纽约市议会，我们不要社区监狱！
所有纽约市民，白思豪的330亿天价社区监狱计划进行到了一个历史性的关键时刻，本周四 5/17 下午 1pm 51 位市议员将会对其投票！
纽约市面临着生死存亡的抉择。
请您抓紧今天和明天履行纽约市民义务，您可以参加：
1. 本周三10/16中午12pm, 主张不要建社区监狱，而是修复雷克岛监狱的市议员Andy King,Robert Holden,Ruben Diaz 将和多位反对修建监狱的市议员一起召开新闻发布会，痛斥白思豪的荒唐社区监狱计划。
2. 本周四10/17号中午12pm 市政厅公园百老汇大街公园出口处，由美国华裔酒店协会、亚裔维权大联盟、大纽约区同源会、纽约市居民联盟等参加的纽约市民集会，敦促于1pm开会的市议会投下反对票！
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3. 请继续打电话或写信给您本区和外区的市议员让他们在这纽约市历史性的一刻，保持清醒头脑，摸着自己的良心，投下对800万纽约市民和一百万学生负责任的一票！
市议员：
陈倩文 212-587-3159，
Karen Koslowitz 718-544-8900，
Corey Johnson 212-788-7210，
Diana Ayala 212-828-9800,
Stephen Levin 718-875-5200
也请打电话给20区议员顾雅明先生office 718-888-8747，敦促其投反对票
4. 请按照下面行动指南里面的script或您自己的想法给15位还在摇摆和所有的议员打电话或发email,我们大家一起来，今天就可能改变历史！
Please call and email Council Members 4 to 15 below, and then read the script below to them on the phone, and paste this in your email. Make sure to fill in the Council Member’s name, your name, and the neighborhood of your residence
4.
Eric Ulrich (Qns)
Dist. 32 – Belle Harbor, Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Woodhaven, Rockaway Park, etc. 718-738-1083
eulrich@councilnyc.gov
5.
Mark Treyger (Bkyn)
Dist. 47 – Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Gravesend, Sea Gate 718-373-9673
mtreyger@council.nyc.gov
6.
Antonio Reynoso (Bklyn)
Dist. 34 – Williamsburg, Bushwick, Ridgewood 718-963-3141
areynoso@council.nyc.gov
7.
Andy Cohen (Bx)
Dist. 11 – Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Norwood, Wakefield, Woodlawn 718-549-7300
acohen@council.nyc.gov
8.
Alan Maisel (Bklyn)
Dist. 46 – Bergen Beach, Canarsie, Flatlands, Marine Park, Mill Basin, Sheepshead Bay, etc. 718-241-9330
amaisel@council.nyc.gov
9.
Barry Grodenchik (Qns)
Dist. 23 – Queens Village, Oakland 718-468-0137
bgrodenchik@council.nyc.gov
Gardens, Little Neck, Hollis, Glen Oaks, Fresh Meadows, Floral Park, Douglaston, Bellerose, etc.
10.
Fernando Cabrera (Bx)
Morris Heights, University Heights, Fordham, Kingsbridge 347-590-2874
fcabrera@council.nyc.gov
11.
Daneek Miller (Qns.)
Dist. 27 – Cambria Heights, St. Albans, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens 718-776-3700
District27@council.nyc.gov
12.
Ritchie Torres (Bx.)
Dist. 15 – Bedford Park, Fordham, Belmont, East Tremont, Allerton, Olinville 718-842-8100
Rtorres@council.nyc.gov
13.
Costa Constantinides (Qns)
Dist. 22 -- Long Island City, Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Woodside 718-274-4500 nroloson@council.nyc.gov
14.
Rafael Salamanca (Bx)
Dist. 17 – East Trement, Hunts Point, Longwood, Melrose, Morrisania, Crotona Park East 718-402-6130
salamanca@council.nyc.gov
15.
