Four Elected Officials Appear Before Community Board

While the voting business of Monday night's Community Board 14 meeting passed by without much discussion, the appearance of four elected officials made the evening more eventful.

Two Special Permits were passed with near unanimous votes, with only one abstention each. While the city asked for that voting on their proposal for the conversion of Dorman Square to a pedestrian plaza be held over, and the Board agreed.

Speakers before the board prompted more discussion however.

The first was 44th District Assemblyman Jim Brennan who discussed the budget and possible hospital closures.

"A report from the state Department of Health suggest the possibility to close up to five hospitals in Brooklyn last November," he said. "Shortly after that report came out the Senate and Assembly delegation from Brooklyn began a series of meetings with the Governor's Office and the Department of Health."

"When we adopted the budget on March on March 30th the proposal to close Kingsborough State Psychiatric Hospital and transfer its patients to Staten Island was withdrawn, it was blocked, not happening. Although that hospital and its future remain at risk," he said.

"The possible closure of SUNY Downstate appears to be off the table for right now. And the private hospitals who's problems are financial … those are going to be problematic for probably several years to come."

"Brookdale Hospital has defaulted on its debts to the state Dormitory Authority and is not paying its payroll taxes, as well as its obligations to its employee pension funds. So it is in very significant trouble. The state Dormitory Authority has appointed a team to begin a restructuring of Brookdale Hospital. And the state Department of Health, in cooperation with Brookdale's legal partner, its network … is in the process of separating Brookdale Hospital from that network so the state can work directly with restructuring its debts with the purpose of preventing its closure."

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes used his time to spread the word on the success that drug rehab programs have been having.

"What I've been doing for the last six years is to go throughout the borough to talk about the bad old days and to try and demonstrate that we have put in place a number of very strong law enforcement, public safety initiatives that will prevent us from ever going back to the bad old days," Hynes said.

"I grew up in the bad old days," he said, "And my house was burglarized in four times in the five years before I ran for DA in 1989. And three of my five kids were violently assaulted. And I became closer to the 70th precinct than I wanted to be."

He said that one key to changing practices which contributed to the bad old days was the introduction of programs focusing on the rehabilitation of drug users, rather than simple incarceration.

"We had it all wrong in the '80s and early '90s. Everybody went to prison under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. There was no treatment available, none," said Hynes. "But then we started something called the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison, it's called DTAP because you can't have a government program without an acronym."

Additionally, he spoke of the importance of these sorts of programs in stopping domestic violence, which had effected his family in his childhood.

"No one in this county — no one in this county needs to suffer one more day in domestic violence. Help is available, and it's not all about throwing people in jail. It's about trying to help people deal with their alcoholism, deal with their drug addiction or their anger, etc., so they can restore their family."

"All of this, by the way, is designed to reduce recidivism rates. And that's the key to public safety."

45th District Councilman Jumaane Williams spoke about the results of the recent vote. Four projects were green-lit as a result of the vote:

1. Security Cameras, 819 Votes
2. Community Resource Center, 806 Votes
3. Park Lighting, 747 Votes
4. E-Tech Campus, 436 Votes

Later, 40th District Councilman Mathieu Eugene spoke about a health fair to be presented by the Flatbush Beacon Program and CB17, at Middle School 2 on April 28, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Free services to be provided will include:

Health screenings
Cancer screening information
Dental check ups
Blood pressure tests
Diabetes screening
HIV/AIDS screening
Health and nutrition information
Child IDs
Library cards