First Lady Chirlane McCray Will Join Town Hall on Immigration in Brooklyn Tonight (Wednesday, Jan 22)

Chirlane McCray. Photo: Flickr via Wikipedia

The Black Institute and the Christian Cultural Center will host a town hall forum to discuss immigration policies, reform efforts, and its impact of black immigration on Wednesday, January 22, at 6:00 p.m.

Senior Pastor A.R. Bernard of CCC will host this event and New York City’s First Lady Chirlane McCray is the special guest for the evening.

Moderator: T.J. Holmes, award-winning journalist.

Panelists & Speakers: Bertha Lewis, President and Founder of The Black Institute; Pastor A.R. Bernard, Sr., Founder, Senior Pastor and CEO of Christian Cultural Center (CCC); Pras Michel, artist, film and music producer, formerly of The Fugees; Daniel Bernard Roumain, composer; Marcia L. Dyson, President of M&M Dyson, LLC; Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor, MSNBC.com & The Grio, Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; Bishop Orlando Findlayter, CUSH/New Hope Christian Fellowship.

Where: The Christian Cultural Center (12020 Flatlands Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11207)

The goal of this interactive forum is to identify, empower, and educate the Black community about truly comprehensive immigration reform.


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'NYC Web Development Fellowship' in Downtown Brooklyn

Photo: Danja, Flickr

If you want to become a web developer and can survive for 6 months while going to school in Downtown Brooklyn, you might try out for this fellowship:

New York City is offering a NYC Web Development Fellowship, designed to train Fellows with the skills necessary to start a career in web development. Graduates from the Fellowship will be qualified to for jobs as web developers, using HTML5, Ruby, Ruby on Rails and Javascript.

Offered by the Workforce Development Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliated with the NYC Department of Small Business Services, the NYC Web Development Fellowship will support the growing number of tech companies in the city, especially in Downtown Brooklyn where the Fellowship’s campus is located.

This Fellowship will allow New Yorkers to get training from The Flatiron School at no cost – a program that normally charges students $12,000. Only 28 students will be selected for the class. Applicants must be eligible and go through a competitive screening process.

All admitted fellows must be committed to doing 150+ hours of prework and being on campus from 9:00AM to 6:00PM, Monday thru Friday, March 31, 2014 through August 29, 2014.

More information here.

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Serious Snowstorm Headed to Brooklyn / NYC on Tuesday. It's Named Janus . . .

Snow on Henry Street. Photo: MK Metz

We're looking at six to ten inches of snow in Brooklyn and the surrounding areas on Tuesday, according to NOAA and frantic weather reporters, who have named this winter storm Janus (the two-headed god who looks to both the future and the past).

Parts of Brooklyn could top ten inches, forecasters say, with western Long Island getting more than a foot.

The heaviest snow will start around noon. Temperatures will range from 10 - 21 degrees, with wind chills making it feel like 10 below zero late Tuesday night.

According to NOAA, we should have two to four inches in Brooklyn by quitting time. Three to seven inches more will fall Tuesday night. So even if you get off at 5 p.m. you're not going to want to wear your good shoes home. So bring those boots or snow-proof shoes, with thick, warm socks. (And gloves, scarf, the whole bit.) It's going to be freezing out there!

Alternate side parking suspended; all other rules including parking meters in effect.

NOAA:

IMPACTS...FALLING...BLOWING...AND DRIFTING SNOW WILL CAUSE HAZARDOUS TRAVEL AND WALKING CONDITIONS ACROSS THE AREA... POSSIBLY IMPACTING THE LATE AFTERNOON AND EVENING COMMUTE. EXTREME COLD AND LOW WIND CHILLS COULD CAUSE FROST BITE. DRESS APPROPRIATELY.

SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL...KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT...FOOD... AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.


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Way Too Many People Are Getting Arrested In This Country

Photo: Nevele Otseog

Just in time for Dr. Martin Luther King day, the statistic comes out that almost 50 percent of black men in this country have been arrested (for non-traffic offenses) by the age of 23.

Further browsing finds that almost 40 percent of white men and over 40 percent of Hispanic men have also been arrested by the age of 23.

