Our next PBTCA meeting will be on Tuesday, June 24, at St. Theresa’s Cafeteria, 2855 St. Theresa Avenue. Refreshments at 7 p.m. Meeting at 7:30 p.m. Our guest speaker will be Assemblyman Michael Benedetto.
In last week’s column, I had a big problem with my computer – too long to go into detail – but will repeat the information that was inadvertently left out.
Louie Durante and Lou Pagnotta and their members from the Lawrence Keane Post on Buhre Avenue want to thank our local merchants for their donations towards the breakfast at the post after the Memorial Service at Keane Square Park on May 24 for all our deceased veterans and all our veterans serving our country today all over the world. The following merchants who generously donated to the breakfast were George’s Diner, Quality Restaurant, Dunkin’ Donuts, Pelham Bake Shop, Pruzzo’s Deli, Vito’s Deli and Zeppieri’s Bakery. It is our local merchants who support our many events during the course of the year and we should show our appreciation by shopping in their stores and thanking them for their generosity.
Frank Tranchese informed me that he is distributing petitions in our local stores on Crosby Avenue requesting a light at the intersection of Crosby and Roberts avenues plus a full stop sign on St. Theresa Avenue and Pilgrim Avenue where we recently had a boy skateboard run over. The PBTCA urges everyone to sign these petitions because of too many accidents in our community directly caused by the over-development in our neighborhood.
We must all call our elected officials and the Department of Buildings demanding a moratorium on all further development and insist our taxes are used for necessary services in our area. We do not have any municipal parking lots, we demand municipal parking lots in all our commercial areas. The proposed building by a known slumlord at 3030 Middletown Road would be an ideal location for a municipal parking lot. The city and the federal government can buy this lot for a much needed larger post office with it’s own parking lot. If you have misplaced the phone numbers of your elected officials, the different city departments you need answers from, call 311. They will give you the address, phone number and a confirmation number of your request. Your confirmation number is a record of your request and complaint. If we don’t complain we will not get the services we desperately need.
Our demands must also include – no more banks without sufficient parking areas, no drug stores without sufficient parking areas and an immediate moratorium on all further building development until after we get municipal parking lots in the immediate area of our commercial areas. The Buildings Department enforces the zoning laws. The present zoning laws are not protecting us from the invasion of over-development. We must add amendments to fix the zoning laws. Congress has the power to keep adding amendments to our laws–we the taxpayers are demanding amendments to our zoning laws
We have to bombard the Department of Buildings, Department of Traffic, City Planning and all our elected officials with constant phone calls insisting as taxpayers that we are given the essential services that a healthy community can survive in. Your taxes are paying the salaries of all our officials and those who work for the departments that are supposed to provide common sense services, We will no longer quietly accept satisfying the greed of those who sell their property to the highest bidder. The needs of the community must have first priority over the needs of greedy, selfish interests. We can fight to save our community–we will fight to save our community.
The other alternative is to surrender and move. How will you be able to tell your children and grandchildren you didn’t have the guts, the will, the time and the courage to fight for what is rightly yours. There wouldn’t be an America today if those who came before us buckled under to oppression. Join our local civic associations. In large numbers we will have the strength and determination to win over greed.
