Sept. 17, 2020 By Allie Griffin The City Council passed a bill Wednesday that will require the city to explore the use of drones for building facade inspections. The bill, co-sponsored by Northeast Queens Council Member Paul Vallone, will require the Department of Buildings (DOB) to study the safety and feasibility of using drones to… Read more »
Sept. 17, 2020 By Christian Murray The School Construction Authority, which stopped work on building new schools when COVID-19 took hold in March, will be restarting work on P.S. 384Q in Long Island City, with a completion date of September 2021 still in tact. The SCA had put the construction of new schools across the… Read more »
Sept. 17, 2020 By Allie Griffin The start of in-person classes at the city’s public schools has been delayed yet again for the majority of students. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the reopening of most school buildings will be pushed back further — on a rolling basis — just four days before they were… Read more »
Sept. 16, 2020 By Christian Murray At the end of next year, 11 council members in Queens will be forced to step down due to term limits. Dozens of candidates have already come forward looking to replace them, and will be competing in next June’s Democratic primaries for those spots. In Queens, only four council… Read more »
Sept. 16, 2020 By Allie Griffin Staffers at 10 Queens public schools have tested positive for COVID-19 since teachers and administrators returned to schools across the city on Sept. 8. The 10 schools are among 56 citywide, where positive coronavirus cases have been confirmed, according to a list the Department of Education provided from Sept…. Read more »
Sept. 16, 2020 By Michael Dorgan Restaurants will soon be able to add a 10 percent service charge to the tab. The City Council voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would temporarily permit restaurants to add a “COVID-19 Recovery Charge” to customer checks. The legislation is expected to be signed by the mayor – which… Read more »
Sept. 16, 2020 By Allie Griffin The city will ramp up its sanitation efforts to keep streets trash-free after having cut the Department of Sanitation’s budget by $106 million. Residents have been complaining of overflowing trash bins since the Sanitation budget took a hit and the department’s commissioner Kathryn Garcia even resigned over the cuts…. Read more »
Sept. 16, 2020 By Michael Dorgan Mayor Bill de Blasio and his entire office staff will take one week of unpaid leave in order to help tackle the city’s fiscal crisis amid the coronavirus shutdown. The mayor said that the mandatory furloughs – which will affect nearly 500 employees – will save the city nearly… Read more »
Sept. 16, 2020 By Michael Dorgan A white woman threw a glass bottle at a black jogger in Woodside last month and then shouted a racial slur at her, police said. The police released video footage of the incident today that shows a white woman hurling a bottle at a 37-year-old black woman while she… Read more »
Sept. 15, 2020 By Christian Murray The cost to rent an apartment in northwest Queens remains high–although a little bit less than a year ago, according to a new report. The report, released by Douglas Elliman Real Estate, found that the median rent in northwest Queens fell by 5.5 percent in August 2020–to $2,796–compared to… Read more »