I N S BROOKLYN’S ONLY COMPLETE U W L • ‘Bollywood’ comes to BAM O P N • Reviewer gives Park Slope’s new Red Cafe the green light Nightlife Guide • Brooklyn’s essential gift guide CHOOSE FROM 40 VENUES — MORE THAN 140 EVENTS! 2003 NATIONAL AWARD WINNER Including The Bensonhurst Paper Published weekly by Brooklyn Paper Publications at 26 Court St., Brooklyn, NY 11242 Phone 718-834-9350 © Brooklyn Paper Publications • 14 pages including GO BROOKLYN • Vol.26, No. 49 BRZ • December 8, 2003 • FREE FAULT LINES Ridgites: Sidewalks are city’s newest cash cow By Jotham Sederstrom the past two months; 30 since the beginning of The Brooklyn Papers the year. If you didn’t know better, you’d think “To me, it seems like an extortion plot,” said that some of the homeowners along a par- Tom Healy, who lives on the block with his ticular stretch of 88th Street were a little wife, Antoinette. Healy received a notice of vio- strange. lation on Oct. 24. / Ramin Talaie “It’s like if I walked up to your house and For one, they don’t walk the sidewalks so said, ‘Hey, you got a crack, and if you don’t fix much as inspect them, as if each concrete slab between Third Avenue and Ridge Boulevard it were gonna do it ourselves, and we’re gonna bring our men over and charge you.’ If it was were a television screen broadcasting a particu- Associated Press larly puzzling rerun of “Unsolved Mysteries.” sent by anyone other than the city, it would’ve But the mystery they’re trying to solve isn’t been extortion,” he said. as compelling as, say, a triple homicide or child While property owners have always been re- abduction. Instead, residents are scratching sponsible for repairing or replacing the slabs of Not so fast their heads as to why their block has been hit sidewalk between the curb and their front stoop, A British Airways Concorde, the fastest commercial jet in history, passes slowly under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, at the mouth of upper New with at least eight sidewalk-crack violations by new amendments to the city’s administrative York Bay, Tuesday, Nov. 25, on its way to the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum. The 88-ton supersonic jetliner will become the first civilian addition to the city Department of Transportation (DOT) in See FAULT on page 5 the museum's aircraft collection. The airline made its last Concorde flight on Nov. 26, ending 27 years of flying up to twice the speed of sound. CB10 for free speech Probers: Flood New bylaws allow members to identify themselves before agencies of 9-11 calls By Jotham Sederstrom ber, [they must] make it clear the bylaw even more stringent. The Brooklyn Papers that [their] views differ from Ignoring arguments for those of the board.” changing the rule to require that After years of heated This was not the first time board members who speak con- debate, Community Board such a free speech battle was trary to board votes make it jammed radios 10 has amended its bylaws waged before the Bay Ridge- clear they are not speaking on to allow members to iden- Dyker Heights community behalf of the board, CB10 vot- / Tom Callan / Tom / Tom Callan / Tom By Devlin Barrett The NIST, which is exam- investigator on the project, tify themselves as such board. ed to prevent any member Associated Press ining issues related to the col- said it was too early to say when speaking before Three years ago, tensions speaking before a public agency lapse of the twin towers, of- how much of the overall com- governmental agencies. flared as a group of board from identifying themselves as Concerns about emer- fered the new culprit in an munication problem could be The battle has for more members raised issue with the a board member without the ex- gency communications effort to pinpoint the commu- blamed on “doubling,” which than three years veered among bylaw, which at the time pre- press permission of the chair- during the Sept. 11 attack nications problems that is caused by too many people arguments over free speech, vented members from publicly man. The only other exception, have long focused on slowed the evacuation of of- talking at once on the same The Brooklyn Papers File The Brooklyn the ability to state one’s ex- Papers File The Brooklyn criticizing the board’s votes according to the bylaw change, technical flaws in res- fice workers and rescuers. Un- frequency. pertise when giving an opin- Dean Rasinya Stephen Harrison when identifying themselves would be if they were asked to cuers’ radio systems. But til now, most of the commu- Sunder said the radio sys- ion, and misrepresentation of as a board member. identify their affiliation. on Tuesday, investigators nication complaints have tems were likely