queens news Archives - Page 2 of 2

Pols want to ban tax lien sale

Matthew Fischetti on February 8, 2023

Argue program disproportionately affects Black New Yorkers

By Matthew Fischetti

mfischetti@queensledger.com

Councilmembers Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn), Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan) and Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) joined supporters to rally against tax lien sale.

Electeds, advocates and supporters braved the brisk weather outside City Hall last Thursday to demand an end to the tax lien sale.

The tax lien sale was first instituted in 1996, which allows buyers to purchase the debt collected by properties that are behind on municipal costs like property taxes.

“The tax lien sale is a relic of the past. It’s a relic of the Giuliani era, and it has got to be put to an end,” Fort Greene Councilwoman Crystal Hudson said at the rally. “We have the tools we need to move forward and create solutions that build our communities up rather than tearing them down, allowing low income and moderate income homeowners to live with the dignity they deserve. And in my district, specifically, we lost 20% of our black population last year.”

In 2019, the tax lien sale generated around $80 million in revenue and recouped $300 million in unpaid property taxes prior to sale, according to Bloomberg. But critics of the program charge that the sale has led to unfair targeting of low-income homeowners and communities of color.

The tax lien sale was last used in December 2021 – which generated around $145 million, according to THE CITY. Attempts to revive the sale failed in February 2022. Later on in May a majority of the council pledged not to reauthorize the sale.

On the heels of Thursday’s rally, advocates from East New York Community Land Trust, a community controlled non-profit founded around creating affordable housing in the Brooklyn nabe, released a 48 page report entitled “Leaving the Speculators in the Rear-View Mirror: Preserving Affordable Housing In NYC, a Municipal Debt Collection Framework”.

East New York Community Land Trust is just one of several organizations, including the Western Queens Community Land Trust, Brooklyn Level Up and New Economy Project, among others, that comprise the “Abolish the Tax Lien Sale” coalition.

The report outlines a framework in which a resident who has fell behind more than a year in payment would be able to either of the following: Enroll in a payment plan or tax exemption; transfer land to a community land trust in exchange for debt forgiveness, foreclosure and preservation as affordable housing with tenant protections; as well as foreclosure and sale with any funds from the sale going to the previous owner.

In order to prevent property owners from falling behind, the framework calls on the Department of Finance to increase staffing capacity, working with community based-organizations to expand their outreach as well as being communicative about potential benefits and explicit communication about what is owed.

The report also offers five different off ramps depending on property type. For Owners of occupied commercial or multi-family buildings without an indicator of physical distress, they can enter City Review – which screen them for different abatements and would be paired with a counselor to evaluate different plans. The review is specifically triggered when a property collects more than $5,000 in debt over two years.

If the review doesn’t resolve in a resolution, these same properties would move into a Municipal lien. Liens are also applied to properties with debt that exceed $5,000 over three years.

The third off ramp would be an offer to transfer lands to Community Land Trusts by transferring deeds to the land in exchange for debt forgiveness. Community Land Trusts are non-profit models of ownership in which the land is owned by a local non-profit in order to stabilize housing prices and aims to provide permanent affordability.

This offramp would be available to all property types except vacant lot owners.

The fourth option would force owners of occupied commercial or multi-family buildings without an indicator of physical distress to initiate foreclosure proceedings if other off-ramps aren’t taken. The property would be sold with funds going to the previous owner and the land transferred to a Community Land Trust.

The fifth option, offered for owners of multi-family properties in physical distress, unoccupied buildings and vacant lots would be “foreclosure and preservation.” Owners would still have to pay for “grossly-negligent” repairs and sacrifice their equity while the city pays for outstanding liens. Land from the properties would thereby be transferred to a Community Land Trust after being rezoned.

“This is one of the most pressing issues when it comes to housing justice, racial justice and economic justice and the intersection of all of these different crises,” Jackson Heights Councilman Shekar Krishnan said at the rally. “Here’s the two realities of the tax lien sale. One is a predatory practice for black and brown homeowners displacing them, while at the same time rewarding bad landlords and greedy developers exactly why the tax lien sale must be abolished.”

LAIKA:Life in Stop Motion

Alicia Venter on September 8, 2022

MoMI welcomes LAIKA for new stop-motion exhibit

Photo Credit: Christos Katsiaouni / Museum of the Moving Image

The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) has begun its latest exhibition, “LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion,” which is set to run through Aug. 27, 2023. Housed on the second floor, the exhibit features the props and dolls used in the five stop motion films created by LAIKA, an award-winning feature film animation studio.

Inside the exhibit, puppets that were used in the production of each film are found tucked behind glass for admiration. For a hands-on experience, guests will find a table in the center of the room that allows them to create their own “stop motion” film.

The stop motion technology that is available for guests to create their own short clips was provided by LAIKA, and it is the first time anything of its kind has been made available for visitors of the museum.

What is Stop Motion?

