Villiage Voice Has a Problem with D.A. Hynes; BP Markowitz's Swag; and More Brooklyn Briefs

- The Village Voice says Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes needs to be replaced. 

- Outgoing Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is going to auction off most of his office swag for charity.  NY Daily News 

- A 40-year-old man wielding scissors was shot in the chest by the police after he threatened a woman in a building across the street from City Tech H.S. NY Times

- An education commission appointed by Gov. Cuomo recommended the creation of statewide full-day pre-kindergarten. Brooklyn Eagle

- Overheard on Boomer and Carton's morning show: "Brooklyn is a joke." CBS Local

- MTA dismisses Koo’s proposal for subway station safety barriers.City & State

- The Three Kings will be riding live camels along Graham Avenue this Sunday in Williamsburg. Brooklyn Eagle 

- Stop everything and watch this video of a baby going for a ride on a Roomba. Gawker


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Comptroll Liu Explains What the Fiscal Cliff Agreement's Gonna Cost You

Yesterday City Comptroller John C. Liu explained what New York City taxpayers will pay as a result of the Congressional agreement to avoid the so-called Fiscal Cliff.  

The agreement will cost the average Brooklynite $770 annually. Manhattan taxpayers will pay an average increase of $1,125.

“Like any compromise, the deal to avoid the so-called Fiscal Cliff has some bright spots and dark patches for New York City taxpayers," Liu said.

On the positive side: “Thousands of struggling New Yorkers will not find their extended unemployment benefits abruptly and cruelly cut off. And some 900,000 New Yorkers can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Alternative Minimum Tax has been permanently fixed.

On the negative side: “We must properly fund Social Security and unfortunately the 2% increase in the Social Security Payroll Tax will cost four million hard-working New Yorkers, on average, more than $800 out of pocket this year, taking more than $3 billion out of the City’s income stream.

Estimated Cost of 2% Increase in Social Security Payroll Tax

Borough	# of Workers Affected	Estimated Cost	Average Increase
Bronx	630,000	$425 million	$674
Brooklyn	1,135,000	$875 million	$770
Manhattan	995,000	$1.12 billion	$1,125
Queens	980,000	$800 million	$816
Staten Island	230,000	$220 million	$956
TOTAL	3,970,000	$3.44 billion	$868

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New Gowanus EPA Cleanup Plan Calls for Armor, Tanks

Photo: Dept. of City Planning

The Environmental Protection Agency released last Thursday a new half-billion dollar plan to clean up the Gowanus Canal, lay down cement and "armor" layers to cap contaminated sections, and install 3 - 8 million gallon retention tanks to prevent raw sewage from overflowing during storms.

The EPA will accept public comments on its proposed plan until March 28, 2013. Public meetings will take place on January 23 at 7 p.m. at Public School 58 (the Carroll School), 330 Smith Street, Brooklyn and on January 24 at 7 p.m. at the Joseph Miccio Community Center, 110 West 9th Street, to discuss the proposed plan and answer questions.

Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator, encouraged residents to attend one of the meetings.

The EPA is proposing to dredge approximately almost 600,000 cubic yards of highly contaminated sediment. In some areas where the sediment is contaminated with liquid coal tar, the agency is proposing to mix the sediment with concrete, then cover it with multiple layers of other material.

In other sections, the canal will be capped with an "armor" layer and topped with a layer of sand to help restore habitat.

In 2010, the Gowanus Canal was added to the Superfund list of the nation’s most contaminated hazardous waste sites.

More than a dozen contaminants, including PAHs, PCBs and heavy metals were found at high levels in the sediment in the Gowanus Canal -- but consumption of fish from the canal continues to this day, according to EPA.

For information on how to comment, visit the EPA website.

Related:
- Quadrozzi Wants to Expand Brooklyn Shipping Empire with Toxic Sludge
- Join In On New Gowanus Canal Hurricane Flood Map
- Hearing on the Lightstone Group's Gowanus Project

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McBroolyn Is Going Far Away From Brooklyn (for a Week)

McBrooklyn's going out of town for a week, and may not be near any Internet. Hope you have a relaxing holiday, everybody. See you in the New Year!

--MK

Dunk Island photo by Melalouise, Creative Commons license

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Let 'Em Laugh: Brooklyn's Food Scene Is Bringing In the Bucks

Smorgasburg in DUMBO. Photo: MK Metz

Haters love to scoff at Brooklyn's trendy food scene, but apparently Brooklyn is laughing, too -- all the way to the bank.

The Brooklyn Eagle reports that Brooklyn's burgeoning food sector is an engine of job growth for the borough, based on a study done for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

Brooklyn’s “food chain” -- supermarkets, restaurants, gourmet food shops and food makers— accounts for 16 percent of businesses in Brooklyn and 12.5 percent of Brooklyn’s private sector jobs.

