________________ LONG BEACH _______________
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
Society holds Centennial Gala
off-duty officer aids robbery arrest
Center brings kids to workshop
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Vol. 33 No. 43
oCToBER 20 - 26, 2022
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Shop owner is paying bills that aren’t hers center’s board members or employees. But she struck up an acquaintance with its chairman, The Martin Luther King Jr. Cedrick Coad, and its executive Center in Long Beach has always director, Melissa Spleen. helped children with schoolPuma is planning to join the work, and offered games and center’s board, and said she other activities, and even camp- wanted to help the organization ing experiences. i n a ny w ay s h e Seniors, too, get help could. with food. Now the “She started helpcenter offers someing with one bill per thing else: help with family,” Spleen said. paying bills, thanks “She started with to an unlikely donor, the families of kids the owner of an auto that the MLK center body shop in Island serves.” Park. Puma has helped In September, Gia more than twenty MElISSA Puma, of Puma’s North Park families Au t o B o dy, w a s SPlEEN since Sept. 26, when asked by one of her Executive director, she paid her first bill longtime customers for one of them. MLK Center for a donation to the T h e y h ave b e e n MLK Center to help emailing her and the families with their bills. But she center about their needs — help didn’t want to make a cash dona- with car insurance or energy tion, because she wanted to see bills. There is no limit on what for herself where the money she will help pay. would be going. “I haven’t put a limit on it,” She connected with the center Puma said. “I have paid some last month. bills for $1,400 and I have paid Puma, 57, ran the body shop some bills for $70. Whatever they with her late husband, Tony, submit to me is what I have before he passed away from can- helped pay.” cer in 2014. Puma now has propSo far, according to the MLK erty in Long Beach and Oceans- center, Puma has paid $11,098 in ide, had never met any of the Continued on page 5
By BRENDAN CARPENTER bcarpenter@liherald.com
Courtesy Long Beach Public Schools
Seniors win state scholarships Eight Long Beach High School seniors have been awarded scholarships to help them pay for college at a state school. The eight are Rio Arengo, Aidan Cardo, Isabella Eustate, Samantha Fiallos, Brendan Hellman, Ava Ligouri, Rose Parlakian and Chloe Silverberg.
City cites progress in talks to build North Park flood barriers By JAMES BERNSTEIN jbernstein@liherald.com
Long Beach’s corporation council told a City Council meeting Tuesday night that significant progress had been made in a seven-year-long dispute with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that has halted construction of bulkheads to prevent serious flooding in the city’s largely Black North Park section. But North Park residents said they remain unsatisfied with the progress of the talks, and demanded that the council host a special meeting on the issue, allowing questions to be raised about the environmental impact of the project, among other matters.
After an exchange of views with some North Park residents, Corporation Council Rich Berrios said he believed city and MTA attorneys had gotten “past” a key impediment: the amount of insurance coverage the state agency is seeking to protect Long Island Rail Road employees who will be working near construction of the bulkheads. “We’ve reached agreement on that,” Berrios said. The insurance costs to the city “are less prohibitive.” He did not offer any specific numbers. Hector Garcia, a senior director of external affairs at the MTA, said earlier this week that the agency was working diligently to resolve the issues with Long Beach. He declined to comment on specifics. Continued on page 10
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he started helping with one bill per family.