Stop motion is a filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. This process takes a tremendous amount of time to create a film — from start to finish, it is around five years, according to LAIKA’s Marketing Production Manager Daniel Pascal.

Pascal has worked with LAIKA since it opened in 2005, and was involved in the production of its early films — including “Coraline,” their first film that has since become one of their most renowned. Since then, the studio has released four more films: “Paranorman (2012),” “The Boxtrolls (2014),” “Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)” and “Missing Link.”

What’s next for LAIKA

The studio is now working on their sixth film, “Wildwood.” The voice cast was recently announced, and there has been no release date yet announced. Pascal described how the movie has an “epic” scale, and that they will be building on their success and skills from previous movies in the newest film’s production.

“Every movie we have to learn a different skill set. For ‘Kubo and the Two Strings,’ we didn’t know how we were going to do long fabrics or long hair or fun — all the things you typically stay away from in animation,” Pascal said. “Being a full time studio, [you have to ask,] ‘How can I add to that box of tricks.’”

LAIKA is a full-time studio, working in a studio based in Oregon year-round to create different stop motion films. This dedication, Pascal describes, makes the studio a pleasure to be part of.

The Director of Curatorial Affairs, Barbara Miller, worked collaboratively with Pascal to create the interactive exhibit.

“It was always our dream to have stuff here like it is, and it’s finally happening,” she shared. “So we are very excited.”

The exhibit is complemented by screenings of LAIKA films throughout the duration of the exhibit.

“LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion” is part of the museum’s core exhibition, “Behind the Screen.” For more information on the exhibit or to purchase tickets, visit movingimage.us.

In Our Opinion: Local news is not a competition

webadmin on September 7, 2022

Two weekends ago, Councilman Bob Holden honored the late, great Maureen Walthers, the long-time matriarch of the Ridgewood Times, with a street co-naming on Woodbine Street in Ridgewood, where she called home.

Walthers served as the first female editor of the Ridgewood Times, as well as its executive vice president and co-owner.

She went on to purchase the paper in 1983, and eventually launched the Times Newsweekly, extending to other parts of Queens.

Her contributions to the neighborhood also include her involvement in Community Board 5 and Greater Ridgewood Restoration Corporation, her efforts to preserve and landmark the Onderdonk House and co-founding the Greater Ridgewood Historical Society — among many other commendable endeavors.

Walthers passed away in 2020 after an illness, and dozens of people gathered on Aug. 27 to celebrate her work as a journalist and civic leader, and reminisce on her kind, witty personality.

But what should have been a wholesome event to commemorate her life and legacy quickly turned sour when speakers on the mic made strange, competitive remarks pitting the Ridgewood Times and other local papers against each other.

“The Ridgewood Times at that time was the newspaper. The layout of the Ridgewood Times was again, the most complete, the most professional, and it rivaled actually many, many daily newspapers,” Holden said.

Sheesh, Bob. That’s a perfectly fine opinion to have, but to say it on the mic in front of a crowd of people, which included reporters from said papers, is a bit awkward.

Many of Walthers’ close friends and loved ones took turns on the mic to reminisce. The comments got weirder as the ceremony went on.

Outgoing Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan said that local journalism should be about what Walthers exemplified: “fearless, fun and community-focused,” and that although other papers “try,” she misses what Walthers brought to the table.

Another community resident who’s known Walthers since the ‘70s even went as far as suggesting that other local papers misrepresent people and events, and the Ridgewood Times always got it right.

“Any time you wanted to put something in [the Ridgewood Times], *boom* it was in. And it was always put in a great light,” he said. “Those of you who might’ve been portrayed in other papers or in other media and say, ‘That’s not really what happened,’ but with the Ridgewood Times, it really was what happened.”

News flash: it is not a journalist’s job to portray people and events in a “positive light,” it’s our job to seek the truth — the good, the bad and the ugly — and report it to our readers.

Any journalist worth their title will promptly make a correction or retraction if something was somehow taken out of context or misinterpreted in any way. Reach out to us and start a dialogue if that’s ever the case.

The Ridgewood Times has done and continues to do admirable work for the community, and Maureen Walthers’ work in the newspaper business serves as inspiration for all young reporters, especially young women.

But for elected officials and community leaders to make her event a competition is a blatant slap in the face to reporters at other newspapers who work tirelessly to provide readers with relevant local news.

In the same way that politicians represent a community whether people like it or not, established local newspapers influence and serve thousands of readers in the community — whether politicians like it or not.

We should all aim to work together to provide the most factual, up-to-date news to our communities.

The remainder of Walthers’ street co-naming event was lovely, revealing fond memories of her along with a shiny new street sign that reads, “Maureen Walthers Way.”

Based on Maureen’s personality and life philosophy, she wouldn’t have appreciated the needless, subtle digs at other papers. We knew her well. She was a true pioneer in our industry and she believed as we do, in the growth and prosperity of our communities. Local papers are a strength of the neighborhood.

Her work at the Ridgewood Times speaks for itself.