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Ask the Brooklyn Borough President: June 2025

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Ask the Brooklyn Borough President: April 2025

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Welcome back to Ask the Borough President here on Newstal Brooklyn with Brooklyn BP Antonio Reynoso, a reminder if you have a question for the BP, the number to dial is 718-861-6800, and the time to do so is right now. Let's get to our first caller of the evening. We have Sarah, who has dialed in from Ocean Hill. Sarah, thanks for your call and what's your question for the BP tonight? Mr. Borough President, I've been living in this building. I'm a senior. I'm living in the senior building on Saint John's Place for 12 years. We haven't had any heat. Can I ask, you haven't had any heat for 12 years? Yeah, it's barely, if you could put your hand on the radar and need it there, that's me. And they claimed that they, they claimed they put new um boilers in the basement. Some people, I, I wrote up a uh um what you call it? Petition. These people are afraid they're old, they're afraid. They, you know, if they complain, they're gonna put them out. Can anybody put you off for complaining? Yeah, can you, can you stay on the line, sir? I need you to stay on the line. Give us your address. Somebody from my office will physically be in your building. This week and we're gonna go test what the heat looks like and then after we do that we'll we'll be doing more advocacy and make sure that we get somebody to start dealing with this issue and if it's not something that they deal with. These buildings get fines they get held accountable and if the landlord still can't fix the problem, we have emergency repair systems in the city that can do the work and foot the bill to the landlord. The landlord doesn't pay the bill, they get a lien on their property, so it puts a lot of pressure on them. So we're gonna start first by visiting the site to make sure we see what she's talking about and make sure that. We're on the same page and then from there we'll start our process. We can help you please leave your address with us. This is something that we can solve for and not having heat is unacceptable, uh, but there is a rule in the city of New York and I don't know exactly the temperature, but I believe it's 50 degrees. If it falls below 50 degrees, the heat turns on. Today is not a day where we've hit the 50 degree mark, so you wouldn't have heat today. So, uh, we still wanna go we still wanna make sure that the boiler is working these things the systems are in place, but remember, if it doesn't go below 50 degrees, the heat doesn't turn on. Yeah. That there are certain parameters they have to adhere to, but great to hear that there will be some outreach. We will definitely connect you with Sarah's address after the program and hopefully after more than a decade of potentially no heat there maybe some relief can come of this glad to make that connection. I wanna get. To a question that we got on social media, specifically from Eric who posted over on our Facebook page, another community concern coming from him. He wrote, We are flooding in CB 9's community, the area surrounding the Old Boys High field. We are trying to arrange a meeting with the DEP and DSNY. Can you help? Can we get the DSNY to clean sewer grates as they pass them while picking up garbage on their routes? Well, we're, we'll be there. So the first thing we'll do is we'll talk to DSNY and DEP. And they'll give us a general understanding or rundown of the the issues that we have there. In some cases it can be a combined to overflow issue or the sewers are not wide enough or we don't have enough of a system that's taking on all this water and that's why the flooding happened. So we'll get an assessment, but the best case scenario we want your information as well because we could send one of our organizers in and around this area, maybe meet with DSNY and DEP. I want to do is not go to a meeting where uh folks are gonna tell us things we already know if you're saying that it's flooding we believe you let us start doing that work now let us talk to DEP. Let me talk to DSNY they'll give us answers and that meeting that we'll have with the group won't be one to get information. It would be one to give you what solutions we've been able to bring about um, in some cases these are complicated infrastructure problems. But we can give you that information too. You should know if you're in a district that is just more complicated, so we, we can work through that. Um, we'll have our community organizing team out there in no time. I love to hear it. We'll definitely connect you with that info too since we're on the topic of some quality of life concerns. I wanna touch on a study that I believe was released by the city controller last week specifically talking about bus speeds around the city and unfortunately here in Brooklyn. We've got, I think, more than a dozen bus routes that aren't doing so great. The controller gave them an F when it came to speed in some cases averaging in like the single digits when it comes to MPH. What was your reaction to that? Did you realize that this was such a widespread problem across the borough? And then we were talking a little bit about the Brooklyn bus redesign which has been in the works for quite some time. What update, if any, is there on that? So the first thing I wasn't shocked at all, uh, mostly like Brooklynites will say not surprise we could in some cases you can run faster than than the bus and I would just say. That there's a, there is a solution to this, and it's about being aggressive and being thoughtful. There are more people that take one bus than there are, you know, drivers, let's say, um, and we don't accommodate them. We accommodate drivers. The biggest issue is I always talk about, you know, folks strolling down, uh, Fulton Street, and they get stopped. The bus has to stop because there's a car double parked, you know, playing, you know, a notorious BIG song really loud and they're. Hanging out doesn't seem like it's leaving any time exactly and then they gotta wait and go around traffic and it slows everyone down when it's a protected it's not a protected but it's a bus lane but it's not protected. We have infrastructure and we have policies that we could put in place to move these buses much quicker. It just takes a political commitment from the city of New York to prioritize all the people in a bus versus one person in a vehicle, and we haven't been able to do that. We're knee deep. In car culture in New York City and that hasn't changed one bit but uh again I think there's a vision out there to make the buses faster and I'm excited about helping do that because more people will get on the bus if they see that it's working um I do wanna give credit to the MTA, uh, one because I don't think the slow buses are their fault. I think it's other vehicles' fault, private vehicles, but I do wanna give credit to them because we're towards. End of the bus redesign and I looked at the redesign there were issues that I got from neighborhoods about certain routes, about the movement of some stops and the MTA has already solved for those those same people haven't reached out again. They were satisfied with the, the changes made thereafter. I think there's a couple more steps that we have to go through before the redesign is officially on because Queens just got their approval. And we're next, um, so I'm looking forward to us getting to an end point and hopefully what it does is give more access to people and more opportunities to move faster in the city, uh, in, in the city and in the borough. Well, especially you I know are an advocate for uh anti-car culture right and public transportation. I'm not anti-car culture because people think anti-car but is a public transportation culture, so as we got always see it on the positive side, I think it's very important that people know that we wanna push public transportation. OK, so more to come on that front, and I appreciate that. We'll be right back here on Ask the borough president stick with us.