Bill Perkins (Man)
Dist. 9 – Central Harlem, Morningside Heights, Upper West Side, East Harlem 212-678-4505
d09perkins@council.nyc.gov
电子邮件样本：
Dear Council Member _____________:
My name is ___________________ and I am a resident of (state your neighborhood and Borough). I am calling to protest the City Council’s proposal to open 4 community jails. We should keep Rikers Island open, use some of the $11+ billion to rebuild it, then the rest to house every homeless person in NYC, invest in mental healthcare, repair the much needed NYCHA units instead of selling them to private corporations, create jobs for youth, and invest in communities. Therefore I respectfully urge you to vote NO Thursday on building community jails in the 4 boroughs, thank you. Please call and email below Council Members 1, 2, and 3 above, and then read the script below to them on the phone, and paste this in your email. Make sure to fill in the Council Member’s name, your name, and the neighborhood of your residence.
Name
District
Phone
Email
1.
Carlos Menchaca (Bklyn)
Dist 38 – Red Hook, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrance, 718-439-9012
info38@council.nyc.gov
Dyker Heights, Boro Park
2.
Rafael Espinal (Qns)
Dist 37 – Cypress Hills, Bushwick, Ocean Hill, Brownsville, East New York 718-642-8664
REspinal@council.nyc.gov
3.
Ydanis Rodriguez (Man)
Dist 10 – Washington Heights, Inwood, Marble Hill 917-521-2616
yrodriguez@council.nyc.gov
Dear Council Member _____________:
My name is ___________________ and I am a resident of (state your neighborhood and Borough). I am calling to protest the City Council’s proposal to open 4 community jails. The city’s borough-based jails plan would give Immigration and Customs Enforcements officers more opportunities to track or detain undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated. Additional jails built in the boroughs would increase ICE surveillance in the area, just as it has at other sites related to the criminal justice system, such as courts and jails. Therefore I respectfully urge you to vote NO Thursday on building community jails in the 4 boroughs, thank you.
Newsletter from Kew Gardens Community Preservation Coalitio
Tell the NY City Council to Vote NO
This coming week on October 17th, the City Council casts its decisive vote on the Mayor's proposal to close Rikers and build four high-rise mega-jails in the City, one of them in Kew Gardens at the border of Forest Hills and Briarwood.
Though our Community Board 9 voted unanimously against the proposal and Borough President Melinda Katz opposes it, our NY City Council rep, Karen Koslowitz, unfortunately supports the bid despite protests from our community and beyond. Moreover, because of that the polls of the 15 Queens Council members indicate that most lean toward approval of the proposal, since Council members traditionally follow the lead of the affected local Council member, Koslowitz.
In our ultimate attempt to sway the NY City Council vote on the 17th, we urge you - and everyone opposed to the Kew Gardens mega jail - as well as the other proposed jails - to deluge the 51 NY City Council members with emails so they realize how many of us are strongly opposed to this proposal.
Your comments can be brief and to the point. We've done two things below to make this civic task, quick and easy for you to participate in.
You have two easy options to select from; you may compose your own letter, using some of the key talking points we have highlighted for you below or you may choose to sign your name to a general letter that we have composed for you to use as is, or edit.
There's a separate link for each of the email options, both of which already have all 51 NY City Council Member emails inserted in the recipients row (and which if you can easily move to the bcc-recipients section of your email instead, will be even more impactful and personal). There's also already a suggested email subject heading and also either a partial or complete letter body as well, which may be edited further if you wish to do so.
Email options:
Option 1, compose your own letter in the email. Please make sure to state your name in the beginning, your neighborhood of residence, and to sign off the letter at the end. There are talking points listed below in case you would like to emphasize a couple of them in your email.
Click here to open the compose email window.
Option 2, sign your name to our composed letter email. Please make sure to state your name in the beginning, your neighborhood of residence, and to sign off the letter at the end.
Click here to open the compose email window.
Below are some indicated talking points you may wish to use for your own letter, but the main concern is to let theses Council members know you staunchly object to the Rikers proposal and its consequences.
Talking Points:
The Department of Correction and the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice have only provided a concept of their jail- no design, no plans, no substantiated budget.
The Lippman Commission proposed borough-based jails so as to bring detainees close to their families and provide a benefit to the communities themselves; neither is true for Kew Gardens:
Kew Gardens will house far more detainees than live in or near our community. The proposed facility in KG will see 25 percent of 4600 jail beds despite the neighborhood having less than 15 percent of all Queens detainees. (Staten Island will not build a jail, and their residents will be detained in the other 4 boroughs!)
Costs of busing detainees to court won’t be eliminated, as claimed, as the system requires all detainees to be tried in the borough they are arrested in, rather than their borough of residence.
