Civic Association plows through important issues by Nathan Weiser

The Red Hook Civic Association completed it’s first year in its current form with the February meeting. The meeting, held at the Red Hook recreational center on the last Monday of February was attended by 11, including council woman Alexa Aviles.

The meeting started with a reading of a proposed vision statement.

“We see a caring and united Red Hook that celebrates its diversity, and provides a green and healthy urban environment for all its citizens. This includes well maintained housing, healthy and rewarding work places, equal and ample educational and cultural opportunities, clean air and water, safe streets and adequate public transit, high quality parkland for physical and recreational activity, and protection from flooding.”

Itt was adopted by unanimous vote.

Branding

Next followed a discussion on the organization’s name.

“There is a long storied history of a Red Hook Civic Association,” Nico Kean said. “It was run by a very hard worker who is no longer here. This organization is growing very differently so we want to start fresh.”

There is also a new groups calling itself the “Original Red Hook Civic Association.” That has led to some confusion.

Red Hook Organized Citizens (RhOC) was a name and acronym that was offered. Last month Red Hook Assembly was suggested. Another choice is Red Hook Neighbors. No decision was made.

“I think in the consensus that we have been working towards it is more important to arrive at something we are excited to carry than to arrive to it at a certain time,” Matias Kalwill said. “It’s important to arrive at something we want to carry for at least the next year.”

Baseball

A free baseball clinic to be held by Red Hook Baseball Champions for boys and girls ages 4-14 on May 5, 12 and 19 was announced.

This came up because founding Civic Association member Imre Kovacs is associated with this new organization. Kovacs and Jonathan Landreth were motivated by the difficulty in getting permits to use the new ballfields, since so many of the permits are from leagues from all over the city.

Landreth lives in Windsor Terrace. When he tried to come to the Red Hook ballfields with his softball league he found getting a permit was nearly impossible since the fields are permitted about a year and a half in advance to teams that come from as far away as the Bronx.

“We are going to have fun,” Landreth said. “We are going to play baseball. Anybody who wishes can sign up.”

Flyers will be distributed.

Library

Kovacs is the chair of the services committee. He gave an update on the library, currently closed for renovation. There are currently library programs but there is no interim library. The Civic Association and council woman Aviles have been pushing for an interim location as the library is not projected to open until March 2025.

Aviles said to expect a longer completion date since these projects often do not end on time.

Kovacs said the next step was to write letters to the borough president and mayor to try to get them to find a place in Red Hook.

“I will continue to push because I think brick and mortar sites are important for this community,” Aviles said. “The normal operation I have learned is that when they close the library, they close.”

Bus

Kovacs talked about the effort to have a bus to go from Red Hook through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to Manhattan. Elected officials have sent out two different letters. One has supported bringing back the B71 bus and another supports a Manhattan link on a B81 bus. The letter went to the head of the MTA.

The MTA has said that money was not an object in preventing the bus to Manhattan.

Council member Aviles is trying to push the MTA to do appropriate community engagement around the issue.

She advocated for Red Hook to be one of the communities that would get free bus service. Five other neighborhoods ended up getting the pilot program.

Traffic

The infrastructure committee talked about safe streets in terms of traffic.

They are working on a printable report of conditions on the streets that focuses on high danger locations in Red Hook.

There was a crash between a truck and a pedestrian on the corner of Hamilton and Van Brunt in the last few weeks. The police department had not responded after a second request.

They have a long list of interventions that they want improved that they will continue to discuss at the infrastructure meeting. These include traffic lights, roundabouts and running red light cameras.

Cruise Terminal

CB6 has addressed the traffic and air pollution issues from the cruise ship in support of Aviles’ Intro 1050 which addresses this. There has recently been a hearing with the city council on intro 1050. The next step is internal negotiation.

Aviles has been spending time on the Red Hook Marine Terminal, which is owned by the Port Authority.

“We have been engaged in a back and forth with the PA because of their lack of investment in this property and by my estimation they are allowing this property to fall into the ocean,” Aviles said.

Working Waterfront

She is committed to a working waterfront. She would veto any proposal on the working waterfront that would be for luxury condominiums.

She wants the Port Authority to invest in a modern port like has been done recently around the country and feels that Port Authority thinks Red Hook is not important.

The Red Hook Container Terminal has been operating on five-year leases and two of the piers got condemned and had to move operations.