downtown
TEMDER MUSCLES, P. 24
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VOLUME 24, NUMBER 26
express THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN
NOVEMBER 9 - 15, 2011
Peck Slip School expansion insufficient, says residents
Downtown Express photo by Milo Hess
Veteran folk rockers visit Zuccotti On Tuesday, Nov. 8, David Crosby (above) and Graham Nash brought their voices and musical talents to Zuccotti Park to support and promote the Occupy Wall Street encampment, now entering its eighth week.
O.W.S. adopts new decision-making model BY ALINE REYNOLDS As Occupy Wall Street enters its eighth week, members of the movement who continue to camp out in Zuccotti Park are testing out a new way to come together and make decisions. The O.W.S.’s new, consensus-based model, dubbed “Operational Spokes Council,” is meant to address the logistical needs of the park’s inhabitants that members say are being neglected by the nightly
General Assembly meetings. The Spokes Council, intended to be “non-hierarchical” and “directly democratic,” is supposed to facilitate discussions solely among “operational” working groups, or groups directly involved with the encampment at Zuccotti Park, according to a written proposal of the model posted on O.W.S.’s website. A talking point of several recent
O.W.S. meetings, the model was initially proposed in mid-October, after the nightly G.A. became too large and diffuse to meet day-to-day operational demands of the park. On Friday, Oct. 28, the Spokes Council was voted into implementation by the G.A. Gregory Schwedock, a member of
BY ALINE REYNOLDS Though Lower Manhattan parents rejoiced about last week’s announcement of the Peck Slip elementary school expansion, it is hardly proving to be a solution to school overcrowding Downtown. When Peck Slip opens in 2015, the neighborhood’s overall school capacity will be four years behind its demand, according to Eric Greenleaf, a professor of New York University’s Stern School of Business and an active member of NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s School Overcrowding Task Force. Not counting Peck Slip, Community District Two needs a total of approximately 1,200 new elementary school seats — the equivalent of twice the planned elementary capacity of P.S. 276 plus the Spruce Street School, according to Greenleaf’s latest overcrowding analysis. Greenleaf presented his startling calculations to Community Board 1’s Youth and Education Committee at
its Monday, Nov. 7 meeting. “You can go and overcrowd the schools in the Village, Chinatown and Chelsea, and it’s not going to get you anywhere close to 1,200 seats,” said Greenleaf, in light of a recent iteration of the city’s proposal to rezone School District Two. “What we’re seeing is the fastest growing part of Manhattan,” said Greenleaf. “What’s needed is more schools.” Greenleaf factored the district’s overall birth rate numbers into his enrollment projections, which according to his reports, rose by 27.6 percent between 2006 and 2009, and are likely to go up by 35 percent from 2006 to 2010. (The cityissued report on birth rates for last year, he noted, is due for release in the coming weeks). Greenleaf’s presentation seemed to test the nerves of Lorraine Grillo, the Department of Education’s School Construction Authority President, who attended the committee
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