To the editor,
This letter is in reference to the story “Walk on the wild side: CUNY internship brings students up close to nature,” (by Kevin Duggan, online Aug. 10) that discusses creating fieldwork internships for students that are interested in learning about Brooklyn’s natural beauty.
I totally applaud the City University of New York for stepping up to the plate to engage their students with the best tools that can be used to provide every student with real-world experiences.
Every student comes to the classroom with a different world experience. We know that students who have been exposed to many different things do better in school. In order to be successful readers, students need to relate what they read to what they’ve experienced. To think broadly, students need to have a variety of experiences.
When students leave the classroom, they see the connections between what is happening at school and in the “real-world.” They begin to see that what they learn within the walls of the classroom can help them solve the problems they see in the world around them and can have a direct impact on who they become as people.
Students are able to access tools and environments that are not available at school. Our communities are rich learning laboratories. Fieldwork internships make it possible to take students to see an underwater ecosystem, participate in citizen science in a river, use high-powered microscopes, and see and touch historical artifacts in person, among hundreds of other things. Each experience solidifies learning and supports important academic concepts.
Now, we need to replicate this hands-on educational model for learning and bring it to our local school districts.Scott Krivitsky
Coney Island
Critics are right!
To the editor,
Having read Fred Fredericks’s and David Podesta’s letters in the Bay News, (Letters to the Editor, Aug. 24–30), I think there are a few things both writers need to be made aware of about our president, before they blame the press for being biased and overly critical of President Trump. First of all, Donald Trump did not win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton did. Donald Trump won the electoral college. I strongly believe that a President of the United States should be elected by the popular vote, not by red and blue states, and that the electoral college should be abolished.
Do you two writers, or anybody else for that matter, really want a President who is controlled by the National Rifle Association?
Gun violence in this country has been steadily escalating, and, soon, anybody who can use a computer will be able to produce his or her own functioning gun. If the President doesn’t do something about this, who will? And who in this country will be safe?
Do you expect our newspapers and news broadcasters to stay silent while President Trump separates immigrant children from their parents who are trying desperately to find safety and sanctuary in our country? Some of these children will never see their families again.
How do you expect our news reporters or anyone else to respect a president who denies that there is anything wrong with our environment, while thousands of children and adults living in our country are dying of cancer and other diseases caused by pollution in our environment and poisons in our food? How can our President deny global warming and other climate changes when California is being destroyed by uncontrollable wildfires, and hurricanes are becoming more devastating? Rather than attempting to do anything to improve our environment, Trump encourages the use of fossil fuels and other pollutants, probably because he gets financial support from the big companies that profit from selling all these poisons.
Trump has supposedly improved the economy; but for whom? Our President and his wealthy friends are getting richer, while the rest of us are still struggling to make ends meet and pay our medical bills.
How can news reporters not criticize a President who has probably had more turnover in his staff since he took office than any other President in history? He has lost the support of many of his appointees and staff members who have either quit or been fired. He has even lost the support of many of the Republicans who helped him get elected. Several of his former appointees, including his own lawyer, are on their way to prison. Also, Trump’s conservative appointees to the Supreme Court may cause Americans to lose Roe v. Wade and other hard-won freedoms.
If our President wants the support of the press and the American people, let him do something worthy of our support!Elaine Kirsch
Gravesend
Road worrier
To the editor,
I am not surprised to see that our communist mayor, acting like King George of old, is doubling the parking fees at the “Muni” meters (“Pavement at a premium: Metered-parking prices rise across boro next month” by Colin Mixson, online Aug. 13). Citizens are roused up against this taxation without representation, but to no avail. All their blind actions in putting these potentates in office have come back to slap their faces — good! The city squanders the millions of dollars sucked out of our pockets for parking every year and now, they must be dancing with glee looking at all those dollar signs about to be realized.
Over the years I did shop locally, though I find it much better and more relaxing to shop outside of the city. When these new and exorbitant fees spring up, no doubt I, along with thousands of others, will take to the road outside of the city, and do business elsewhere. And the mayor can have all the open parking spots he wants.Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
Costly trolley folly
To the editor,
Remember the promised New York City Economic Development Corporation’s $7 million feasibility study for construction of the proposed Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Connector? The original completion date was by December 2017. Eight months later both draft and final reports have yet to be made public. The Economic Development Corporation has yet to announce a new date for publication. Continued delay in release of the study could imply that both feasibility and costs have been found to be prohibitive.
The Friends of the Brooklyn-Queens Connector released a study claiming it could be built for $1.7 billion. In 2016, the NYC EDC announced a new price tag of $2.5 billion. In 2018, the estimated cost is $2.8 billion. How many more billions might it cost upon completion? It takes more than a simple planning feasibility study to turn it into a viable capital transportation improvement project. There have been no environmental documents or preliminary design and engineering efforts necessary to validate any basic estimates for the $2.8 billion construction costs of the Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Connector.
Remember the old proposed LIRR Lower Montauk branch Light Rail Project championed by former Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley? Release of the $500,000 feasibility study for introduction of light rail on that corridor last December may have been the final stop for this project. According to this report, the anticipated cost grew by 2100 percent from $100 million to $2.2 billion! Support from public officials, transit agencies, transit advocates, commuters and taxpayers subsequently disappeared.
Don’t be surprised if results from the Economic Development Corporation Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Connector study reveals a new even greater cost between $3 to $4 billion or more and a new timetable for completion over 10 years. This may be the last breath for any hope of the Brooklyn Queens Streetcar Connector.
If the study results were favorable, there would have already been a joint press conference between the Economic Development Corporation, Mayor Bill DeBlasio, other elected officials, Friends of the Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Connector, local supporters along with the developers who would stand to benefit financially from the project, to share the good news.
This announcement would include promises of additional funding to advance the project forward. Millions would be needed to begin the environmental review along with preliminary design and engineering. More funding for final design and engineering along with construction would be needed several years later.
The longer the Economic Development Corporation sits on the study, the greater the odds some consultants and Corporation staff are staying up late trying to wordsmith the report so as to downplay the bad news.
The only winners from this study will be the well-paid consultants. They will move on to the next NYC Economic Development Corporation dream.Larry Penner
Great Neck
