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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, December 28, 2017 Page 26
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Building for the future in Jamaica, SE Queens continued from page 24 sergeant on June 12. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued 14 people, including members of a Woodhaven church, for allegedly blocking or obstructing access to the Choices Women’s Medical Center on 148th Street in Jamaica. The clinic provides abortions along with other services.
July Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul on a visit to Jamaica announced $10 million in state-backed downtown improvement grants for the neighborhood. Recipients will include the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. Co-Working Space program for entrepreneurs and local professionals; improving high-speed broadband for Downtown Jamaica; creation of a public space at the Long Island Rail Road underpass at 159th Street near York College; and enhanced pedestrian space on Parsons Boulevard between Jamaica and Archer avenues near the subway station. Four suspects were arrested for their alleged roles in a brutal attack on a 50-year-old Jamaica woman who was assaulted and robbed on July 11 in the neighborhood after leaving church services. The office of the Chief Medical Examiner on July 14 ruled that the Jan. 22 death of Michael Guzman of South Jamaica was a homicide. The investigation is continuing. Four days later, police would arrest the grandparents of 3-year-old Romeo Lewis of Richmond Hill for their alleged roles in his July 2016 death. Romeo, like Michael, had been known to ACS authorities before his death. A jury on July 19 convicted Councilman Ruben Wills of Jamaica on charges including scheming to defraud and thirddegree larceny for stealing $33,000 from campaign funds and a state grant that was awarded to a nonprofit he controlled. Wills was automatically expelled from the City Council — his photograph and biography were gone from the Council website less than 30 minutes after the guilty verdict was announced — and now is serving a two-to-six-year sentence. Mayor de Blasio on July 19 took a brief tour of small businesses along the Jamaica Avenue corridor with Borough President Melinda Katz. De Blasio touted a program that provides up to $20,000 to small businesses that upgrade their storefronts; and a visiting inspector program in which businesses can meet with city inspectors in an effort to diagnose and eliminate violations before they rise to the level of a fine. August De Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill visited Rufus King Park on Aug. 1 as the 103rd Precinct held its annual National Night Out festivities. Adrienne Adams, chairwoman of Community Board 12, announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 28th Council District, the seat vacated by Wills’ conviction. With Wills the officially endorsed candidate, county Democratic officials were able to declare Adams as their choice via a vacancy committee even after the deadline for submitting nominating petitions had passed, thus bypassing Democrats such as Hettie Powell, who had been campaigning since losing the nomination to Wills in 2013; and Richard David, who had been doing so since February. Students at PS 50, the Talfourd Lawn Elementary School in Jamaica, planned and designed back-to-school driving safety banners that went up along Sutphin Boulevard in time for the fall semester. The children, sponsored by the Sutphin Boulevard Business Improvement District, worked hand-inhand with artists and other professionals from the city Department of Transportation. September Trevis Hall, a former Golden Gloves boxing champion, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for stabbing and bludgeoning Margarita Rivera, 31, in Jamaica on Dec. 1,
Cappelmann and Grover both were promoted to assignments with Patrol Borough Queens South, with Cappelmann subsequently being reassigned to 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan.
