(Washington, DC) - U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens/L.I.) today obtained millions of dollars for numerous projects in Queens and Long Island. Ackerman secured the funds in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill which passed the House late last night. The measure is expected to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by President Bush later this week.

The dollar amounts and details of the projects include the following:

$245,000: Creation of a Quiet Zone at the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) crossing in Little Neck, Queens.

These funds would help silence blaring horns the LIRR is required to blast each time its trains pass through the residential community of Little Neck, Queens.

The money would be used to upgrade the gates at the LIRR crossing on Little Neck Parkway in Little Neck, a spot that sees more than 80 trains per day, each one blasting its horns day and night. Specifically, the money would help close the gaps that exist in the gates.

Due to these gaps—which vehicles and people can easily squeeze through—the trains are mandated by federal rules to sound their horns when approaching the crossing in order to warn traffic and pedestrians. But once the gaps are eliminated, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) can classify the Little Neck crossing as a quiet zone, a designation that allows trains to pass through a crossing without blasting their horns because sufficient safety measures are in-place. 

In 2005, the federal government began requiring all trains to blow their horns at crossings where inadequate safety measures exist. These passing trains must blast their horns at high decibels for 15 to 20 seconds prior to arriving at the crossing.

The $245,000 is nearly double the amount Ackerman originally secured in the bill.

$147,000: The Louis Armstrong House, a museum in Corona,   Queens – construction of a visitor’s center.

The Louis Armstrong House Museum will use these funds to help construct a much-needed visitor’s center. The house, which opened as a museum in October 2003, is the former home of the late Louis Armstrong, the legendary jazz musician. It is operated by the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Queens College. This visitor’s center will house expansions to the Armstrong Archives, accommodate artifacts in a modern, professional exhibit area and include parking facilities. 

The visitor’s center will allow the facility to better present concerts, educational lectures and historically significant community programs. It will also continue to provide the public with the unique opportunity to view Louis Armstrong’s vast personal collection of tapes, manuscripts, scrapbooks and papers.

The funding will enhance the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s ability to better serve and educate the public. The museum is a popular destination for school trips and is also frequented by college students conducting research. The construction of a visitor’s center to the Louis Armstrong House Museum would afford the museum the ability to display historic artifacts professionally and enhance visitors’ experiences in the museum with multimedia and special programming. The center will also help foster international, regional and local tourism in Queens and result in a positive economic impact for the Corona community. Additional funds are also being sought from the private sector.

Armstrong died of a heart attack in 1971 at the age of 69. He resided at the house at the time of his death. The facility is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark. 

$477,000: The Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, New York (serving Queens & Nassau County). 

The Zucker Hillside Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Glen Oaks, Queens that also serves Nassau County, known for its pioneering work in diagnosis, treatment and research of mental illness, will receive a grant of $477,000 to install a pneumatic tube system. As a part of the North Shore Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System, Zucker will use the tube system to speed the movement of laboratory specimens and medicines back and forth from their tertiary hospital lab, a practice considered a basic standard of care in most medical facilities. 

The pneumatic tube system will enhance patient safety and clinical efficiency through the significant reduction of waiting time for important laboratory reports and delivery of medications to physicians and patients. The funds for the project will be administered through the Department of Health and Human Services.

$334,000: Queens Theater in the Park, located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens – immigrant & juvenile offender programs for Queens and Nassau County youth.

Queens Theater in the Park, one of New York City's most dynamic cultural institutions will be the recipient of two separate funding awards: $146,000 to implement a program entitled "Immigrant Expressions" and $188,000 to assist juvenile offenders.

The "Immigrant Expressions" program will provide immigrant youth with career planning and development by giving them the opportunity to experience and participate in live performing arts productions. The program will offer free access for immigrant youth to performing arts vocational training experiences, educational programs, creative learning activities and workshops that will enhance their understanding of different employment elements of the performing arts industry.

Queens Theatre in the Park’s second funding item, the Theatrical Interventions for Juvenile Offenders program, provides an effective alternative for juveniles (junior and high school students) who are in New York City’s Department of Probation and Nassau County’s Probation Department systems. Queens Theatre in the Park will provide these high-risk youth with career alternatives, creative and expressive experiences and live performing arts activities. The interactive workshops will introduce youth to the performing arts and provide opportunities to create their own works of art through playwriting, spoken word and acting exercises. These youth will also be introduced to the many careers in the performing arts through mentoring sessions with playwrights, actors and directors and sound and lighting designers. The students and their parents/guardians will also benefit from participation in live professional performing arts activities.
Queens Theatre in the Park is also seeking funds for this initiative through the private sector. 

$197,000: Town of North Hempstead (on Long Island) – Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration for Manhasset Bay & Hempstead Harbor.

This funding will support feasibility studies, design and engineering for two Army Corps of Engineer projects already begun at Hempstead Harbor and Manhasset Bay. The project, launched more than five years ago but stalled due to insufficient funding, is critical to addressing the water quality and badly-silted condition of these Long Island Sound embayments.      

