Ask the Bronx Borough President: June 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: June 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: May 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: April 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: March 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: February 2025

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News 12 Staff

ASKBXBP729B_2025-07-29-09-46-59

Welcome back to Ask the Borough President with Bronx BP Vanessa Gibson here on News 12, a reminder if you have a question for the BP right now, the number to dial is 718-861-6800. And with that time to get to some callers and questions tonight, and we'll kick things off with Jack who is dialed in from Pelham Gardens. Jack, thanks so much for the call and what's your question for the borough president? Yes, um, uh, good evening. Uh, this is the question. Hi, I know you got your hands full, um, but my, uh, my, uh, concern is the unlicensed motor scooters, and I don't mean the, the people that are making deliveries on bicycles. I'm talking about the illegal motor scooters, you see, and, um, phony license plates on cars. Uh, uh, what is, uh, what, what is the police department doing to, uh, rectify this? Yes, great question. two issues we cover. We are on it. We are on it when it comes to the gold plates and the abandoned derelict vehicles, the community link initiative with the NYPD's Quality of life, the Q teams are rolling out a lot of enforcement action. So all I need is the location. Share it with us, the community board elected officials, we let the mayor's office know and they go out and do actions. I did an action last week with Deputy Mayor Cass Daughtry in Mount Hope. We confiscated, uh, ghost plates, vehicles that were abandoned. We even had a van that was selling drugs and had cameras on top, and the whole thing was towed. DOT provided the tow truck. NYPD, the sheriff's office, sanitation, everyone was there and this is happening all over the city. We are finally addressing the quality of life issues that disrupt our normal life and it means the derelict vehicles, abandoned vehicles, the trailers, the tractor trailers people call about that as well and also the, you know, the unlicensed mopeds and I get it we're not trying to be punitive for an industry that needs it for work, but we also are saying that you have. To be licensed and follow the rules and this administration has confiscated thousands of them. The challenge is you can easily buy them again or you can easily try to get them back once it's confiscated. So again, everything we do is a balance, but it's really about the quality of life because unfortunately there are some individuals that are reckless and as a result people are injured. I call it traffic violence we have shared streets streets are shared by everyone, right? No one dominates the. Streets over another so we have to be responsible because someone can be affected by our reckless actions and we have seen what happens when we have reckless driving in our streets so there's to me a lot of enforcement. All we need is the information you can even call the precinct the CEOs have been letting City Hall know information and each and every week there's an action taking place, uh, at some part of the city and hopefully with the expansion that was just announced of those. teams, the quality of life teams we see more crackdowns on those fronts. Yes, we have Q teams in every all 12 precincts. All right, welcome news for a lot of Bronxites. Let's get to some social media questions. We had a post from Harold Linder over on Facebook, and he wrote, Why is the scaffolding up so long on Leig Avenue? There must be a time limit to complete work. I know scaffolding, another area that this current mayoral administration has focused in on. Why is there scaffolding all over the Bronx in the city? I mean, not just Lid Avenue, but I think individually we have to look at that specific location if it's commercial residential, uh, scaffolding is up to protect the exterior of a building, but also the pedestrians that are walking under it. So usually there should be some facade exterior pointing work happening often not if there's not a sufficient level of funding. DOB will automatically go. Wow and they will issue violations if they find any structural issues with buildings or any construction that's happening you have to put a sidewalk shut up but because of the rules and what we've done and what the city council and the mayor have done, they've taken action to pass legislation that's now city law that requires certain time frames, making sure that we do a better job and oversight scaffolding should not be up for 10 and 20 years with no work being done, but. A lot of the residential, the scaffoldings are up because the work is not yet complete and sometimes it's not fully funded either so I, I'll take a look at that location and follow up and make sure that we have some answers when we talk about development and redevelopment specifically here in the borough, one of the big headlines as of late has been the Kingsbridge Armory, which finally seems like it's going to be crossing the finish line after decades of waiting for something to be done. You last week shared your conditional approval for the plan right now, so what. Speaks to you about this plan enough to get you to support it and then you also mentioned some caveats, right? There are certain things that you wanna make sure they do to maintain that support of course uh the Together for Kingsbridge Working Group. I wanna make sure they are a part of the community advisory board that I'm suggesting and did in my recommendations. July 17th we had a public hearing. Thank you to everyone that came out. Northwest Bronx, the applicant team, including EDC, my office led a hearing. We got a lot of testimony and we put together. a recommendation and framework of what we believe is the best course of action, the recreation, the education, looking at traffic patterns, reducing noise pollution, protecting small businesses in the area looking at good paying jobs, union jobs, local hiring MWBE job growth. This is transformative. The largest armory in the world is in Kingsbridge, and we deserve access to that economic development, building generational wealth. Why not? This has been languishing for years. Years and it's been a site of potential and purpose and promise but also disappointment right? we've been disappointed with the armory but now we have an opportunity to hope, dream big. I'm excited. I issued my recommendations yes with conditions because I wanna make sure that as it goes through the public review process at city planning and the city council, I wanna make sure that they're thinking outside the box of other components that we wanna add additional service on the BD4 line additional bus. Service parking spaces because if we have a venue with 15,000 people, people are going to drive. Where are they parking? I love that you're thinking about that because not everything often a complaint from so many people when it comes to new, new buildings. When we talk about the other side of this, we had some developments on the Bally's casino. The city council ultimately did not approve the land use changes to move that forward. So what does that mean for the process at large? Is it essentially done now? So it means that the Bronx is no. Longer in the running of the 8 proposals that were submitted to the state gaming commission, we will no longer be able to compete. We don't even have a chance, nothing. It means that Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are all at the table and the Bronx is not, and this is more than just a casino. This is about economic development and $624 million of investments in Throg's neck, but in the Bronx. It is about giving the Bronx a level playing field so that we can actually compete. Many of us are not personal fans of. Gambling, but we want the Bronx to be able to compete and that's what did not happen because of the disapproval. All right, BP, thank you so much. Stay with us. We're gonna be right back after this quick break.

