At a July 23 meeting sponsored by City Councilman Ben Kallos to discuss a proposed 900-foot building on residential Sutton Place, Community Board 6 member Terrence O'Neal urged his residents to brush up on their knowledge of neighborhood zoning laws.
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, City Council members Ben Kallos and Dan Garodnick and representatives for other elected officials gave an update on the project at a news conference Wednesday and said they would push the agency to work on areas of concern regarding the line.
[Council Member Ben Kallos has] announced plans to add bike patrols across the Upper East Side in a pilot program that's an outgrowth of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero initiative -- a move to reduce preventable traffic deaths. They'll combine that enforcement with educational programming and incentives, like free Citi Bike day memberships for those who take safety classes. And they'll even throw in free vests, lights and bells for commercial cyclists who complete the training.
It's an effort many -- from the City Council and the NYPD to nonprofits like Bike New York and the privately funded Citi Bike -- are getting behind. Now, local businesses and individual cyclists have to do their parts. City restaurants should take care of their bicycle delivery staffs by providing vests, bells and other gear. Individuals have to educate themselves, slow down and travel safely.
Councilman Ben Kallos, who represents the island and used to run a technology consulting firm, said the school's location makes sense because it easily connects to the headquarters of east side and Long Island City tech firms.
"It will make the tram, ferry service and F train a viable corridor," he said.
After a bicycle hit-and-run on the Upper East Side last Tuesday left a 67-year-old woman severely injured after she was struck in a bike lane, City Councilman Ben Kallos announced a plan last night to help protect pedestrians in the neighborhood.
"We're trying to make sure that anyone using our sidewalk, the pedestrians, stay safe whether it be from cars or cyclists, Kallos said at a news conference with NYPD auxiliary officers on the corner of 86th and First Avenue, the location of the accident. "And that's vice-versa for safety for bikes from cars and pedestrians. We can all share the streets together."
The Council will also create pilot a texting initiative that will push alerts and information to New Yorkers. Councilman Ben Kallos, said one of the roadmap's biggest plans was to release more data from the Council and city agencies in databases that can be access by civic groups and the public easily for free.
"It means anyone who can access information when they want it on their own terms," he said.
Elected officials on the East and West Side, who are sending a letter to the MTA brass about the changes, want a boost in service, not a reduction, at a time when buses bunch up and plod through streets.
"As people are complaining about bus service and are not using it as much because of how poor the service is, that's the least time you want to make it less and less desirable to get on," said Councilman Ben Kallos, who signed the letter with six other Manhattan lawmakers including U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney.
A City Council member will introduce a bill Thursday that would help New Yorkers avoid being discriminated against for being on the "tenant blacklist."
Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Upper East Side) said there have been too many cases where a prospective home buyer would be denied a lease by a landlord because they were involved in a housing court dispute. The councilman said many of these landlords would request a report about the applicant's history from a service that has access to the court's index number database, but wouldn't go into detail about the circumstances.
"Someone who had a perfectly strong credit score would be denied by the fact that they are in landlord tenant court, even if they were on the right side," he said.
The latest challenge to car services like Uber came out of City Hall Monday when an Upper East Side council member introduced a bill to create a free city mobile app for yellow and green taxis.
The bill, introduced by Council Member Ben Kallos, would create a universal E-Hail App for the more than 13,000 yellow cabs and 6,000 green cabs throughout the city, he said in a statement.
"City taxis need an app of their own to compete, and New Yorkers should be able to e-hail a cab in the rain without having to worry about surge pricing," Kallos said, adding that the "city must modernize to be able to compete."
Elected officials want to make sure that even the city’s pizza joints get their own slices of New York City-branded internet real estate.
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Councilman Benjamin Kallos are launching a campaign Friday to inform local small businesses about the availability of .nyc domain names.
Their offices will be distributing flyers, emailing businesses and coordinating with chambers of commerce to get the word out.
"The new .nyc web address will help businesses succeed in the world’s greatest, most competitive city,” Kallos said In an email.