Rikers Island currently has outdoor that can be used for recreation, however the high-rise jails proposed by the Mayor cannot accommodate these outside spaces.
After criminal law reform and new government policies are implemented, the total number of detainees is expected to range from 3,000 to 5,000. This figure is much smaller than the current population of 7,000 at Rikers.
Why are so many billions of dollars (the initial estimate is $11 billion, which may rise to $25 billion or $30 billion after financing costs) being committed for so few people, when the City already needs so much money for the homeless, education, housing, NYCHA, transportation, and other venues that benefit communities?
Why is the City undertaking the risk of confining so many detained people in high-rise jails that may be difficult, or even impossible, to evacuate safely in case of a fire or other emergency?
A tall high-rise jail will overwhelm the community of Kew Gardens, not only by its height and mass, but also as a large penal institution operating 24/7 in an already congested community.
Rikers Island CAN be rebuilt, renovated and made habitable and accessible for far less money than the Mayor's proposal would require. Why won't the Council do the proper cost study before deciding on such a lavish, wasteful expenditure of funds? Not to mention these four new jails may deteriorate into high-rise slums if not maintained, as happened to the jails at Rikers and to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, which at its opening in 1975 was hailed in the NY Times as an “advance in jail design!”
If Rikers' most serious problem is allegedly its culture and treatment of detainees, can’t these issues be addressed internally on Rikers Island instead?
THIS CITY COUNCIL WILL REGRET ITS LEGACY IF OR WHEN - NEW YORK BECOMES KNOWN WORLDWIDE AS THE CITY WITH THE FOUR SKYSCRAPER JAILS.
If you wish to know or do more, we suggest that you also look through some of the enlightened comments made by Queens Community Board 9 on the devastating impacts that a mega-jail would have on the residents of the communities of Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, Briarwood and their adjacent neighborhoods. We've included the link for this document below.
Queens Community Board 9 - Comments about the detremental impact of a mega-jail in Kew Gardens.
HELP US TO RAISE AWARENESS, PLEASE USE THE TAGS ON SOCIAL MEDIA &
FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER TO YOUR NEIGHBORS.
Our social media hashtags are:
#nokewgardensjail
#noboroughbasedjailsnyc
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK & TWITTER:
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Copyright 2019 The Community Preservation Coalition, All rights reserved.
Thank you for your support. You are subscribed to this list from petitions for Kew Gardens & The Community Preservation, as an actively engaged neighbor in Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, Briarwood and the vcinity.
Our mailing address is:
The Community Preservation Coalition
PO Box 116
Kew Gardens, NY 11415-0116
emails of 51 council members：
Ibarron@council.nyc.gov, salamanca@council.nyc.gov, helen@helenrosenthal.com, fcabrera@council.nyc.gov, mguerra@council.nyc.gov, district27@council.nyc.gov, district30@council.nyc.gov, d09perkins@council.nyc.gov, respinal@council.nyc.gov, dromm@council.nyc.gov, meugene@council.nyc.gov, fmoya@council.nyc.gov, amaisel@council.nyc.gov, kpowers@council.nyc.gov, rlancman@council.nyc.gov, askjb@council.nyc.gov, info38@council.nyc.gov, askkalman@council.nyc.gov, pvallone@council.nyc.gov, borelli@council.nyc.gov, lcumbo@council.nyc.gov, pkoo@council.nyc.gov, koslowitz@council.nyc.gov, lander@council.nyc.gov, bkallos@benkallos.com, slevin@council.nyc.gov, dayala@council.nyc.gov, district41@council.nyc.gov, district2@council.nyc.gov, cdeutsch@council.nyc.gov, smatteo@council.nyc.gov, rdiaz@council.nyc.gov, speakerjohnson@council.nyc.gov, mtreyger@council.nyc.gov, areynoso@council.nyc.gov, rtorres@council.nyc.gov, yrodriguez@council.nyc.gov, drose@council.nyc.gov, drichards@council.nyc.gov, andy.king@council.nyc.gov, eulrich@council.nyc.gov, mgjonaj@council.nyc.gov, jvanbramer@council.nyc.gov, district36@council.nyc.gov, bgrodenchik@council.nyc.gov, adams@council.nyc.gov, district45@council.nyc.gov, acohen@council.nyc.gov, vgibson@council.nyc.gov, hearings@council.nyc.gov
纽约市70侨团联名反对“社区监狱计划”呼吁书
New York City Anti-Jail Coalition Joint Press Release
October 16th, 2019 Contact: info@ranyc.org
COMMUNITY JAIL PLAN IS FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG!
