens homeowners for over a century, and the Kew Gardens Improvement Association, representing apartment house dwellers for almost half a century, are united in their strong opposition to the plan offered by Elizabeth Crowley, presumably supported by other Queens City Council members, for situating one of the successors to Rikers Island in Kew Gardens.

The plan was never shared by Crowley with the residents of Kew Gardens and was apparently kept secret until its sudden release this week to the Mayor.

When the benign Queens House of Detention existed as part of our Civic Center until fifteen years ago it housed persons awaiting trial for very short stays; they were not likely to have many family visitors. And for those who came by car, there was plenty of parking nearby in the 900+ car Municipal Garage, now gone. The 307-car parking lot to open next year will be occupied by City and Court employees and by jurors; the streets of Kew Gardens will be scoured for non-existent parking spaces!

Kew Gardens’ residents accepted the House of Detention as a holding facility; it posed no serious problem. When District Attorney Richard Brown suggested that converting the building to office space for his agency would save the City a lot of money it is now paying for rent elsewhere, it seemed to make sense. We respect Judge Brown and think he should be taken seriously.

After the brouhaha last Spring when the distribution of Rikers’ prisoners was a headline topic, it was said that our Kew Gardens facility was not nearly big enough to accommodate enough prisoners from Queens; that the facility was outdated, that it would need to be demolished and rebuilt and that Kew Gardens could not provide enough prisoners to warrant a ”neighborhood prison,” one of the goals voiced for the break-up of Rikers. What happened??

In just the two days since the Crowley letter was made available we have received numerous replies from our members, all of whom are opposed to reopening the House of Detention. If community opinion is to mean anything, this project should be shelved.

Dominick Pistone, President
Kew Gardens Civic Association

Sylvia Hack, President
Kew Gardens Improvement Association

Koslowitz opposed to homeless shelter, but ok with jail in Kew Gardens

From the Queens Chronicle:

The Department of Homeless Services has moved 42 homeless single men into the Comfort Inn at 123-28 82 Ave. in Kew Gardens, just across the street from Borough Hall, according to Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills).

The lawmaker told the Chronicle on Monday that the individuals were moved into the facility on Saturday, one day after the DHS and the Mayor's Office told her about the plan.

"I asked them how could they do this. They called me right before a religious holiday," Koslowitz said referring to Yom Kippur, which began at sundown on Friday. "You call me right before a holiday that I observe so I can't do anything about it? That's not right.

"I'm fighting it," she added. "My engine is running."

Wow, Karen sure is upset! Yet she signed this dopey letter along with a bunch of other Queens tweeders (facing minimal to no opposition in November) to show support of Liz Crowley's stupid request to put a community jail in the same area:

Queens Detention Complex Letter 10.2017 by Queens Post on Scribd

The Kew Gardens complex is too small to hold the inmates that Queens would be responsible for and the City is reportedly already looking at multiple sites. Let's do the math...10 jails currently on Rikers Island, and 5 boroughs (minus Staten Island which BDB announced wouldn't get any)...

You'd think as lawmakers they would hammer out the details on where the replacement jails will go BEFORE throwing their support behind the Dope from Park Slope's plant to close Rikers, but then again, THIS IS QUEENS where the promotion of real estate deals always comes before any kind of responsible representation.

Replacing Rikers

From Crains:

The most feasible location to boost flights is LaGuardia Airport, by building a new runway on Rikers Island in place of the jail complex that the city hopes to close within 10 years. The plan, a recommendation of the Rikers Commission, would involve laying another strip of tarmac on the reclaimed isle and connecting it to a new terminal next to the existing airport. Because Rikers is more than 400 acres, other infrastructure uses often loathed by residential neighborhoods could be sited there with 
little fuss. A waste treatment, composting or waste-to-energy plant could help the city make serious strides toward its environmental goals, Torres Springer said, and a solar energy farm could produce and store hundreds of megawatts of power.

From DNA Info:

A plan to close Rikers Island unveiled Thursday won't happen without the support of local city council members willing to clear the way for local jails in their districts, the mayor said on WNYC's Brian Lehrer's show.

The 85-year-old jail has been plagued by concerns for inmate mistreatment and deaths, security issues and mismanagement, won't close without new satellite jails, Mayor Bill de Blasio, said Thursday morning.

While de Blasio's ten-year-plan included a combination of criminal justice reforms to drive down the city's inmate population by making it easier to pay bail, investing more in mental health programs and decreasing crime rates, details of the satellite jails are conspicuously absent.

The mayor put the onus squarely on neighborhood NIMBYs.

"We're going keep driving [the inmate population] down with every tool we have, but we can't get off Rikers, unless there are specific places where the local leadership accept a jail facility," he said. "It just cannot happen without a vote of the City Council."

In March of 2016, DNAinfo exclusively reported that the city was quietly eyeing several sites for new satellite jails including locations in Hunts Point in the Bronx, in College Point in Queens, at 287 Maspeth Ave. on a vacant lot owned by National Grid in East Williamsburg, at 803 Forbell St. in East New York and at two sites on Staten Island.

Crowley wants Rikers closed and replaced with community jails

From NY1:

“You cannot count on Elizabeth Crowley that’s the bottom line, “ said Robert Holden.

“In politics there are people who say a lot of things and then there are people who actually get results done,“ responded Crowley.

Crowley, who’s running for her third term, says her record speaks for itself, touting her success in securing funding for 54-hundred new classroom seats, enhanced public safety by hiring more cops, and preserving essential city services such as fire and EMS.

But, it may be Crowley’s support of closing Riker's Island, which draws the most distinction.

“I worry about the people who work there and the inmates there. They are not safe on that island,“ said Crowley.

Holden supports keeping it open because closing it would create more community jails.

“Why would anybody be for community jails have prisoners in the community I mean I don’t get that,“ said Holden.

Bill's closing Rikers

From Politico:

Just days before a special commission was set to release a report calling for the closure of Rikers Island, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday he supports a ten-year timeline to shutter the troubled jail.

“This is the first time in 85 years, since Rikers Island opened in 1932, that the official policy of the city of New York will be to end our efforts on Rikers Island and close the jails there,” de Blasio said flanked by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte and director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, Elizabeth Glazer.

The press conference, which was not initially listed on the mayor's public schedule, came nearly a year after City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for the complete closure of the facility.

De Blasio said his own evolution on the idea — which he had previously dismissed as a "noble" but impractical undertaking — came after weeks of conversations between he and Mark-Viverito, describing a consensus that formed around the general idea that the facility could be closed after it reaches 5,000 inmates. The first step would be reducing the inmate population to 7,000 as the city figures out where to house the inmate population would be displaced.