May Meeting - Thursday May 19 at 8pm

Greetings ... Ok … we tried it one more time … the regular way … newsletter to printer … newsletter to Post Office … newsletters to you PRIOR to the meeting. How did it work this month? I got my newsletter on Tuesday. What about you?

It has been a full season for us as we have had a series of speakers to provide us with a broad range of things to consider. Councilman Jim Oddo held his Civic Roundtable at our February meeting … bringing together Community Leaders from across his district and providing us with an insight in the workings of the City and our budget challenges. In March our guest speaker was Michael Reiser who is the Recycling Outreach Coordinator for the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education with growNYC. Mr. Reiser talked to us about the Paper Challenge contest being conducted across the three Community Boards as well as other updates on our recycling efforts. Last month Randy Lee spoke to us on a proposal to develop a senior residence atop the Municipal Parking Lot on New Dorp Lane. It would be called the St.James Residence. The room was full of neighborhood residents and a sizeable representation from the Business Community in New Dorp.

Originally we were to be visited by Adena Long, the Borough Parks Commissioner, this month but due to a scheduling conflict we will need to wait until our June meeting before we can meet with her and learn of her vision for our neighborhood.

This month let’s revisit all the issues in our neighborhood … gather whatever updates we can … lay out the issues that we need to keep in the forefront as we go forward. We also will be putting together out nominations for elections next month as we prepare our organization to deal with the changing nature of our community.

We rely on your support to keep the Association going and involved in this community. Your support is vital both through your dues and donations. The support of various merchants and entrepreneurs helps to finance our newsletter. Let us know if you are aware of a business in our community that would like to be represented in our newsletter.

Lastly and as I’ve mentioned quite a bit lately, I need you to sing aloud the need for civic involvement and invite your neighbors to join. The more voices the smoother and richer the sound. Thank you for your interest in our neighborhood. You live here. You know why it is a respected and desirable community. Be proud of it.

See you around the neighborhood.

> Joe Markowski