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ASKBXBP729C

Thanks so much for staying with us here for another edition of Ask the Borough President with Bronx BP Vanessa Gibson. It is that time where we look ahead to the next month with our health tip, and we're focusing on a timely issue here, very timely. Our health tip is August is overdose Awareness month, and we are raising awareness of substance use disorders so that our community can combat, uh, stigma, promoting treatment and celebrate recovery and those that are in the process. So naloxone is the best prevention of an overdose death. We represent some. The highest rates of overdose deaths in the city of New York right in the Bronx and we have the answers harm reduction drug treatment programs we're also expanding on naloxone training so that you know what to do in the event if you're confronted with someone that is going through an overdose, there's a certain process you do that can save their life. I was gonna say a life saving tool that naloxone for sure and as we look ahead to August and then September thereafter, the end of summer, the start of fall, you've got a lot going on already here. So this Friday we are hosting our veterans career. Fair Friday August 1st from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Brewer Hall 851 Grand Concourse. Also this Saturday, August 2nd summer concert series at Fordham Plaza from 120 p.m. to 6 p.m. and then we have a number of back to school events so I just wanna say we're gonna be all over the Bronx on Wednesday, August 13th. We will be at PS 97 from 3 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, August 20th, we will be down on Brown Place with Haven Academy back to school from 12 to 4 on. Thursday, August 28th, we will be at PS 65 Mother Hale Academy from 1 to 3 p.m. Then we are doing an event with our office in SUNY ELC, uh, and then we will be at Fordham Plaza with Fordham University on Friday, August 22nd from 2 to 5. Then we have our District 75. There's a citywide event. Love it, and we're doing that at the Jacob Javits Center with Manhattan BP Mark Levine on Saturday, September 6th from 11 to 3. And finally, Univisionion at PAL back to school event we are proposing Friday, August 22nd at the Longwood PAL. A lot of events, a lot to look forward to, but a lot of really positive things coming from that and getting everyone back to school ready as we wrap up the evening, what's your message for Bronx Sites as we kind of end the summer and and start back with the school year about just maintaining the safety? I think let's end where we started here, right? Public safety is so important and we will always work together to. Make sure that we look at new measures, new initiatives, new partnerships, collaborations, right? We are all credible messengers we are all a part of the solution and not the problem. We cannot rely solely on NYPD. We are a part of this process and the NYPD needs us, so we will keep working to make sure that our borough and all our residents and families are as safe as possible. A powerful and important message. Thanks so much for all of you who tuned in. Thank you so much, BP Gibson for another edition of Ask the VP. We'll see you next time.

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

Ask the Bronx Borough President: July 2025

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

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