New York City Residents Alliance, Coalition of Asian-Americas for Civil Rights, Hotel Chinese Association of USA, New York State 47th AD District Leader Nancy Tong, among 70 organizations and individuals, call all NYC and NYS residents, officials, organizations to say NO to Mayor De Blasio’s community jail plan.
We do not want nor need to build new high-rise tower jails in Manhattan’s Lower East Side/ Chinatown, which would be the highest jail of the world! We do not want nor need to build new jails in Kew Gardens of Queens, in Boerum Hill of Brooklyn, or Mott Haven in the Bronx. Rikers Island jail must stay on Rikers Island and fix the entire system there!
The community jail plan is fundamentally wrong because:
1. None of the Rikers issues, the violence, the misuse of power, and trial delays have anything to do with the location. As was shown in a recent CityLab article, New York City jails have always been problematic, and Rikers Jails was created to solve them!
“In the 19th century, violence and filth festered at the detention facilities on what is now Roosevelt Island (known as Blackwell’s Island until 1921 and Welfare Island until 1971).” The city then built Rikers which was supposed to be “an enormous model penitentiary, ample in size to serve for many years to come and which in all its plans and parts should be the most perfect prison in the world.” It turned out to be an example of failed prison reform. “This followed the pattern set by the Blackwell jails, which were intended to improve on the penitentiary at Bellevue, which in turn replaced the city’s original 18th century jail at what is presently known as the Tweed Courthouse.”
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/09/rikers-island-nyc-history-new-jail- design-bill-de-blasio/597802/
In fact, the surging violence at Rikers can be correlated to the current deBlasio administration which ties the guard’s hands and gives incentives to violent incarcerated inmates (i.e. allowing them play games after they’ve improved their behavior a bit, while the always non-violent inmates never get such treatments).
2. The community jails would put innocent residents and children in great danger by placing the criminals in residential neighborhoods; some of whom are violent criminals and career criminals. The proposed Kew Gardens jail site is only a few hundred yards from the nearest schools.
Years ago, two inmates (charged with homicide felonies) escaped the Kew Gardens detention facility and caused a huge panic in the community. 10/2/2019, an armed suspect escaped custody at the Queens County Courthouse, where was steps away from the proposed Queens new jail site. 10/5/2019, 4 homeless men were brutally assaulted to death by a 24-yr suspect with 14 arrest records. 10/10/2019, a 6-yr-old boy sitting on the front steps of his home was seriously attacked and injured by a homeless stranger in Kew Gardens. 10/15/2019, a handcuffed parolee in police custody escaped in Kew Gardens.
Would not these incidents be enough to tell how severe the NYC safety situation is and how dangerous the near-residential-neighborhood jails can be??? Wake up, all the City Council members, say NO to De Blasio! In all of the world the jails are built in the isolated area to keep the town and city safe, only in our New York City, the mentally disordered Mayor wants to move the jail from the isolated island to the centers of our city!!!
3. No one wants to live under the shadow of a tower high jail and all the traffic and transportation issues that come with housing so many inmates. These jails would cause the nearby residents to not leave under the shadow and drive residents to flee New York City, and this will sink the surrounding neighborhood’s real estate value. The College Point shelter plan has already almost frozen the local housing market. The impact from a two-Yankee Stadium-sized jail, as is proposed for Kew Gardens jail, would be unimaginably deadly bigger.
4. New York City is already heavily burdened financially and cannot afford to spend $9 to $11 billion for 5,500 inmates and, possibly, an astronomical $33 billion overall, as estimated by the Daily News, while our public schools do not even have air conditioning and basic school supplies. https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-close-rikers-mistake-20190108-story.html. There are also thousands of other urgent issues for our city, for example, adequate lead testing and lead in our public schools which need to be addressed but cannot because of funding shortage.
5. New York City is a tourism city. We cannot imagine when tourists plan their trips, they would want to see skyscraper jails as part of the NYC’s skyline and amidst landmarks and tourist sites like the new World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and Grand Central Station.
