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Letters, Week of Sept. 12, 2013

Mystico’s advice all wet…or at least by 75%!

To The Editor
Chelseanow.com reader comment, Re: “Mystico’s Eerily Accurate Horoscopes” (Aug. 14, 2013):

A really accurate personalized horoscope requires knowing someone’s exact time and date of birth.

It is the gravitational effect of the moon, sun and planets at our exact moment of birth that make us who we are. Remember, we are 75 percent water — and the moon’s gravity is so strong you can measure its effect in a cup of tea!
Barnaby

CORRECTION: In the final sentence of the Aug. 28 article entitled “Tenant Leader: DOB Inaction is ‘Lawless,’” an April 2013 letter regarding 233 West 15th Street was inaccurately described as being sent from Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s office to the Department of Buildings. In fact, that letter was sent from the West 15th Street 100 and 200 Block Association to Quinn’s office. Any subsequent communication that took place between Quinn’s office and the DOB would have been verbal, rather than in the form of a letter.

No excuse for DOB’s unresponsiveness

To The Editor:
Re “Tenant Leader: DOB Inaction is ‘Lawless’” (news, Aug. 28, 2013):

In Sam Spokony’s excellent article, the Department of Buildings (DOB) responded to the community’s concerns by excusing its unresponsiveness on the grounds that complaints to 311 were inappropriately registered. The end of the article correctly points out that 311 complaints were not the issue. The issue was the repeated refusal of the Department of Buildings to respond to the letter from Community Board 4.

In the autumn of 2011, the DOB was asked by the Council of Chelsea Block Associations to participate in a meeting with Council Member Quinn’s Office and Community Board 4 to discuss the letter’s requests for information and the Department’s unresponsiveness.

Leah A. Donaldson (Manhattan Borough Liaison, Intergovernmental & Community Affairs, DOB) attended that meeting. When asked about a response to the Community Board’s letter requesting information, Ms. Donaldson stated on the record that she would not discuss that issue and that if it continued to be raised at that meeting, she would excuse herself immediately.

During the following summer similar complaints were made by the Park Avenue South community about the Gansevoort Park Avenue Hotel overcrowding its rooftop swimming pool and about the DOB’s unresponsiveness. It wasn’t until July of 2011 when the DOB’s unresponsiveness was featured in the New York Post that the safety regulations were finally inspected, finding the overcrowding to be five times the posted safety limit.

The unresponsiveness of the DOB is certainly not some kind of confusion with 311. It is the official policy under the current three-term mayor.
Stanley Bulbach, PhD