To the editor,
Re: “The Parting of Waters” The BroadsheetDAILY Thursday, June 28th
The BroadsheetDAILY reported on the second stage of the BPCA resiliency plan to protect a baseball field and Asphalt Green – which it calls a “community center” stating “The third and fourth parts of the plan will seek to protect the Esplanade and the northern section of the community.”
This places the safety of residents from flooding into the final later stages. As the BPCA presented to our Community Board, protection from flooding at Gateway Plaza will be a part of the Esplanade protection which they now reveal is taking a back seat. Obviously, for the BPCA, their modus aparandi places property over people, which would normally be quite disturbing, but knowing well their history, appears to be more of the same.
What the BPCA calls the “community center” is simply an expensive workout facility: Asphalt Green. Although our Community Board spent years in consulting with BPCA to bring in a real community center to this faciity, the BPCA’s financial structuring of the project neither allowed the facility to be affordable nor open to most of what was intended (i.e. cooking classes, theater, etc.).
I greatly hope that the BPCA, who have told us time and time again that their responsibility is to the Governor of NY and not to those living and working in BPC, moves toward better representation of those here in the community. Otherwise it continues to be taxation without representation.
– Tom Goodkind