6. The excuse used by some who support this plan, to facilitate the transportation of prisoners (from court to prison) does not stand. Experts have analyzed that it would take 290 years of saved transportation cost to offset the current building budget. Furthermore, Rikers Island is centrally located at the center of the five boroughs. The proposed Kew Gardens jail site is the largest and the farthest away from most NYC locations, and it has been reported that it will host all the sick and female inmates, even though the mayor’s administration has been trying to hide it.
7. Concrete made vertical prison towers in the center of cities are much more fragile for natural catastrophes like fire or earthquake compared to the currently more sparsely populated building on the island, and thus posing greater dangers to the prisoners. While on the other hand, an escaped prisoner would be much more difficult to capture in the population dense neighborhoods than on the island.
Furthermore, the average square footage for each inmate in those proposed high-rise tower jails is very limited, like a cage; compare to the island jail houses, while the inmates would have much bigger spaces and more access to the nature.
8. Reports have shown that the water layer beneath the proposed Chinatown jail earth might be not adequately deep enough to sustain the 50 stories jail. Numerous experts have warned against the (if approved) years of demolition/construction process, which would create heavy noises, dusts, radiation, hazardous material for very long time.
To even think of building the world's tallest jail next to a senior center, near a park for young and old, is to think it's OK to take years off their lives. In the near term, the elderly, facing ten years of construction, debris, pollution, will die prematurely in what should be peaceful years of their lives.
Our Mayor De Blasio, however, have chosen to be continuing to ignore all the opposition voices. Community board 8 and community board 9 both unanimously voted NO to the Kew Gardens jail plan, as well as the other affected community boards in Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan; however the ridiculous NYC Law says the local community board cannot decide their local affairs, and their decisions were not binding!!! ??? Even worse, many previous jail related hearings, for Kew Gardens site at least, had banned the reporters! Our Mayor was intentionally not only ignoring the people’s voice himself but also blocking the people’s voices to be heard by others!
We do not trust an administration incapable of running one large jail in Rikers to effectively manage four borough jails. We feel it is ridiculous and unjustified for the mayor to plan building luxury jails for the criminals, which is actually encouraging crimes.
We hope democracy is not dead in New York City. We cannot tolerate Mayor De Blasio continuing to ignore the voice and interests of 8 million of innocent NYC citizens and 1 million of children, ruining our city, and putting our safety in great danger using we taxpayer’s money, to only realize his dirty political gain to pretend himself as a progressive pioneer. We call every resident to voice out to oppose the plan, to keep our school and street safe and clean, and to maintain our great city peaceful and beautiful.
Dear City Council members, please vote NO for the sake of 8 million residents and 1 million children, please cast your votes from your conscience!
NO NEW JAIL in Boerum Hill！
NO NEW JAIL in Chinatown！
NO NEW JAIL in Kew Gardens！
NO NEW JAIL in Mott Haven！
New York City Residents Alliance Coalition of Asian-Americas for Civil Rights Hotel Chinese Association of USA State 47th AD District Leader Nancy Tong NY Laundromat Business Association Queens Residents and Voters Coalition College Point Residents Coalition Malaysian Association of America Zhanjiang Association of American Corp NVW Consulting Inc Better Chinatown of USA Asian America Restaurant Association Chinatown Athletic Council Taishan Friendship Association Guangzhou Association The Enping Commerce Association of New York Cen’s Family Association of America Lam’s Group American association of Cantonese American Chinese Commerce Association American Chinese Commerce Association HK American Fujian Jinsha Association Bai Sha Group Asian-American Women Empowerment U.S. Bei Shuang Association
Youth American Chinese Commerce Association New York Hai Nan Townsmen N.Y Fushan Association Inc American Langqi Student Association Urban United Association American Fujian Minhou Association Brooklyn On Fun Association U.S.A Chinese-American Nail Salon Association American WZ Education Foundation Chinese Sports Association BK U.S. Min Hou General Association HaiNan Association of America United Chinese Association of BK American Chinese Art Collector Asso America Chinese Culinary Foundation (NY) Asian American Mutual Club Ti Ling of America Associates Inc. Guangdong Association of America Metro Community Alliance NYCADC-NYC American Democratic Club American Asian Associates Group New York Tong Ji Association Asian Community United Society Health Essential Association New York Arts International American Ving Tsun of China Tao Association of America Taishan Overseas Middle School Alumni Assoc Haiyan Township Association Hand By Hand Chinese Association American Canton Student Association American Hainan Association America LanQi QinGeng Association American LanQi NongQi Association NewYork Delivery Association Shanghu Sodality Xiang Qi Society in America American HaiYu of FuJian Associates Inc US TN Fujian Chamber of Commerce Shenzhen Association of Eastern America ShuiBu Oversea Chinese Association Hotel Chinese Association Chinese Association NewYork Senior Association East American QiongHai Business Association United HongTang Association Inc
纽约同源会反对社区监狱声明
The Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater N.Y. (CACAGNY)
紐約同源會
Press Statement Contact: cacagny2016@gmail.com
October 15, 2019
CACAGNY Opposes New Borough Jails
CACAGNY agrees with all the NYC and NYS residents, officials, and organizations who
oppose Mayor De Blasio’s community jail plan.
