Precinct Meeting

Tonight's monthly community precinct meeting was well attended, standing room only, but only five people signed up to speak, which makes it easy for me to summarize for those interested in the goings on in the 9th precinct. I encourage all to attend because there are free donuts.

1. The "press" was in attendance, so speakers would be called upon by initials, not names.

2. The "press" was actually the NYU student bloggers for the NY Times.

3. We were reprimanded for not attending the annual festivities thanking the police for their hard work, which was held on October 14, and commemorated in an extra large magnet.
4. The cop in charge of the domestic violence unit gave a brief update on what she does, in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness month. She said she responds to calls and refers women to shelters or agencies that can help them. Even though she was very vague, I participated in the only applause of the evening.

5. There was a complaint about Diablo Royale, the crowds, noise and violations of their agreement to not use the backyard after 11pm.

6. There was discussion about the bike lanes on 1st and 2nd Avenues. The police explained that they are distributing pamphlets and issuing summons to everybody who isn't following the rules.

7. There was a plea by residents who live next to Campos Plaza to find a way to get cameras installed due to the impression that youth crime is on the rise. The police said crime is down. Scott Stringer's office said they are working to end the moratorium on cameras in NYCHA.

8. I tried to tie together several disjointed thoughts I've been having that didn't quite come together in a cohesive statement. I tried to thread together these ideas: a cabaret unit in the precinct would better serve the community's nightlife issues, there is an upswell of emergency room visits by NYU students on weekend nights from alcohol poisoning (which I have no facts about, just hearsay from an emergency room doctor) which is a preventable emergency potentially clogging up our hospitals that can't handle it due to the closing of St. Vincent's, and a cop telling me to call 911 for a noise complaint that I made about excruciating amplified music coming from a rooftop party at 2am.

9. A guy from Avenue C went on and on about traffic patterns that create utter chaos. I think his point was that it all results in a lot of disturbing horn honking.