Last week, the Democrats running for office issued a press release with the title, “Democrats to Focus on Revitalization of Monument Park Neighborhood.” Their press release is a pathetic attempt by them to shift the public’s attention away from their shameful record on nearly everything they’ve touched, from the city’s finances, to tax increases, to out of control council meetings, to paying millions of taxpayer dollars for contaminated land, to a projected 2012 budget deficit of over $3.3 million! The Democrats, with an election right around the corner, want people to believe they can “revitalize” the Monument Park Neighborhood, an area where their abject neglect since they have been in office has lead to a steady deterioration in the quality of life for people who have lived there for many, many years.
Their claimed, “intent” to revitalize the city “block by block” is a painfully absurd sham when you look at the results they’ve produced since they assumed ultimate and unchallenged rule over Peekskill.
City Council candidate Barbara Kerasiotes said, “Ask people in the Orchard St. neighborhood what they think about the Democrats record since Mary Foster became Mayor and they’ll tell you about noise late into the night, prostitution, people loitering in the streets, the nuisance of heavy truck traffic and a crumbling infrastructure that had raw sewage bubbling into the basements of homes all along the street in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene. All of these issues have been brought to the attention of the City over and over, yet all that has happened is that things have gotten progressively worse.”
While walking the neighborhood with Ms. Kerasiotes, it became clear that homes in the neighborhood have been turned into illegal rooming houses where poor immigrants are exploited by warehousing them into structures never intended to hold so many people. City Council candidate, Steve Woods says, “This activity by predatory landlords creates conditions that place the health and safety of human beings at risk, to say nothing of the first responders who will inevitably have to go into one of these buildings someday to save a life while risking their own. People deserve to live in safe dwellings, not housed like cattle.”
City Council candidate, Joe Brady, witnessed first-hand the backyards that have been paved over and astro-turfed to support volleyball games where play goes on well into the night, destroying the quality of life for their neighbors. “And senior citizen homeowners, people who’ve lived in Peekskill all their lives, are afraid to confront this nightmare while the Foster Administration has done nothing but to pretend this attack on the neighborhood quality of life isn’t happening at all! So why do the Democrats suddenly want to talk about “neighborhood revitalization”?? Because after ignoring our neighborhoods since they have been in total control of city government, there is an election coming which to them means it is time to begin the game they play so well…say something the people may want to hear”,
Mayoral candidate Tony Washington said. “Peekskill can do better than this. Peekskill will be greater than this. All that we need is real leadership and competent leaders. Peekskill needs leaders who are focused on bringing the city’s neighborhoods back to the friendly, clean, safe places they used to be. When elected, my running mates and I promise that there will be no smoke and mirrors. We will institute a city wide Peekskill Neighborhood Preservation Program (PNPP) that among other things will include comprehensive code enforcement to ensure that our citizens are living in safe housing. In addition, the PNPP will have our city’s public safety agencies dedicate resources to work closely with interested citizens in order to secure a legal, safe and peaceful quality of life in every neighborhood in the City.
The right leaders to guide Peekskill into the future are TONY’s TEAM: Mayoral candidate Tony Washington and City Council candidates Joe Brady, Barbara Kerasiotes and Steve Woods.