CACAGNY opposes the new borough jails because they do not solve the problems they
purport to solve while they do serious damage to the communities where they will be sited.
The City Council should consider comprehensive solutions that honestly address the
unacceptable conditions at Rikers Island, including those that envision building new social
rehabilitation facilities on Rikers Island.
We urge the Council to vote NO to the Mayor's new jails plan.
Founded in 1895 in San Francisco, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance is the oldest Chinese American civil
rights organization in the United States. CACAGNY is its New York Chapter. www.CACAGNY.org
（1895年在舊金山成立之同源會，是美國最古老的民權組織。紐約同源會是這個地區的分會。）
纽约市居民联盟反对社区监狱声明
New York City Residents Alliance (NYCRA) Press Release
October 14th, 2019
RE: Borough Wide Jail Plans
New York City Residents Alliance calls all NYC and NYS residents, officials, organizations to say NO to Mayor De Blasio’s community jail plan.
We do not want nor need to build new high-rise tower jails in Manhattan’s Lower East Side/ Chinatown, which would be the highest jail of the world! We do not want nor need to build new jails in Kew Gardens of Queens, in Boerum Hill of Brooklyn, or Mott Haven in the Bronx. Rikers Island jail must stay on Rikers Island and fix the entire system there!
The community jail plan is fundamentally wrong because:
1. None of the Rikers issues, the violence, the misuse of power, and trial delays have anything to do with the location. As was shown in a recent CityLab article, New York City jails have always been problematic, and Rikers Jails was created to solve them!
“In the 19th century, violence and filth festered at the detention facilities on what is now Roosevelt Island (known as Blackwell’s Island until 1921 and Welfare Island until 1971).” The city then built Rikers which was supposed to be “an enormous model penitentiary, ample in size to serve for many years to come and which in all its plans and parts should be the most perfect prison in the world.” It turned out to be an example of failed prison reform. “This followed the pattern set by the Blackwell jails, which were intended to improve on the penitentiary at Bellevue, which in turn replaced the
city’s original 18th century jail at what is presently known as the Tweed Courthouse.”
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/09/rikers-island-nyc-history-new-jail- design-bill-de-blasio/597802/
In fact, the surging violence at Rikers can be correlated to the current deBlasio administration which ties the guard’s hands and gives incentives to violent incarcerated inmates (i.e. allowing them play games after they’ve improved their behavior a bit, while the always non-violent inmates never get such treatments).
2. The community jails would put innocent residents and children in great danger by placing the criminals in residential neighborhoods; some of whom are violent criminals and career criminals. The proposed Kew Gardens jail site is only a few hundred yards from the nearest schools.
Years ago, two inmates (charged with homicide felonies) escaped the Kew Gardens detention facility and caused a huge panic in the community.
10/2/2019, an armed suspect escaped custody while making appearance at the Queens County Courthouse, where was steps away from the proposed Queens new jail site.
10/5/2019, 4 homeless men were brutally assaulted to death by a 24-yr suspect with 14 past arrests.
10/10/2019, a 6-yr-old boy sitting on the front steps of his home was seriously attacked and injured by a homeless stranger in Kew Gardens.
