Storm, Soliloquy, Safety

New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) has issued a Tropical Storm Warning in effect citywide, with heavy rains and strong winds from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with the most substantial rains and tropical strength winds…

New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) has issued a Tropical Storm Warning in effect citywide, with heavy rains and strong winds from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with the most substantial rains and tropical strength winds from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday. OEM has also issued a travel advisory from this morning through tonight.  As I was preparing to send this email, a tornado warning was added to our list of things to be concerned about.

The city activated a virtual Emergency Operations Center (EOC), and it’s Flash Flood Emergency Plan has been enabled to help mitigate potential flash flooding and ensure a quick, effective, and coordinated response to any flash flood events that do occur. NYC Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Transportation, and Department of Sanitation teams are out clearing catch basins in preparation for the storm. The City has also placed the Downed Tree Task Force on alert. This multi-agency task force is responsible for coordinating the response to a significant downed tree event.

As we receive more information, our office will share it. Thank you, Assistant District Manager, Ty Beatty,for jumping on conference calls with Con Ed to check in with them as they monitor the storm.

Moving on to things still happening, virtually, outside of the storm. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams hosts a NYCHA & Health town hall with the Fifth Avenue Committee, the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice, and others. If you haven’t already, taken part in such a meeting, check it out as it is part of our new normal. We will probably be using such formats to advance civic engagement for a long time.

Our virtual meetings have had a greater turnout than all in-person meetings combined for the prior year. A “back of the envelope” calculation shows 1,400 who’ve attended our 3 virtual meetings and 800 who’ve attended our ten general board meetings of the last year. We also had excellent turnout for our committee meeting on the state of local business.

Turnout isn’t the only argument in favor of such options. For example, there is a growing body of social science that indicates highly motivated factions not reflective of broader public opinion, can derail not just public meetings, but entire projects. A leading factor in this is due to the fact the affluent among us can more easily arrange their schedules to pack in-person meetings.

Keeping that in mind our district has a median household income of 137 thousand dollars a year and is the city’s 2nd wealthiest.

Anyway, that’s enough of a social science soliloquy for today. I hope you check out the items below but,more importantly, stay safe.

This is the web archive of a newsletter originally sent by email to Brooklyn Community Board 6 subscribers on Tuesday, August 4, 2020. The email edition may contain additional event listings and links.