‘A few issues with Shelly’
To The Editor:
Re “Après Shelly Silver, le deluge of candidates? Or maybe not” (news article, Dec. 3):
Shelly Silver may still be loved by many voters, but they must have short memories.
Beyond his being found guilty on all counts, there are a few other issues many of us have with Shelly.
All of the money he brought into his district was simply doing the job he was elected to do. There were many issues he took up, such as trying to reopen Park Row after 9/11; stopping the city from putting a service station for all city agency cars on an East River pier; and helping World Trade Center neighbors get back in their apartments and get the help they needed, to name some.
Yes, he had influence, and yes, he probably brought more money into the district than he would have had he not been speaker.
But let’s remember what he did not do, at his own housing development on Grand St. He did not stop the systematic racist exclusion of African Americans and Latinos at the Grand St. co-ops. He did not stop those co-ops from going private — even though he had the power to do so — and by going private, more than 6,000 units of affordable housing were lost. He benefited personally from both the exclusionary policy and the privatization.
Silver’s influence on Community Board 3, when many of the appointees from Grand St. consistently voted against affordable housing, was legendary. I even remember one Grand St. appointee, just before a vote on a property, asking if it were above or below Delancy St. When she was told it was above, she voted for it. Had it been anywhere near the Grand St. co-ops, she would have voted against it, as all of the Grand St. appointees did with regularity.
Silver also never supported the desire of those of us in and around Smith Houses to create a high school to train students to take care of the elderly in a school building that had closed. Instead he allowed the Catherine St. shelter to be put in the building. The idiocy of placing a shelter in the middle of a housing project is something I will never understand, and Shelly refused to take a position against it. Of course, as long as no shelter was placed near his precious Grand St. houses, that is all he cared about.
I could go on and on. My memory goes back a long time. I know others who could remember more.
Anne K. Johnson
Johnson is a member, Community Board 3
Rajkumar has my vote!
To The Editor:
Re “Après Shelly Silver, le deluge of candidates? Or maybe not” (news article, Dec. 3):
If Jennifer Rajkumar decides to run for Mr. Silver’s former seat, I would wholeheartedly endorse her. She is a brilliant young woman with exceptional legal skills who would be a fine assemblywoman representing Lower Manhattan.
Sylvia Rackow
Rackow is a member, Committee to Preserve Our Neighborhood
Hiding and sniping
To The Editor:
Re “Après Shelly Silver, le deluge of candidates? Or maybe not” (news article, Dec. 3):
Much respect to Sylvia Rackow. Whether I agree with her or not on Rajkumar, I appreciate that she used her name. She stood up.
All the other bickering and name-calling on the online versions of these articles by anonymous people is just noise.
If you have an opinion state your name. What is the use of free speech if the speaker is hiding in the shadows, pretending to have something intelligent to say? It is like a child pointing his finger and pretending it is a gun — Pow! Pow! Silly, really.
Clayton Patterson
Blaz bad for small biz
To The Editor:
Re “De Blasio’s L.E.S. / Chinatown tale of two cities” (talking point, by Diem Boyd, Dec. 3):
Walk down any block in any neighborhood and you can see what de Blasio really is. When he ran for public advocate, he was the strongest voice for passage of the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, to give rights to business owners to renew their leases and negotiate fair lease terms.
But as mayor, de Blasio kept intact Bloomberg’s pro-landlord agencies and never once mentioned the S.B.J.S.A. or giving any rights to small business owners to end their crisis.
Every neighborhood is seeing its core businesses closing, and the mayor will not support any legislation to stop it.
Savenycjobs.org gives the facts: De Blasio is a fraud.
Steve Null
Go you gardens!
To The Editor:
Re “Gardens now seen as key part of future storm-defense plan” (news article, Nov. 5):
This is a legacy we can be proud of: forty-seven gardens here on the good old Lower East Side. Born of neglect and taken over by dedicated volunteers — the once-embattled lots are now embedded in the fabric of the world’s imagination.
The idea of a “community garden” represents a heroic, ongoing struggle to impose dignity and democracy on our common destiny.
To aid the green movement further, the Parks Department and GreenThumb should host a citywide registration day when people can join gardens. That would be revolutionary.
And one more thing: As our politician friends have learned, term limits are necessary. Term limits for garden-held offices should be part of a new, more inclusive and transparent governing structure in the gardens.
Jeff Wright
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