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Douglass Degraw Pool
(5 signatures)
The Douglass/Degraw Pool located at the Thomas Greene Park is locate d between 3rd and 4th Avenue in Brooklyn. It is one of the services Mayor Bloomberg is planning to close.
We, the undersigned, call upon NYC government to stop this closure.
* This pool provides free services for people from local communities like Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, downtown Brooklyn, & Fort Greene,and even as far as Bayridge
* The pool is only one of 8 pools in the city that is wheelchair accessible.
* The pool grounds actually has two pools: an intermediate size (75'x60'x3') and a wading size (24'x24'1')
* The pool has a gradual 1' depth wading pool for infants/toddlers. This is a unique feature that offers safety and security for young children that are learning to swim/get accustomed to water.
*The wading pool also has a shaded area and is separated from the rest of the grounds to ensure safety.
*The Pool is adjacent to the playground, basketball courts, and a handball court which are all part of the Thomas Greene Park.
* It provides services for the many children who live in local city Housing Developments - Gowanus Houses and Wycoff Gardens - and is within walking distance.
* The pool also offers free swimming lessons for children which parents in the area may not be able to afford.
* The pool provides free lunches.
* There is not any other pool in the area. Pools like Red Hook are already overcrowded and this may cause more overcrowding for people who are able to travel that distance. The cancellation of the B77 also makes access to the Red Hook pool even harder.
* This pool does NOT service an industrial area but residents of the community.
* There is not a pool at Pier 6 (Brooklyn Bridge Park)
There is simply no service like this for the people in the area. It is used by a diverse range of people from all socio-economic backgrounds. Many people enjoy their community in the summer and the Douglass Degraw Pool has been an institution and a must for many families.
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Albany Term Limits
(14 signatures)
I, the undersigned, hereby demand that the New State Legislature and Governor enact into law an 8 year term limit for legislators and full online disclosure for every cent of income of all elected state officials, no exceptions.
There's a lot of lip service about reform these days, but the only way to clean out Albany is to drain the swamp of corruption via term limits. Also essential is for all elected state officials to disclose the source of ALL of their income without the loopholes for lawyers that Shelly and the gang tried to slip by the public. Stagnant pools hidden from oxygen turn septic.
We must act now before vital neighborhood services are cut to the bone. Households in Brooklyn and all over New York State can no longer afford the hidden but punishing "corruption tax" of the current cast of characters squatting in Albany for decades of self-enrichment while the rest of us have to work hard to earn a modest living. We the people deserve the money for job creation, education and tax breaks, not the two timin' Albany politicians allowed to hide their graft and their lobbies.
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Save the Accessible Inter-Borough Buses
(2 signatures)
We the undersigned, resident and concerned individuals, believe that the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is making a terrible mistake in eliminating accessible, inter-borough mass transit options. By cutting multiple Express Bus routes, as well as, the Bx 20, B 39 & B 51 local bus routes which serve as an important inter-borough linkage between various parts of NYC, it will have a disproportionate impact on riders with mobility impairments. Further, the below signed demand that the MTA reconsider the decision to discontinue the Express Buses and the Bx 20, B 39 & B 51 bus routes before June 1, 2010.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE ORIGINAL PETITION WRITTEN BY T.K. SMALL or sign ours below.
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Stop K - 2nd Standardized Testing
(30 signatures)
I, the undersigned, hereby urge the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature to enact into law a prohibition of K-2nd standardized testing in public schools.
Despite massive budget cuts for NYC schools in the worst recession since the Great Depression, DOE Chancellor Joel Klein is wasting more on high-stakes tests. But this time, he's coming after our K through 2nd grade children with a $400,000 pilot program that could expand into another $100 million boondoggle contract for McGraw-Hill and the untold tens of millions spent in-house by the DOE administering the 3rd through 12th testing.
Instead of maintaining enrichment programs, finding every last dollar to keep already over-sized classes from growing even more crowded and fostering a love of education in our very young children, Chancellor Klein wants to waste our tax dollars to stress them out and potentially mislabel them. To date, the only result of testing has been for high-stakes decisions like closing schools, nothing that has been proven to be beneficial for students like a smaller class size.
NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has reported that the DOE spends $57.3 million annually on testing or the equivalent of 1,038 teachers to bring down class sizes.
http://timeoutfromtesting.org has this to say:
-- Testing young children is highly unreliable due to the varying timetable of the academic/cognitive development in early childhood. It is unfair and potentially harmful to judge a child on testing tasks for which she/he is not developmentally ready.
-- Young children may not be able to meet the demands of a standardized test for a variety of reasons: hunger, boredom, fatigue, illness, anxiety or simply the developmental inability to sit still for protracted stretches of time.
-- Standardized tests have a long and notorious history of misrepresenting the intellectual capabilities of young children based on race, class and immigrant status.
-- Test scores are not perfect measures, therefore no single test should ever be used alone to make a critical judgment about a child. Yet, the Department of Education has a history of using single test scores to judge our children and schools, a policy that we fear will be perpetuated with kindergarten through second grade testing.
Furthermore, during this period of tight budgets and reductions, it would be a waste of money and resources to spend millions of dollars on a testing policy that the research and education communities nearly unanimously decry as unreliable and potentially harmful to children.
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The Campaign for Brooklyn Bridge Park
(3 signatures)
I, the undersigned, support the mission and goals of the Campaign for Brooklyn Bridge Park, a real park for everybody.
Their goals are:
- Maximum active and passive public recreation; minimal private development (limited to support of park uses - not infrastructure) as relevant "concessions" consistent with a public waterfront Park
- No additional private permanent housing
- Balanced distribution of development and activities throughout the park to minimize impacts on adjacent communities, and to draw visitors toward iconic views and interfaces with the natural environment
- Enhanced public access, especially waterborne, as part of water-dependent and water-enhanced uses
Current plans must be revised in light of the altered economic, physical and political contexts now at hand; these revisions should be achieved and agreed upon through an open pubic process. There are opportunities in these changed circumstances that can lead to a better Brooklyn Bridge Park. That is their goal.
Click here to read the full mission and goals statement of Campaign for Brooklyn Bridge Park.
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Pass Single-Payer Universal Health Care Now!
(82 signatures)
...over 2,600 signatures with our written petitions.
To President Obama, Congress, The Office of The Governor, The New York State Legislature, The New York City Council, and The Office of The Mayor:
There are over 1.2 million New York City residents without health insurance. Those who are insured all too often are burdened with the high costs of a for-profit health care system. Employers are routinely forced to lay off workers and close factories due to the costs of insuring their employees. But despite the price tag, the quality of our health care system is still woefully inadequate for too many New Yorkers.
We cannot afford to wait for Washington politicians and insurance company lobbyists to give us true health care reform. New York City is the financial capital of America - if we were a nation we'd have the 17th highest GDP in the world. We can lead the charge for real health care reform in this country if we take action at the state and local level.
I, the undersigned, hereby call on Congress, Albany, and the New York City Council and the Mayor to work together and pass a single-payer health care program at the national, state or local level. There are currently 400,000 uninsured Brooklynites and countless more who are underinsured. Spiraling health care costs have a crippling effect on local businesses, and we need to pass legislation that moves us away from the current for-profit, employer-based system of health insurance and towards a single-payer system if we're going to get our economy back on track. The health of our communities and the viability of our economy depend on real reform now!
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P.S. 8 Interim Use of Squibb Park Petition
(166 signatures)
...over 800 signatures with our written petitions,
and we got results! Squibb Park is under construction.
To the New York City Department of Parks and Education, The Department of Education, the City Council and The Office of The Mayor:
Due to the upcoming construction of an annex to P.S. 8, the school yard will not be available for use by students during recess or physical education. The children will be denied access to a safe and clean outdoor space for up to 2 school years beginning this September.
For the sake of their health and education, the children of P.S. 8 need an alternative outdoor space. Brooklyn Heights' Squibb Park, located only two short blocks away from the school, has been abandoned for almost a decade, and currently there are no plans to make use of it any time soon. This park could very easily be made serviceable for interim use by P.S. 8 students.
I, the undersigned, urge The Office of the Mayor, the City Council, the Department of Education and the Department of Parks & Recreation to make Squibb Park safe and available for interim use by P.S. 8 students while their school yard is occupied by construction.
Petitions