VOLUME 29, NUMBER 24
Bus rout Parents complain city ignores outrageous school bus delays BY COLIN MIXSON The city’s logs show a sterling record for Lower Manhattan’s M1478 school bus route to Peck Slip School, which notes only two delays so far this school year, each less than 45 minutes, and both due to mechanical issues, according to the Department of Education. But those ledgers are wildly out of synch with the experience of Downtown parents, who claim that for weeks bus drivers ran severely late on a regular basis, and that on one occasion this year — of which the city has no record — a wayward substitute driver ended up taking students as far north as Hell’s Kitchen on a trip that left kids more than an hour and a half late to class, according to one Battery Park mom. “They only have two on record as late?” said an incredulous Stacey Vasseur, whose 9-year-old son attends fourth grade at Peck Slip. “That’s a problem.” Busses along the M1478 route were 30–40-minutes late on a twice-daily basis for nearly six weeks at the beginning of this school year — in part due to the heavy traffic, construction, and narrow streets along the labyrinthine Downtown route — but also as a result of poor planning by the city, according to another mom. “It was very unplanned,” said Maria Wikeldo, whose 7-year-old daughter takes the bus. “The route didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t efficient, and it was inconvenient to parents.” It didn’t help that three weeks in the Office of Pupil Transportation, which oversees city school buses, conducted a so-called “Priority Driver Pool,” and a new driver was installed along the route, according to Vasseur. The problems with chronic delays have since been ironed out, with the current driver, who parents say is well respected and on time, but throughout the weeks-long ordeal, neither the school nor the OPT made any effort to keep parents appraised of delays, despite repeated calls to both parties requesting updates and improvements, Vasseur said. “The school told us to call OPT, so every time the bus was late, every morning and afternoon, we
DECEMBER 01 – DECEMBER 14, 2016
LAGGAGE CHECK Gateway tenants say management is holding rent checks to scam late fees
BY COLIN MIXSON Tenants at Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City have been charged fraudulent late fees for rent checks sent on time, in an alleged scam or crime of negligence that could see the buildings’ management facing a class-action lawsuit, according to a pair of Battery Park City legal eagles. “These claims are 100-percent true,” said William Aronin, a partner in the Battery Park City legal outfit Perry and Aronin. “We are currently considering a number of actions to fi x this problem. A lot of people have come to us with it.” G ateway Reside nt ia l Management officially considers any rent payment received after the first of the month to be late, but tenants have a 10-day grace period built into their lease, so that any rent checks received before the 10th cannot be punished with a late fee, according to Gateway spokeswoman Brooke Shaughnessy. However, complaints received by Aronin and his partner Ken Perry tell a different story, with
Photo by Donna F. Aceto
Gateway resident Nancy Chambers — a.k.a. The Parrot Lady — holds a copy of a rent check she said she mailed on Oct. 1 along with several other bill payments, but it wasn’t deposited until Oct. 12, nearly a week after all the other checks had cleared. So she’s crying fowl over the late fee she was charged.
residents claiming that the management company routinely levels $100 late fees for checks sent on time.
Nancy Chambers, a 73-year-old, long-time Gateway resident living LATE FEES Continued on page 18
Also inside: Hate crimes up in NYC, across country Page 8
BUS DELAYS Continued on page 18 1 M E T R O T E C H • N YC 112 0 1 • C O P Y R I G H T © 2 0 16 N YC C O M M U N I T Y M E D I A , L L C
Downtown celebrates Evacuation Day Page 2