Put any ten men in a room and four or five of them have police records.

About 18 percent of women have also been arrested by age 23.

According to Time, the U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and "crime-ridden" Britain has 153.

Many of those arrests -- half on drug charges -- take place during adolescence, after which a large chunk of the population will have records that may prevent them from getting good jobs and rising in life.

In 2012 in Brooklyn, there were 92,527 adult (age 16 and up) arrests, according to state figures. There were also 3,065 juvenile arrests in Brooklyn. The total is 95,592. That means almost four percent of Brooklyn's population got arrested just in that one year. (Though some perps may have beeen arrested several times, their numbers are probably not all that high.)

Two more statistics: States spend more on prisons than on higher education -- and it costs five times more to imprison a student than to send him to college.


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Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce's Scissura: Paid Sick Leave? How About Cutting Fines on Small Businesses

Photo: BiblioArchives, Flickr

Carlo Scissura, President and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, sent in a statement on the expansion of paid sick leave in NYC that left no doubt that he's not the bill's biggest fan.

He might go for it, however, if the Mayor will cut some slack for small businesses, such as easing regulations and fines.

He said:

"We applaud Mayor Bill de Blasio and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for addressing the needs of all workers in New York City.

"However, this is the first step in a larger discussion about the needs of small businesses and their employees. While we work to address the imbalances of workers, we must ensure that the needs of small businesses - the engine of job growth throughout the five boroughs - are taken into account and addressed.

"Importantly, we look forward to reviewing the bill and working with Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito on the easing of other regulations and aggressive fines that have burdened small businesses for years. This is an opportunity for all Chambers of Commerce to come together and discuss the rights of workers and how to balance that with the needs of small business owners."


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NY Methodist Hospital's Final Approval Hearing Tentatively Set for February 11

Rendering: NY Methodist

While many hospitals in Brooklyn are threatened with closure, New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope aims to get bigger . . . much bigger. 

Brooklyn Community Board 6 has been given a tentative date of February 11 for the public hearing at the Board of Standards and Appeals regarding Methodist's zoning variance application.

Craig Hammerman, District Manager of CB6, says they will confirm the date when it is finalized.

On January 8, the CB6 board approved (with some stipulations) the project, the Center for Community Health at 505-525 6th Street.

Methodist has made changes to various sections and has added setbacks, but many neighbors are still unhappy with the plan.

Opponants say the proposed building, which will take up almost an entire block, is too big for the historic Brownstone neighborhood and will bring too much traffic.

The hospital says it has to build the facility because of market changes and the new focus on primary care.

CB6 also informs us that investigative boring is scheduled to take place in the vicinity of the hospital over the next couple weeks.

CB6 resolution here.


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McBrooklyn Is Back, Tanned and Ready

This is where McBrooklyn was all week -- surrounded by birds, fish and surfers.

But how much of that easy living can you take?

Enough of all that sun, sand and fish shacks -- thank goodness, we're back in Brooklyn!

Photo: MK Metz

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McBrooklyn Is On the Road

McBrooklyn is headed down south. We'll post again when we have an Internet connection.

Take care!

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Brooklyn Hospital Wants LICH Real Estate Bonanza, Too

Crain's reported that Brooklyn Hospital Center has decided, long after SUNY's RFP process has closed, that it wants Long Island College Hospital's real estate riches, too!

The deal it has put together looks quite similar to the one SUNY put on hold in December after SUNY's Board of Trustees decided to table the sale until Mayor de Blasio and the community could weigh in.

The Brooklyn Eagle brings up the point that the SUNY board said clearly it would not reissue the RFP.

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It's Not Going To Be Freezing for the No Pants Subway Ride on Sunday

Photo: jcmedina, Flickr

 Those crazy kids who plan to bare their all during the No Pants Subway Ride 2014 this Sunday won't literally freeze their buns off.

According to the Weather Chanel, temps in NYC on Sunday will be solidly into the 40s, which will feel like Miami after this week's deep freeze.

So take em off, naive out-of-towners. And travel in packs.


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