Comm. Board 3 Full Board 11/23/10 hears community critiques of Chinatown Partnership - B.I.D. proposal

CLICK HERE to hear an audio podcast of lower east side native, tour guide and activist Rob Hollander regarding the proposal of a Chinatown BID. Hollander feels the CPLDC has "done an end run past the Chinatown Working Group".

On November 23rd 2010 Community Board 3 heard a presentation by the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp.. The presentation was meant to highlight the reasons why Chinatown needs a Business Improvement District (BID) and why "The Partnership" (CPLDC's BID Steering Committee) should ultimately be responsible for the formation of a BID.

The public session had several speakers voicing their opinions about why Chinatown should not have a BID.

The CPLDC's presentation was not followed a vote. The next presentation by the CPLDC will be before the Economic Development Committees of both Community Boards 2 (Dec. 9th) and 3 (in a month from now). The CB3 economic development committee will then vote on whether the BID issue will go forward to the full Community Board for a final vote whether or not to endorse the Chinatown BID. In 2002 Community Board 3 voted to DENY approval for a Chinatown BID, with many of the same BID supporters of 2002 on The Chinatown Partnership LDC such as Bill Lam of Longines Property development and Asian Americans For Equality. The reasons for denying a BID were "deception and obfuscation".

Bus Lines are being CUT all over downtown Manhattan, enough is enough ! Sign this petition please:

CCRC received this petition recently from Rob Hollander of savethelowereastside. Like Chinatown the lower east side in being threatened with the loss of bus service.
We stand by Rob and his colleagues in putting a stop to any MTA decisions that involve the loss of bus services in lower Manhattan and will be lobbying to keep our own M15 bus line coming to Chinatown.

Please sign this petition:

Friends and neighbors,

The M8 serves seniors and the mobility challenged as well as our neighborhood's public housing far to the east of any other public transport and dozens of downtown schools.

From Quinn Raymond of COBATA (Coalition of Block and Tenant Associations)


Things you and your group can do to save the M8:

1) Sign our petition at savethem8.org

2) Reach out to our elected representatives and tell them you are concerned and would like to be in the loop. They have been very responsive thus far.

3) E-mail the MTA directly:
http://mta-nyc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/mta_nyc.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Please forward this to your list-- we need to demonstrate how important the M8 is to our community.

Best,

Quinn Raymond
COBATA
(Coalition of Block and Tenant Associations)