By Albert Baldeo

Our fight to secure and complete the only subway elevator in the Richmond Hill/ Ozone Park community has been won, and it is now working! Thanks to all, including the Daily News, the West Indian, Caribbean Life, Queens Chronicle, Times Ledger, Kaieteur News, NY Guyana Chronicle, The Indian Panorama, Stabroek News, Guyana Times, and other media for publishing our petitions and public appeals to deliver and complete this important asset in our community-an absolute necessity for seniors, the physically challenged, babies, kids and pregnant mothers.

This $29 million project, commenced since 2014, was scheduled to be finished since the end of 2016, but excuses have abounded each time we enquired about the completion date. Anyway, better late than never! The MTA must be reminded that prompt and proper maintenance is a necessary component of public transportation and services.

We also wish to remind the Mayor to deliver on his promises to increase the amount of senior centers, deliver better schools, hospitals, city services and personnel, transparency in how benefits are awarded in our neighborhood, and to stop the over criminalization of New Yorkers-like stop making criminals of poor people who cannot afford the fare to travel to work on the trains-while transforming this city into a beacon that is in solidarity with the poor and working-class. He must also audit and scrutinize the many failing city agencies that routinely waste and abuse our tax dollars, while preserving New York as a “sanctuary city.”

(Albert Baldeo is a civil rights activist and community advocate, and his political battles placed previously ignored minority communities like Richmond Hill and Ozone Park firmly on the political and economic map. As the President of the Baldeo Foundation and Queens Justice Center, he has continued to fight for equal rights, dignity and inclusion in the decision-making process. He can be contacted at the Baldeo Foundation: AlBaldeo@aol.com or (718) 529-2300).