Welcome to local politics
To The Editor:
Re “Gigi Li ends campaign for leader, but denies fraud charges” (news article, July 30):
I liked Jenifer Rajkumar immediately when I first met her at a meeting of the Parks Committee of Community Board 2 four years ago. We — Georgette Fleischer, Lora Tenenbaum, myself and others — were fighting a plan for a food cart in tiny Petrosino Square park before the dread bikes arrived.
Rich Caccappolo, the committee’s chairperson, started the meeting by asking us activists if we opposed any and all food carts in any and all parks. My jaw dropped. Why would a grandmother like me oppose a hot dog stand in immense Central Park near the immense children’s playground with its marvelous sprinklers?
I was not aware yet of the lines that are often drawn between the citizens who serve on the community boards and the activist troublemakers whose ranks I was joining. I began to understand how screwed up we all were when, within seconds, it appeared to me that Geoffrey Croft and Tobi Bergman were locking horns in serious battle, much like the stags in my favorite diorama at the American Museum of Natural History.
As for Rajkumar, she was calm and as helpful as she could be. But only Councilmember Margaret Chin could get us out of that one, which she did. The food cart was a throwaway for Chin. I still think in my heart of hearts that Chin needs only to snap her fingers and the Citi Bikes would evaporate from Petrosino. But we did not support Chin’s re-election and instead endorsed Rajkumar.
Minerva Durham
Statement was a fraud, too
To The Editor:
Re “Gigi Li ends campaign for leader, but denies fraud charges” (news article, July 30):
Gigi Li’s statement to the press denying her fraud is unadulterated nonsense and knowingly false. The fraud was clearly documented in photos and videos and supported by eyewitnesses. She knows that and that’s why she quit, even though the Board of Elections found she had collected less than 500 valid signatures and she could have challenged that.
Li and and Councilmember Margaret Chin’s staff are up to their eyeballs in this and Li should have had the courage to admit what she did. That’s leadership and that’s integrity. She has neither. Disgraceful.
Jack Suarez
Activists seeking a cause
To The Editor:
Re “Tower of Brat-Blaz is removed in Tompkins but ‘campout’ is coming” (news article, July 30):
Yeah, big deal…drug dealing is rife in Tompkins Square Park. Your article is specious and irrelevant. DeRienzo is an activist who would look for a cause without reason.
I rarely if ever go into the park. I get up to Union Square, which is exciting and safer.
I learned to ride a bike and roller skate in Tompkins Square in the late ’40s and early ’50s when this Lower East Side park was a real park and not a dumping ground for lowlifes. Rats abound.
Bert Zackim
E.D. does have two beds
To The Editor:
Re “Stand-alone E.D. saw 29,000 patients in first year” (news article, July 30):
The article is inaccurate about this stand-alone emergency department having no inpatient hospital beds attached to it. As the certificate of need filed with New York State notes, Lenox Hill Hospital transferred two medical surgical beds to the Lenox Health Greenwich Village emergency department.
Eileen Toback
Toback is executive director, New York Professional Nurses Union
God made the pigeons
To The Editor:
Re “Feathery felony in park as perps net hundreds of pigeons” (news article, July 30):
These pigeons are all very gentle, and once people get over the fear of them they handle them very easily with the help of Larry. Those birds are like his children. This is heartbreaking. I think they are all beautiful. God made them, too, just like he made you and me.
Karen Bartolo
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