Would not these incidents be enough to tell how severe the NYC safety situation is and how dangerous the near-residential-neighborhood jails can be??? Wake up, all the City Council members, say NO to De Blasio! In all of the world the jails are built in the isolated area to keep the town and city safe, only in our New York City, the mentally disordered Mayor wants to move the jail from the isolated island to the centers of our city!!!
3. No one wants to live under the shadow of a tower high jail and all the traffic and transportation issues that come with housing so many inmates. These jails would cause the nearby residents to not leave under the shadow and drive residents to flee New York City, and this will sink the surrounding neighborhood’s real estate value. The College Point shelter plan has already almost frozen the local housing market. The impact from a two-Yankee Stadium-sized jail, as is proposed for Kew Gardens jail, would be unimaginably deadly bigger.
4. New York City is already heavily burdened financially and cannot afford to spend $9 to $11 billion for 5,500 inmates and, possibly, an astronomical $33 billion overall, as estimated by the Daily News, while our public schools do not even have air
conditioning and basic school supplies. https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-close-rikers-mistake-20190108-story.html. There are also thousands of other urgent issues for our city, for example, adequate lead testing and lead in our public schools which need to be addressed but cannot because of funding shortage.
5. New York City is a tourism city. We cannot imagine when tourists plan their trips, they would want to see skyscraper jails as part of the NYC’s skyline and amidst landmarks and tourist sites like the new World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and Grand Central Station.
6. The excuse used by some who support this plan, to facilitate the transportation of prisoners (from court to prison) does not stand. Experts have analyzed that it would take 290 years of saved transportation cost to offset the current building budget. Furthermore, Rikers Island is centrally located at the center of the five boroughs. The proposed Kew Gardens jail site is the largest and the farthest away from most NYC locations, and it has been reported that it will host all the sick and female inmates, even though the mayor’s administration has been trying to hide it.
7. Concrete made vertical prison towers in the center of cities are much more fragile for natural catastrophes like fire or earthquake compared to the currently more sparsely populated building on the island, and thus posing greater dangers to the prisoners. While on the other hand, an escaped prisoner would be much more difficult to capture in the population dense neighborhoods than on the island.
Furthermore, the average square footage for each inmate in those proposed high-rise tower jails is very limited, like a cage; compare to the island jail houses, while the inmates would have much bigger spaces and more access to the nature.
8. Reports have shown that the water layer beneath the proposed Chinatown jail earth might be not adequately deep enough to sustain the 50 stories jail. Numerous experts have warned against the (if approved) years of demolition/construction process, which would create heavy noises, dusts, radiation, hazardous material for very long time.
To even think of building the world's tallest jail next to a senior center, near a park for young and old, is to think it's OK to take years off their lives. In the near term, the elderly, facing ten years of construction, debris, pollution, will die prematurely in what should be peaceful years of their lives.
Our Mayor De Blasio, however, have chosen to be continuing to ignore all the opposition voices. Community board 8 and community board 9 both unanimously voted NO to the Kew Gardens jail plan, as well as the other affected community boards in Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan; however the ridiculous NYC Law says the local community board cannot
decide their local affairs, and their decisions were not binding!!! ??? Even worse, many previous jail related hearings, for Kew Gardens site at least, had banned the reporters! Our Mayor was intentionally not only ignoring the people’s voice himself but also blocking the people’s voices to be heard by others!
We do not trust an administration incapable of reforming one large jail in Rikers to effectively manage four borough jails. We feel it is ridiculous and unjustified for the mayor to plan building luxury jails for the criminals, which is actually encouraging crimes.
We hope democracy is not dead in New York City. We cannot tolerate Mayor De Blasio continuing to ignore the voice and interests of 8 million of innocent NYC citizens and 1 million of children, ruining our city, and putting our safety in great danger using we taxpayer’s money, to only realize his dirty political gain to pretend himself as a progressive pioneer. We call every resident to voice out to oppose the plan, to keep our school and street safe and clean, and to maintain our great city peaceful and beautiful.
Dear City Council members, please vote NO for the sake of 8 million residents and 1 million children, please cast your votes from your conscience!
NO NEW JAIL in Boerum Hill！
NO NEW JAIL in Chinatown！
NO NEW JAIL in Kew Gardens！
NO NEW JAIL in Mott Haven！
Thank you.
Donghui Zang President,
New York City Residents Alliance
info@ranyc.org
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