Good Morning, Brooklyn: Thursday, January 20, 2022

January 20, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

MORE SNOWY WEATHER: Ahead of a projected snowstorm for the Northeastern US, the New York City Emergency Management Department has issued a travel advisory for today, Thursday, Jan. 20, in conjunction with a Winter Weather Advisory from the National Weather Service, in effect from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. A total snow accumulation of two inches is expected, with locally higher amounts possible.

The city’s Sanitation Department is pre-deploying more than 700 salt spreaders to pretreat roadways ahead of the first snowflake and is prepared to dispatch plows in all sectors when more than two inches of snow accumulates.   

✰✰✰

NEW COVID TESTING SITE IN BROOKLYN: Several campus locations of the State University of New York (SUNY) have been designated sites for COVID testing. Among these is SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, 750 New York Ave. (11203) in East Flatbush, starting this Friday, January 21, operating Mondays-Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Appointments can be scheduled via: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=24841628&calendarID=6423830

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences joins Kings Plaza shopping center as a testing site.

✰✰✰

TEEN INTERNSHIPS WITH YOUTH-ORIENTED MAGAZINES: New York City teens who have a personal story that might help their peers are invited to apply for a spring writing internship at YouthComm, a magazine serving all New York City teens; and Represent, a publication by and for youth in foster care. Assemblymember Latrice Walker and Brooklyn Community Board 16 announce this internship, starting in February, during which teen writers will be mentored by full-time professional editors and will learn memoir writing and journalism skills. NYC teens may apply online via youthcomm.org/teens-write-for-us; while youths in foster care should apply via youthcomm.org/write-for-represent, both with a January 27 deadline.

Writers will be paid $100 per published article.

✰✰✰

IPS NEWS: CONGRESSMEMBER HOSTS ESSAY CONTEST: Elementary school pupils in U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ district (NY-11) can participate in hosting her annual Presidents’ Day Essay contest that she established while serving in the State Assembly. Students in grades three through five are encouraged to write essays about what they would do to improve their community if they were President of the United States. All essays, with a maximum word count of 400, must be submitted to [email protected] by Monday, Feb. 21.

Each participant will receive a congressional certificate of recognition from Malliotakis. Contest winners will receive a gift card to a local bookstore and an opportunity to meet with Malliotakis to discuss their ideas.

✰✰✰

IRONDALE ENSEMBLE PRESENTATION: Terry Greiss, co-founder, executive director and actor at Irondale Ensemble Project is scheduled to give a presentation and public Q&A to Community Board 2’s Youth, Education & Cultural Affairs Committee, when it meets via Zoom on Jan. 26. Irondale declares in its mission statement that it “exists at the intersection of art, education, community engagement and social justice. We engage in long-term artistic collaborations to create important, challenging, and above all, entertaining theatre and workshop programs that help audiences and artists make sense of today’s world.”

CB2’s Youth, Education & Cultural Affairs Committee is the community board’s liaison with relevant institutions within the district, including libraries, and the city agencies associated with youth, education, and cultural affairs.

✰✰✰

YOUNG SCHOLAR AT EMERSON COLLEGE: Caroline Marlin of Fort Greene (11205) is among the students named to the Emerson College Dean’s List for the Fall 2021 semester. Marlin, a member of the Class of 2022, is majoring in Journalism.

Emerson College, situated opposite the historic Boston Common and in the heart of that city’s Theatre District, is known for its writing programs, particularly its nationally-ranked Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.

✰✰✰

UPDATES TO PANDEMIC ASSISTANCE POLICY: Updates to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program are being distributed from the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul and the NY State Department of Labor sent the notice to Community (Board) Districts around the city. Although the federal government did not require documentation from PUA applicants or recipients when the program was originally implemented, the passage of the Continued Assistance Act requires states to obtain certain documentation from customers who collected PUA after Dec. 27, 2020. Starting next week, customers who received PUA will be notified of the additional information that will be required from them, and will have 90 days to submit their documentation.

Effective for the benefit week ending Jan. 23, 2022, new regulations have been established to provide more flexibility to meet work search requirements – both virtually and electronically.

✰✰✰

A LASTING ALCOHOL-TO-GO-POLICY: Several trade associations in the restaurant and hospitality industry are uniting in their call for New York State to make permanent the state’s alcohol-to-go policy. Gov. Kathy Hochul, in her State of the State address, vowed to stimulate the hospitality industry by permitting to-go wine and cocktails from restaurants and bars, and on Tuesday released pertinent details in her Executive Budget.

The New York State Restaurant Association conducted a survey last year, which found that 78 percent of New Yorkers support changing the state law to permanently allow to-go alcoholic beverages and would boost revenue for restaurants and bars trying to rebound from the pandemic.

✰✰✰

GROUP TO FAA – SET STANDARDS FOR PLANE SEATS: Standards are needed for minimum airline seat sizes, insists FlyersRights.org, the largest airline passenger rights organization. The advocacy group has filed a petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit seeking to order the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue standards in the wake of a missed statutory deadline for FAA action that passed more than two years ago. Currently the FAA has no standard for minimum leg room (seat pitch) or seat width on airlines.

FlyersRights.org and other health and safety experts declare that shrinking seat sizes coupled with increasing passenger size can pose safety and health risks, including for emergency evacuations.

✰✰✰

IPS NEWS: OPPOSES CITY’S PLANS FOR HOMELESS SHELTER: Assemblymember William Colton (D-Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Dyker Heights) is leading opposition to a proposed homeless shelter at 137 Kings Highway in his district, claiming that shelters are not even safe for their occupants. Colton stated his community’s concern for “this institutional structure that is planned for a residential neighborhood which is surrounded by schools, parks, daycare centers, dance and tutoring centers,” and pointed out lawsuits pending in the Supreme Court against them that allege that “the developers and operators of both proposed centers have an inadequate record of serving homeless people.”

47th AD District Leaders Charles Ragusa, and Nancy Tong, elected officials, and Community Leaders are inviting the community to a Public Rally to Stop the Proposed Homeless Shelter at 137 Kings Highway scheduled for this Sunday, January 23 at 1:30 p.m. on Kings Highway and West 13th Street.

✰✰✰

SPARK PRIZE HONORS BROOKLYN NONPROFITS: Several respected nonprofit organizations in the borough are the recipients of the Brooklyn Community Foundation’s 2022 Spark Prize, the only honor celebrating nonprofits advancing racial justice in the borough. The 2022 Spark Prize winners are: Arab American Association of New York; Black Women’s Blueprint; Brooklyn Movement Center, Groundswell Community Mural Project and the Weeksville Heritage Center. (See story, page 1.)

The five winning organizations will receive their $100,000 ‘no-strings-attached’ awards at the Foundation’s Spark Breakfast on March 8 at the Brooklyn Museum, as part of a ticketed event.