Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2011 Co-op City Times
Vol. 46 No. 33
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Rally to save Einstein, Dreiser post offices set for Thursday BY JIM ROBERTS Residents who want to try and stop the U.S. Postal Service from closing the post offices in the Einstein and Dreiser malls will have the chance to speak up this week. A rally has been planned for Thursday, August 18 at 11 a.m. at the Einstein Mall in Section 5 to show the community’s support for the two local post offices, both of which are on a list of possible closings. A total of 17 post offices throughout the Bronx could be closed following a study the Postal Service is currently conducting. Eleanor Bailey, a retired Postal Service worker and long-time member of the New York Metro Area Postal Workers Union, and a member of the Riverbay Board of Directors, is leading the rally and is also circulating petitions throughout Co-op City. “We have to fight,” Director Bailey said. “I know a lot of people are saying it’s a done deal. It’s only a done deal if you don’t do anything about it. The problem is we have a lot of apathy here in Co-op City. We have to speak up.”
The U.S. Postal Service announced in late July that nearly 3,700 post offices are on a list of stations that could be closed depending on what the Service finds after they study the usage of each office. A public hearing about the possible Einstein and Dreiser post office closings will be scheduled at a future date, according to a spokesperson for the Postal Service. If the Einstein and Dreiser offices close, Co-op City residents, particularly the thousands of senior citizens who live here, may have to travel to the post office on Conner Street to mail packages and purchase stamps and other items. “Having to go to Conner Street is so detrimental,” Bailey said. “I’ve seen so many seniors, and I’m one, have to put their package to be mailed in a shopping cart and then get on the 30 bus, and then walk from the bus stop to the post office. “The lines are extremely long in the Conner Street post office because they
DEP halts air sampling before flooring work in Co-op City saving $300,000 annually BY DEREK ALGER Co-op City will no longer have to perform outside air sampling before doing flooring work due to a variance obtained by former Assemblyman Stephen Kaufman, resulting in savings of approximately $300,000 per year. The variance, issued by the City of New York’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), is the first step in the larger battle challenging the unreasonable exorbitant costs “selectively” required by the city for asbestos abatement work which no other community with similar floor tiles is being forced to perform. “Thousands of tests required by the City of New York over the past several years have shown conclusively that there is no risk from asbestos when wood floor tiles are removed from apartments in Coop City,” Kaufman said. “The variance approved by DEP is the acknowledgment that the Co-op City com-
munity is being unfairly punished economically by arbitrary laws and regulations that make no sense under any logical basis,” continued Kaufman, who was elected to the Assembly in 1988 and represented Co-op City in Albany for 18 years. The asbestos abatement program is costing Co-op City some $3 million per year, the equivalent of a 3% carrying charge, even though there has never been a positive test for friable, or airborne, asbestos in apartment floor tiles here. Management does approximately 3,000 abatements per year, for an average of 12 jobs on average per day, resulting in about 60 per week. Each air sample costs $26, and most jobs require three such samples, adding up to $78 per job, or approximately $234,000 per year. “I’ve known Steve Kaufman for many (Continued on page 2)
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Co-op City students post good grades on state tests BY JIM ROBERTS For the second straight year, schools in Co-op City came out near the top of the class in District 11 as students here recorded better-than-average scores on the 2010-11 state tests. The annual tests are given to all students in grades three through eight and cover math and English. The state Education Department raised the number of right answers required slightly this year after increasing the standards dramatically the prior year. The test results are scored on four levels, with Level 4 the highest score. Students who reach Level 4 and Level 3 are considered proficient and meet the state’s standards for that subject. Level 1 and Level 2 results indicate that the student has a partial or below grade-level mastery of the subject. In NewYork City, 43.9% of students in grades 3-8 met or exceeded the English proficiency standard (up from 42.4% last year); 57.3% met or exceeded the math standard (up from 54% last year). Across New York state, 52.8% of grade 3-8 students met or exceeded the ELA proficiency standard (a decrease from 53.2% last year); 63.3% met or exceeded the standard in math (up from 61% last year).
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The percentage of students scoring at Level 4 in both ELA and math decreased statewide. On the ELA exam, 3.5% of students across grades 3-8 combined scored at Level 4 (down from 10.2% last year). In math, 23% scored at Level 4 (down from 24.7% last year). The best results in Co-op City schools came at PS 153 Helen Keller, where students tested above the state and city results. The highest scores there came in fifth grade math (78.5% proficient); fourth grade math (77.4%); and fifth grade English (69.2%). The scores for all Bronx District 11 schools in those categories were 57.5%, 57.2% and 43.6%, placing PS 153 in the top level of all local schools. The sixth, seventh and eighth grade students at IS 181 Pablo Casals and the third, fourth and fifth graders at PS 160 Walt Disney also scored well on the state tests this year. At IS 181, 63.8% of the sixth-grade math students reached proficiency compared to 45.3% in all of District 11; 58.6% of sixth grade English students tested at Level 3 or Level 4 compared to 37.2% in District 11; and 58.4% of seventh grade math students scored as (Continued on page 4)
Riverbay Parking Facilities Department implements new reserved parking sticker system (See p.3 for story) Former Board Director Lou Rosenthal passes on BY DEREK ALGER A sense of sadness, but also fond memories have spread through Co-op City over news of the recent death of former Riverbay Board Director Lou Rosenthal last month at the age of 83 at Riverdale’s Hebrew Home for the Aged. Rosenthal and his wife, Emilia, were good-naturedly referred to as “Mr. and Mrs. Co-op City.” The couple, original cooperators, were residents of Building 4 on Donizetti Place, where they were neighbors of Stephen Kaufman, who was first elected to represent Co-op City in the New York City Council in 1974, serving nine years. “Lou Rosenthal was a dedicated neighbor who devoted many years of his
life representing Co-op City and serving as a leader of Building 4,” said Kaufman, who lived in the same building as Rosenthal, and represented Co-op City as a State Assemblyman for 18 years. “An honest man with true conviction to his values and beliefs, Lou, in the truest sense, was a cheerleader for Co-op City, always praising the community and its people, and loving the volunteer work he did, as did his wife Emilia, who was also a champion for Co-op City.” Active during the rent strike in the 1970, Rosenthal was elected to the Riverbay Board in 1991, running with (Continued on page 4)