The APRIL 2014
Red Hook StarªRevue SOUTH BROOKLYN’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
FREE
RED HOOK COALITION HOLDS FIRST-EVER PUBLIC MEETING meeting to work on the project, followed by a community meeting, such as the one we were at, seeking community input. There are two more public meetings scheduled - April 10 and May 7 - both will be at the South Brooklyn High School, 173 Conover Street, at 6 pm.
Councilman Menchaca spoke briefly in support of creating a community disaster plan (photos by George Fiala)
T
he Red Hook Coalition held a long-awaited public meeting on March 18th, in the lunchroom of the South Brooklyn Community School on Conover Street. The meeting was advertised with flyers and on Facebook, inviting the Red Hook community to give input into a disaster recovery plan they are working on. As the flyer explained “The first 72 hours after a disaster of any kind, official rescue operations will not be on the ground. We need to be prepared with our own plan, unique to the resources and strengths of our community. Friends, Neighbors and Stakeholders... please join together to help forge this plan.” Martha Bowers, founder of Red Hook’s Dance Theatre Etc. addressed the packed cafeteria first. She introduced Nahisha McCoy, who is serving as Coalition Assistant. She passed along a message from Reg Flowers, who was not in attendance, explaining that the project that is being worked on is modeled after something called the National Response Framework. This is a FEMA directive, and is explained in detail on their website http://www.fema.gov/ national-response-framework. She stressed that this is a community project, written by the community, for the community. There is a committee
There was a political presence at this meeting, with Dan Wiley representing Nydia Velazquez and Karen Broughton speaking on behalf of Felix Ortiz. A sharply dressed Carlos Menchaca himself appeared with his staff, and spoke with his usual enthusiasm of the importance of the project. Martha took some questions before introducing the group facilitator, Noel Kepler. Someone asked about the makeup of the Red Hook Coalition. She explained that the coaltion was a steering committee of Red Hook organizations, formed to access funding opportunities such as the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Those groups include the Red Hook Volunteers, Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation, Added Value Farm, Red Hook Initiative, Dance Theater Etcetera, Falconworks and Good Shepherd Services.
by George Fiala reports on the filming, including comments from Florence Neal, owner of the Kentler International Drawing Space. One of the last postings on the page explained that the movie debut would be postponed. It was originally to be part of a benefit show, and the following explanation was offered: “Unfortunately, one of our largest sponsors has decided to pull their support of the upcoming benefit citing personal reasons. By pulling out the sponsor took more than half the budget for this benefit with him. Originally scheduled for
June 13, we will now need to postpone and find a new path forward for this event.” A call to Kentler revealed that nobody there had ever seen the promised movie. Victoria Hagman of Realty Collective, whose blog posting about Tell Your Story is featured on the EMMP website, has also never seen the movie. The project fell apart, with only a shortened version that can be seen on YouTube. Kepler said in an email: “We turned over all of the footage and video to the individuals who participated in the project and the Coalition.
Noel Kepler is a very animated group leader.
The day of our video shoot in the Houses, everyone canceled. (continued on page 3)
New Red Hook theater group stands tall at Jalopy!
Emergency Management Methodology Partners (EMMP) has been hired by the Red Hook Coalition to help create the disaster plan. EMMP is headed by Noel Kepler, who facilitated the meeting. She has been in Red Hook before with a project called “Tell Your Story.” Tell Your Story was to be a move about people’s reactions to Sandy. Filming took place over several sessions at Kentler about a year ago. The finished movie would become a tool for future emergency management planning. A Facebook page details the planning and execution of the project, including a teaser for the movie and YouTube news
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
Red Hooker Carlos Vogel is on the way to creating our own theater group with the production of “Up For Anything,” a play written by Vogel’s schoolmate Marc Spitz. Four performances at Jalopy were a grand success. Vogel has been after Good Fork owner Ben Schneider to act for years. According to Vogel: “ I finally wore him down - actually I wore Barry (O’Meara) down and Ben’s wife first so that Ben was forced to do it. I then just started asking folks that I thought would be right for certain roles if they had any interest and if they had any theater experience. We did a reading last year and it all worked. The idea was to mix the cast up with newbies and ringers, but I ended up with more ringers than expected (I had no idea that Ben was that good).” Carl already has a new play in mind, and expects to revive Up For Anything in the fall.
SEE PAGE 12 FOR THE STAR-REVUE REVIEW!