Restaurants, cafes, coffee shops and grocery stores added one out of every five new jobs in Brooklyn since 2000. In 2011 alone, wages in the Brooklyn food sector came to $1.46 billion.

While not all food-related jobs rack in big bucks, many do -- and start-ups and "one-person specialty food manufacturing businesses" are adding tremendous vitality to the mix.

So ha ha yourself, haters. And pass the kimchi tacos.

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End of An Era at the Brooklyn Heights Press

We noticed a change in the local newspaper, the Brooklyn Heights Press last week and now we know why:

Henrik Krogius –- the Emmy-award winning TV news producer and editor of the Brooklyn Heights Press for 22 years -- has retired, the Brooklyn Eagle reports.

“My career has gone through many changes, from movie house newsreels to early-days black-and-white television, to color television and satellite transmissions, and back to the traditional weekly newspaper,” he wrote in his farewell editorial.

“I’ve sometimes felt I was a living anachronism, watching obsolescence take over everything I was involved in. Perhaps it’s time for something more restful, or, in any case, some project not bound to the insistent wheel of progress, or ‘progress.’”

Krogius' photos of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, taken since its beginning (and before its beginning) have been published in the definitive book on the subject -- "The Brooklyn Heights Promenade."

The book is comprised of his research done in the ’70s and ’80s — his interviews, correspondences and conclusions, and contains several dozen black-and-white photos.

“I wanted to write it to solidify my claim to be the historian of the Promenade,” Krogius told the Eagle.

The full story is here.

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Slight Disagreement Over the Exact Time the World Will End Friday, Dec. 21

In case you want to know exactly what time the world will end tomorrow, Dec. 21, 2012, we have consulted several experts in this area.

The first is International Business Times. They have fixed the exact moment as 6:12 a.m. EST (New York Time), which is 11:12 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Just to confirm, we logged in to Time and Date, experts in times and dates. With a full-page countdown clock, they predict the world will end one minute earlier -- at 11:11 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or 6:11 a.m. New York time.

Why the disparity? It turns out that 11:11 was originally determined to be the time of the winter solstice. But the US Naval Observatory changed their website to take account of the latest estimate for leap seconds and the solstice has now been determined to take place at 11:12 UT. (Thanks Bikenbeer2000)

But we're not done. Horoscope.com claims the world will end at 23:11:11 a.m. (EST time)

December212012.com claims it will end at 11:11 UT as well. "There can only be one Official Countdown Timer and we have it," they say.

  The Official Countdown We thought it was cool -- even though it's a minute off -- so here it is. . Related: - NASA Tells the People of Earth: 'The World Will Not End Tomorrow' .  Go to McBrooklyn's HOME PAGE.

Now It's Called "The Brooklyn Malaise'

By In Pastel

"The Brooklyn Malaise" started out as the term for what is happening to the Nets: a month ago they were near the top of the world; today, according to Hangtime, they rank as "one of the three worst defensive teams in the month."

We like the term "The Brooklyn Malaise" so much we've decided to use it to describe a certain syndrome afflicting more and more of Brooklyn. You know what we're talking about:

People who live in Park Slope in an apartment that costs $300 a month because they have no bathroom and have to use chamber pots. This being Brooklyn, they don't use just any chamber pots. They use artisanal chamber pots.

They also give chamber pots as presents to their friends because they want to share the love. (Expect to find Brooklyn-branded chamber pots on sale everywhere within the next three months.)

That (parody or not) is The Brooklyn Malaise.

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NASA Tells the People of Earth: 'The World Will Not End Tomorrow'

Photo: Grapesofrad/Twitter

The people of Earth want answers -- and so they are flooding NASA with calls and emails about the end of the world — which, as everyone knows, is set to take place Friday, Dec. 21.

A NASA spokesperson told the LA Times that "200 to 300 people are contacting NASA per day to ask about the end of the world."

To be helpful, NASA has put together a web page entitled: "Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End."

Amazingly, the scientists have concluded: "The world will not end in 2012."

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Men Hoist Car Off Girl; Admiral's Row; and More Brooklyn Briefs

- It took seven men and two tries to hoist a cab off a girl pinned underneath a three-car collision in Brooklyn. NY Post

- Admiral's Row supermarket takes a big step forward. Brooklyn Eagle

- Crab Spot restaurant plans to open this week at 833 Union Street in Park Slope. They’ll be serving pots of crab, lobster and other seafood. Here’s Park Slope via Brownstoner 

- A wrap-up of the uneven state of the recovery of Gerritsen Beach. Brooklyn Bureau

- Seedco, one of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s favorite non-profit contractors has agreed to pay a $1.725 million fine for falsely claiming to place 1,400 New Yorkers in jobs. NY Times

- Attack turns Android phones and devices into "spam-spewing botnet." Information Week

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