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Volume XX • Number 47 • November 21 - 27, 2013 •
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LG proceeds with controversial bldg. plan By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER Will a 143-foot-high building in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, be a blight on the Palisades? No, says LG Electronics USA of its planned new headquarters, perched on a 27-acre parcel that’s a quarter of a mile away from the cliff—yet close enough, they admit, for the building’s upper stories to extend above the tree line. A ceremonial groundbreaking at the 111 Sylvan Avenue site last Thursday was billed by LG as a triumph in the face of widespread opposition to the height of the building and legal challenges to the zoning variances granted for the plan. Palisades Interstate Park, a 12-mile section of the cliffs, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1983. Developers in this area have been restricted from building higher than 35 feet, but LG secured a variance for a 143-foot-high building. The variance was challenged in court but was upheld. Scenic Hudson and the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs then filed an appeal on the grounds that abandoning the existing height limit
amounted to an unauthorized rezoning, that the court failed to examine certain relevant factors and that appropriate legal standards were not applied. LG spokesman John Taylor said his company is not concerned about the appeal. “The Court ruled correctly and decided this case on long-established legal principles that municipalities have the power and authority to best determine local zoning decisions,” he said at the time. “The issues before the trial court were properly decided by Judge Carver, and LG is confident that Judge Carver’s ruling and the Zoning Board’s approval will likewise be upheld on appeal.” A few hundred supporters attended the ceremony, including elected officials, business owners and union leaders as well as LG employees. The event featured a tree-planting component, and the first of more than 700 saplings was installed. Protect the Palisades, a coalition of environmental advocacy groups and local organizations—including Wave Hill—said that LG engaged in “classic PR greenwashing, trying to divert attention from the
Protesters at a last week’s groundbreaking ceremony for LG’s new headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. extraordinary harm it would do to the Palisades and a century of conservation effort by planting trees on site and touting
their building’s hoped-for energy rating.” The new LG headquarters is located not Continued on Page 3
NYC Department of Education school progress reports out By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER While P.S. 7 in Kingsbridge earned straight A’s in all measures on the current Department of Education Progress Report, Riverdale’s three public schools got one A, a few B’s and C’s, and one F. For the report, each city school is compared with others in a peer group comprised of up to 40 public elementary or middle schools determined by the DOE to have similar populations in terms of specified characteristics. Schools are rated mainly on three performance measures— student progress, valued at 60 points; student performance, valued at 25 points; and school environment, valued at 15 points. Total points earned are also cumulated for an overall grade, valued at 100 points. P.S. 81 principal Anna Kirrane said she sees the Progress Report as “one tool that identifies the cultural and academic environment of a school and provides a snapshot of a school progress.” The current snapshot for P.S. 81 is an overall grade of A—with 61.9 out of 100 possible points. “Our students and teachers continue to work very hard to meet the needs of all of our
students,” Kirrane said. “We are very proud of our accomplishments. Our strong partnerships with our families continue to impact our students’ growth.”
RKA middle school’s overall grade was a B, with 59.5 out of 100 points. P.S. 24 earned an overall C, with 37 points.
The student progress grade for each school, valued at 60 points—by far the most heavily weighted component of the overall grade—is based on the
change in state English language arts and math test scores from 2012 to 2013 compared to the Continued on Page 2
Dinowitz to DOT: Please move that sign Poorly placed signage has enabled traffic enforcement agents to issue what Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz called “undeserved summonses” to those who park in a particular spot. In a November 18 letter to Constance Moran, the city’s Bronx commissioner for the Department of Transportation, Dinowitz described a scenario on the west side of Independence Avenue just north of West 237th Street. “The motorist was parked properly in the angle parking spot, not touching either of the painted lines. Towards the corner there is a sign which states ‘no parking any time,’ with an arrow pointing north. Further north there is a sign indicating that parking is allowed except during street cleaning hours, with an arrow also pointing north. This sign is posted about a foot or so inside the angle parking spot. The fact that the sign is slightly inside the park-
ing spot can only be a result of the street having been repaved last year and new lines having been painted on the street. Unfortunately, the southern line for that particular parking spot was painted slightly south of that sign (and the part of the line further from the sidewalk is even further south.)” The assemblyman asked the commissioner to have the sign moved—immediately—a few feet farther south “to avoid these outrageous summonses and to carry out DOT’s clear intent to allow people to park in that spot.” Dinowitz appears to empathize with his constituents’ parking frustrations. “No person in his or her right mind would think there is a problem parking there,” he wrote, “except maybe a predatory traffic agent who doesn’t have the intelligence to do the right thing.”
Assemblyman Dinowitz shows a poorly placed traffic signage.