not de- “This is unconstitutional,” In May 2000, then-Borough the board’s decided position to government agencies with the general public, who may identified another, much centered on poorly designed signed to carry the heavy when speaking on matters of the rejoinder that their views not go to every meeting.” CB10 member Joanne Seminara President Howard Golden equipment and spotty recep- load of traffic caused by such public concern. aren’t necessarily shared by the The newly amended bylaw said in 2000, when she fought punted the issue to the may- different problem: Too tion in the 110-story buildings. many people talking at an “extreme emergency.” Members voted unanimously full board. reads: to have the bylaw amended. or’s office when Neil Cohen, But NIST investigators, in NIST probers have re- Nov. 17 to change Article 5.6 of “I think it’s very important “Any member who commu- In the 2000 debate, former then a board member, brought once. offering an update on their viewed much of the Port Au- the board’s bylaws, which had that we be able to identify our- nicates with a governmental board member Kirk Tzanides, the bylaw to his attention. The overwhelming rush of long-running inquiry, said thority’s radio traffic that day, contained a clause restricting in- selves,” said board member agency, entity or official with the CB10 chairman at the The New York City Law radio transmissions by emer- the radio systems “experi- and that of some of the city’s dividual board members from Dean Rasinya, a member of the authority to make a decision on time, argued that members Department ruled in May gency personnel responding enced surge load conditions rescue services, Sunder said. divulging their membership Cultural Affairs and Youth Ser- a matter acted upon by the who spoke publicly against 2000 that the bylaw violated to the World Trade Center after the attack.” The group has not yet fin- when speaking before govern- vices committees, who intro- board shall make it clear that board decisions were under- the First Amendment. may have cut off one-third to The condition existed on ished its analysis of all the mental agencies unless they duced the amendment. “Identi- his or her views are not the of- mining the majority will of the “Abylaw that prevents mem- one-half of radio calls, ac- systems used by the Port Au- transponders, devices used to were asked directly. fying yourself takes on another ficial views of the board. If community board. bers from identifying them- cording to preliminary find- thority, which owned the relay emergency radio broad- The amendment now allows dimension, and maybe a some- such member chooses to identi- After several heated meet- selves as such when taking po- ings by the National Institute trade center and operates its casts where reception is poor, members to identify themselves what more informed one than fy themselves as a board mem- ings, the board voted to make See SPEECH on page 6 of Standards and Technology. own police force, and by the as in skyscrapers. city police and fire depart- In the wake of the attacks, ments. the federal government has “Traffic volume made it pushed local authorities to find INSIDE THE PAPER difficult to handle the flow ways to allow different respon- and delivery of information,” Classifieds . page 5 and GO 7-8 ders, like fire, police and emer- the NIST report said. “Multi- gency medical personnel, to GO Brooklyn 8 pages . follows page 4 Bill would allow smoking in bars Home Improvement . GO 8 ple, concurrent radio trans- talk effectively to each other. missions on the same fre- But NIST’s initial results Parent . GO 6 The Associated Press ing licenses” for $100 per year, pro- Speaking at a press conference choice and personal liberty,” since Police . page 3 quency, or doubling, made it suggest another danger may lie vided they already hold a liquor li- last week in Manhattan, Mills said patrons could choose whether to vis- Real Estate . page 5 Smokers may be able to light more difficult. in allowing too many people to up again in the city’s bars and cense. the bill would help improve business it smoking or nonsmoking establish- “It is estimated that talk at once, clogging up fre- Online at restaurants if a new bill is ap- The measure would amend both for restaurants and bars, which he ments. roughly a third to a half of quencies at critical moments. www.BrooklynPapers.com proved by the state Legislature. the city’s law, which went into effect said have struggled financially be- Councilwoman Christine Quinn the communications were Sunder also said his group Hear our editors and reporters discuss the news The bill, sponsored by Republican at the end of March, and a state law cause of the ban.