Our December meeting will be held, Monday, December 14, at St. Theresa’s cafeteria, 2872 St. Theresa Avenue. Refreshments at 7 p.m. followed by our meeting. Dues of $10 for the year 2010, which includes the Bronx Times Reporter mailed to your home address, can be paid at our December 14 meeting. We will not be holding meetings for January and February 2010. We usually meet the 3rd Monday of the month, except during holidays.
Since we are still in the Thanksgiving spirit we would like to thank Vito’s Deli on 1715 Crosby Avenue for his Thanksgiving spirit donating free sandwiches and beverages to our seniors on November 25. Our civic associations will continue to be aggressive for adequate parking in our commercial areas so all our residents can shop in our community. It is our local merchants who contribute to our Christmas lights, and many of our local community activities. We are in desperate need of a municipal parking lot similar to the one that Arthur Ave enjoys for its customers.
We also want to thank the combined efforts of Councilman Jimmy Vacca, Senator Jeff Klein, and Ken Kearns of Community Board 10 for the downzoning. All our civic associations have been loudly screaming for this. We also want to thank the members of Community Board 10 for their vote to finally give the entire community our voice, and our taxpaying right, to express our opinion on the St. Paul Avenue reversal. We believe everyone who voted for the public hearing has spent time and gasoline stuck in backed up traffic on Burr Avenue, Pelham Parkway South and Pelham Bay train station.
We must all unite together to slow down the speeding drivers coming off the Hutchinson River Parkway doing 65 to 70 miles an hour, especially after midnight when they have repeatedly slammed into our parked vehicles on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road between Mayflower Avenue and East 197th Street. Nothing to stop them until the full stop sign on Continental Avenue. A speed hump at Mayflower Avenue and the Hutch service road will slow down many drivers who have just left a bar after drinking more than they should have. Two speed humps on St. Paul Avenue will slow down traffic to a crawl. Once you hit a speed hump doing 30 to 40 miles an hour, you will never, ever make that same mistake again.
Too many times when we feel we are dealing with a tone deaf government, we are happy to see that our elected officials have heard our voices and have responded to our loud screams of over development, aggressive unfair ticketing, lack of parking facilities, ugly graffiti, reversal of streets without all of the community participation, apartments for the homeless at above market rentals, enriching the building owners with our tax dollars. We must and will demand a cap on the rentals of these apartments. Rentals must be based on the fair market value in the surrounding community.
We have lots to be thankful for and lots more work ahead of us. If we continue to scream loudly, our voices and our votes will accomplish our goals.