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BKBPBD9C_2025-09-08-19-54-42

Welcome back to Ask the Borough President with Brooklyn BP Antonio Reynos so hard to believe we're already in September. I feel like this year has flown by, but with September comes some really fun events that your office is a part of, including New York Fashion Week in a big way looking ahead to this big fashion show that's happening at Brooklyn Borough Hall this Sunday. Tell me a little bit more about this opportunity. So we reached out to New York fashion. Week and asked if we can be a site for a fashion show and because of the advocacy of Colm Delane who is Kid Super most people know him as a kid Super amazing designer they gave us a slot so Fashion Week is coming to Brooklyn and it's gonna be amazing and what we do is we like to celebrate with service. We wanna make sure that we don't just throw parties we don't just celebrate the celebration has some value and the value here is. That 5 up and coming Brooklyn artists are gonna get a shot to be on the runway to be in in Vogue magazine, and Elle magazine to be seen by all this, uh, media and get this exposure and hopefully they're gonna be the next Kid Super, the next Colm Delane, and they get an opportunity and that would have never happened in their entire lives if we don't organize this alongside them and as you know, Kid Super is our arts ambassador for Brooklyn. And not only did he design our pin that we have in uh in Brooklyn Borough Hall that's brand new, part of what he got an opportunity to do is do the People's Runway. So now you can get a pin, by Colm Delane or better known as KidS Super, or, uh, you're gonna, well, we're gonna throw an event where 5 up and coming Brooklyn artists are gonna be in New York Fashion Week. I just can't wait to see how beautiful the designs are that they have to showcase and all this beauty on display. What a really great opportunity to present to these. Incoming designers, uh, you mentioned Kid Super, the pin that he helped design, you guys are currently accepting applications for next year's pin here in Brooklyn. So we all know Marty Marquez did an original pin design, and we have one that, uh, Colm Delane designed or KidSuper designed, and now we wanna move it on to the next person. So, uh, while Cam has like done work with Louis Vuitton and he's like this international star, we wanna give somebody in Brooklyn a shot to design the next one so the competition is open. We want people before the end of this month to submit the application and their pin can be the next official pin of Brooklyn. Uh, the Brooklyn from Marty Markowitz design is the permanent pin that we'll have forever, but every 6 months to a year we wanna see if we could have a special edition pin and Colm Dele's was the first one and yours could be the next 10, I love to hear that. So get those applications in before September 30th we have. All the information posted on News Twelve.com for reference and it's such a really cool collector's item to be a part of for sure. So much arts here in Brooklyn to celebrate. Great to see it getting it's due and thank you so much for the time and for answering all the questions here tonight and thank you all for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

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News 12's Amanda Bossard sits down with Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to answer YOUR pressing questions in this month's edition of Ask the Borough President.

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