Adrienne Adams is flanked by supporters after her victory in a three-way Democratic primary in September. The former chairwoman of Community Board 12 then crushed all competition in November’s general election to fill the seat left vacant by the criminal conviction of former Councilman FILE PHOTO Ruben Wills. 2014. Rivera was his ex-girlfriend. Hall still had the Home Depot receipt for the pipe in his pocket when he was arrested. Adams on Sept. 12 won a three-way Democratic primary with 38.8 percent of the vote. David took second with 32.1 percent, while Powell, who would run in November on the Working Families Party line, came in third with 28.8 percent. Miller won handily over challenger Anthony Rivers in the 27th District primary. Donald Warren, 55, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for crimes including the shooting of Maryland resident Andrea Koller in the parking lot of the Hampton Inn Hotel near Kennedy Airport on Jan. 21, 2016. Warren, working with a partner during a string of robberies, robbed and pistol-whipped Koller’s daughter in their car while Koller was checking in at the hotel in preparation for her daughter’s flight to South Africa the next morning. Warren shot and wounded Koller after attempting to take her purse. An old store at 93-43 Sutphin Boulevard, located across the street from the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica Station, was demolished to make room for construction of the longawaited 24-story, 200-room hotel being planned by Long Island-based Able Hotel Management. Viral Patel, the CEO of Able, told the Chronicle that construction of the hotel should be complete in late 2019 or early 2020, and that it is ideally suited given its proximity to Manhattan-based trains and the JFK AirTrain. In other economic development news, the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. announced it is teaming up with BRP Companies — which is building the Crossing at Station Plaza — and Wharton Properties to construct 300 mixedincome residential units at 90-02 168 St. with a groundbreaking set for late 2018. The land, located across the street from the NYPD’s 103rd Precinct station house, currently is a paid parking lot. The site back in 2013 was planned for a $50 million shopping mall and parking garage. The deal with a private developer fell through in 2016. The NYPD named Deputy Inspector Peter Fortune as commanding officer of the 103rd Precinct, transferring him from the 114th Precinct in Astoria to replace Inspector John Cappelmann. Deputy Inspector Jerry O’Sullivan, commander of Public Service Area 7 in Manhattan, was named to replace Inspector Frederick Grover in the 113th Precinct.
October The NYPD and the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit joined with the Sikh Cultural Society of Richmond Hill for “Together as One,” an interfaith service that was held on Oct. 10. De Blasio was at August Martin High School on Oct. 16 for a town hall meeting. Among the goodies that the mayor traditionally brings to such events were millions of dollars in funding for upgrades to Baisley Pond Park, including the running track, fitness equipment and the all-purpose football-soccer field. On Oct. 20, the Department of Transportation announced that a number of city bus routes would be designated as Select Bus Service routes within the next 10 years. Those include the Q43, which runs along Hillside Avenue between Jamaica and Floral Park; the Q113 or Q114 between Jamaica and Far Rockaway; the Q4 or Q5 between Jamaica and Rosedale; and the Q25 or Q34 between Jamaica and Flushing. Twenty volunteers from Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Flushing Hospital Medical Center spent two weeks in Puerto Rico aiding people still suffering the aftereffects of Hurricane Maria, which was a category 4 storm when it slammed into the island on Sept. 24. Ranking scientists and administrators from the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, DC, visited Borough Hall for the Oct. 31 meeting of the New York Community Aviation Roundtable, which addresses noise and other pollution issues from John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports. The visitors made a presentation and took questions dealing with ongoing and planned technical and medical research aimed at improving the lives of residents near airports. August Martin High School, a long-underperforming school in Jamaica, was removed from the list of schools facing placement in state receivership on Oct. 31. November Election Day produced no surprises in Southeast Queens, even in so-called contested races. Adams secured 86 percent of the vote against Powell, with 8.5 percent, and Republican Ivan Mossop, who garnered 5.3 percent. Miller took 95 percent of the vote against the GOP’s Rupert Green, with 3.1 percent, and Frank Francois of the Green Party at 1.8 percent. Desiree Gibbon, 26, who grew up and lived in Queens, was found murdered with her throat slashed on the island of Jamaica on Nov. 25. Gibbon, an aspiring model and film student, grew up in Hollis and attended Benjamin Cardozo High School in Bayside. She also was a bartender at CJ’s Bar & Lounge in Ozone Park. She had been in Jamaica for five days. December Charter schools were back in the news. Success Academy, whose founder, former Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, is a frequent sparring partner of the mayor, has floated the possibility of yet another charter school to be co-located within IS 59 in Springfield Gardens. Parents at the school have won and lost multiple co-location fights in recent years. On the other hand, representatives of the New Dawn Charter School in Brooklyn told Community Board 12 on Dec. 13 that they want to expand into Jamaica. But they only take at-risk students who have not succeeded at one or more other schools; and they have a policy against co-location. Fresh off its reprieve from state education officials, August Martin on Dec. 18 was spared — at least temporarily — the threat of closure, a fate that befell two other Queens schools on the city Department of Eduction Q Renewal School list.