This project is critical to the quality of the Long Island Sound. The Long Island Sound is a national resource impacting millions of people. The two embayments in North Hempstead on the Sound are both designated as nationally significant estuarine habitats. Without work by the Corps of Engineers, Manhasset Bay may soon become impassable and environmentally unsound from sediment buildup. After decades of degradation to these waters from urban development, North Hempstead is working in partnership with every level of government to implement best practices for the protection of the water quality, habitats, quality of life, and the economic assets of these bays.

$329,000: Tilles Center for the Arts on Long Island – Arts for At-Risk Youth

The Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, located on the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, will use these funds for the continuation of the Arts for At-Risk Youth Program. These additional funds will allow the Tilles Center School Partnership Program to significantly increase the scope of its services to at-risk youth on Long Island. The Tilles Center plans to develop and implement three new initiatives: an academic model for targeting after-school and community-based enrichment programs serving at-risk youth; on-site professional training for educators in current partner schools serving at-risk students; and a research component for the program that will assess its effects according to established standards in the academic field of education.

Many communities on Long Island currently run after-school programs directed toward at-risk populations. The Tilles Center will continue to solicit and identify interested partners among these communities in order to extend arts education efforts to kids at risk of entering the juvenile justice system. The structure of these initiatives will be based on a current and effective partnership model. This model provides structured arts experiences, such as hands-on workshops led by professional artists, which culminate in attendance at Tilles Center performances. 

$ 62,747,000: United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point on Long Island

These funds will go towards operations and maintenance as well as capital renovations for the United States Merchant Marine Academy, one of the nation’s five U.S. Service Academies (in addition to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London). 

The money will maintain this vital national educational program and economic and national security asset. The funds will be spent for a multi-year capital renovation program based on a Congressionally mandated "Master Plan." The Master Plan recognizes the academy's critical mission and its pressing need for capital improvements. Specifically, the plan calls for approximately $250 million in renovations to be undertaken over a twenty year period.  

Repairing the academy's aging facilities and infrastructure, by providing support for desperately needed building renovations will enable Kings Point to fulfill its mandate.
 
This year’s allocation for the academy is $1 million more than Ackerman secured last year and builds on years of full funding for Kings Point that Ackerman has championed.

The money will also fund legislatively mandated cost of living increases for academy faculty and staff. 

Kings Point's mission is to train young men and women to serve and to lead in our merchant marine, armed forces and transportation fields. 

$329,000: EAC Offender Treatment Alternatives – Support of Treatment Alternatives for Offenders in Queens
           
Education and Assistance Corp (EAC, Inc.) will use these funds to expand criminal justice services in Queens. Through the Queens Treatment Alternatives for Safer Communities (TASC) Program, EAC provides a cost effective, responsible alternative to expensive and ineffective incarceration, saving taxpayers more than $20 million last year alone. TASC carefully matches offenders to the most appropriate treatment program and monitors that offender’s progress during treatment for the Court. Over the last 15 years, TASC has established a reputation in New York City for working successfully within the criminal justice system. In the counties where it operates, TASC has established strong ties of trust with the courts and has been recognized as the case management arm of the District Attorney’s Office in Queens and other boroughs.

Queens TASC has been providing the screening, assessment, placement and case management/monitoring for the Queens Felony Treatment Court since its inception in May 1998.  For the last three years, that Court has been recognized statewide by the Office of Court Administration as the Treatment Court with the highest success rate in the State of New York. In calendar year 2005, 90% of its 134 participants successfully graduated from the program. In the Queens Drug Treatment to Prison program, Queens TASC handles all case management with success rates in calendar year 2006 in excess of 80%.

Despite the acknowledgments within the criminal justice system of the value of this program, limited funding prevents TASC from expanding the program, particularly in the mental health area. U.S. jails and prisons are the nation’s largest provider of mental health services. It is estimated that at least 15% of the criminal justice population is seriously, and persistently, mentally ill. EAC has been doing groundbreaking work in this area, and a modest pilot program has enabled EAC to take on a small caseload with more than 70% of the caseload successfully completing TASC in 2006.  Additional funding will enable service for 200 more clients in the coming year.

-----------------

"Many organizations contacted my office to explore the prospects for receiving federal funds and I had to tell them that the old Republican pork-barrel has been literally cut in half by the new Democratic Congress" said Ackerman. "And on top of the 50 percent reduction in earmarks, there is an unprecedented level of scrutiny, new disclosure rules and new ethics requirements that I fully support even though these changes make it harder to bring federal dollars back to the district. Nevertheless, I'm very proud to have secured some important projects to help meet some of our community's particular needs."

The Omnibus Appropriations Bill is a compilation of several spending bills. These include the Energy and Water bill; Labor, Health & Human Services and Education bill; Commerce, Justice and Science bill and the Transportation, Treasury & Housing and Urban Development bill.

###

Return to Gary's Homepage