Ariola is the City Councilwoman for the 32nd District
By Joann Ariola
It’s been quite an eventful year up in City Hall, but I’m proud to tell you all that we’ve made some real progress in making New York a better place for everyone. We’ve worked to roll back mandates on public school students, helped push through legislation to improve fire safety protocols citywide, and next week we’ll be taking the final steps towards creating a brand-new Office of Marine Debris Removal, which will go a long way towards improving the quality of New York’s waterways.
As anyone who lives near or has visited Jamaica Bay knows well, marine debris has been a problem for decades. Derelict and abandoned boats litter shorelines, chunks of docks wash up on the sand, and large pieces of trash are a consistent blight. For the most part, there was no single point of contact regarding who to call to get rid of these things, and unless a local organization organized a cleanup they remained on the sand, becoming an eyesore. This new legislation that I am sponsoring alongside Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers would make that problem a thing of the past, and would create an office that’s directly responsible for cleaning these things up.
Even more than that, our legislation would also create a program that would enable boat owners to dispose of their boats without cost at city-organized drop points. This would provide boat owners with a readily-accessible alternative to abandoning their vessels, and will help to reduce the amount of boats being left to pollute our waters in the future.
This Monday, June 13, we’ll be looking to make that legislation a reality during the upcoming Committee on Resiliency and Waterfronts meeting. Those interested can watch the meeting live on the City Council’s website.
Moving over to our success in the fight against the vaccine mandates, my fellow colleagues on the NYC Council’s Common Sense Caucus and I were able to score a major victory after convincing the mayor to roll back restrictions on prom attendance. Since then, we’ve spoken to NYC Department of Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan about repealing restrictions on unvaccinated friends and family members at graduation ceremonies. We are still awaiting a final verdict on that, but we’re hopeful that Vasan and the mayor will allow families to be together during one of the most important milestones in the lives of our students. Hopefully, but the time this goes to print we will have good news.
I made a promise to my constituents to always fight for you – every one of you – and that’s exactly what I am doing. Stay tuned for our next editorial to see what else we’ll be up to this summer around District 32!
