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District 51

Joseph C. Borelli

Todt Hill-Emerson Hill-Lighthouse Hill-Manor Heights, New Springville-Willowbrook-Bulls Head-Travis, Freshkills Park (North), Oakwood-Richmondtown, Great Kills-Eltingville, Arden Heights-Rossville, Annadale-Huguenot-Prince's Bay-Woodrow, Tottenville-Charleston, Freshkills Park (South), Great Kills Park

Updated: Aug. 26, 2024, 12:08 a.m. | Published: Aug. 25, 2024, 5:50 a.m.

By Paul Liotta | pliotta@siadvance.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A City Planning Commission vote on a controversial housing plan looms on the horizon, but city officials offered no signs this week that they’re looking back.

Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that he had heard the feedback, including the overwhelming opposition from Staten Island, but his main goal is to get more housing built through the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” plan.

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Updated: Aug. 21, 2024, 2:31 p.m. | Published: Aug. 21, 2024, 12:33 p.m.

By Carol Ann Benanti | benanti@siadvance.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A dedicated NYFD firefighter, who was a loving father, husband, neighbor and friend, was memorialized Saturday during a street co-naming ceremony at the corner of Lyndale Avenue and Koch Boulevard in the South Shore town of Eltingville.

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Published: Aug. 20, 2024, 3:13 p.m.

By Priya Shahi | pshahi@siadvance.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – The Great Kills Veterans Memorial now bursts with color, featuring three large planters filled with vibrant flowers and neatly landscaped plants.

On Tuesday morning, Borough President Vito Fossella, Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore), and representatives from the South Shore Business Improvement District (BID) celebrated the completion of this beautification project.

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Published Aug. 17, 2024, 10:10 a.m. ET

By Rich Calder

Except in rare emergencies, NYC correction officers will no longer be allowed to use pepper spray to protect themselves or inmates on Rikers Island and other Big Apple jails, under a “reckless” new bill being considered by the City Council.

Far left Democratic Councilwoman Sandy Nurse’s legislation would require correction officers to first get authorization from tour commanders before firing “high-powered oleoresin capsicum sprays” — better known as pepper sprays – on out-of-control detainees.

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Published: Aug. 15, 2024, 1:30 p.m.

By Carol Ann Benanti | benanti@siadvance.com

Vito Picone, left and The Elegants. (Courtesy/Vito Picone) Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Borough President Vito Fossella’s “Sounds of Summer Concert Series,” a series of free musical events that round out each week from July to late August, is all set to unfold on Saturday, Aug.

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Published Aug. 13, 2024, 4:18 p.m. ET

By Carl Campanile

City Council members from every borough are urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to block a push by the state’s weed regulatory board to allow more licensed pot shops to open in neighborhoods across the Big Apple.

Nine members of the council’s “Common Sense” Caucus fired off a letter to Hochul on Monday decrying what critics call the state Cannabis Control Board’s half-baked idea to provide waivers for its current 1,000-foot buffer between legal cannabis shops — thus allowing two or more stores to sell weed on the same block.

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Published Aug. 10, 2024, 11:09 a.m. ET

By Matthew Sedacca and Georgia Worrell

They’re blowing up patriotism.

Drones should replace fireworks at the annual Macy’s Fourth of July show, according to a scientist and co-author of an explosive new study bashing the cherished holiday tradition as a public health concern.

“In the ideal situation, if we wanted to protect our health as best as possible, let’s replace fireworks with drones,” said David Luglio, a postdoctoral fellow at Tulane University who co-authored a new pollution study, published this week in the Journal of Exposure Science &

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Published Aug. 10, 2024, 1:13 p.m. ET

By Rich Calder

NYC Councilwoman Nantasha Williams is trying to drum up City Council support to back controversial legislation requiring police officers statewide to buy personal liability insurance to hold them more accountable for misconduct – a move the head of the Police Benevolent Association called a veiled attempt by the left to “Defund the Police.”

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Updated: Aug. 07, 2024, 2:02 p.m. | Published: Aug. 07, 2024, 5:50 a.m.

By Paul Liotta | pliotta@siadvance.com

CITY HALL — Mayor Eric Adams’ administration said Tuesday that hizzoner’s housing plan encompasses a broad set of initiatives, but much of it will rely on its most controversial portion.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) account for as many as 40,000 of the 110,000 new units to be built under Adams’ “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” proposed plan over 15 years, administration officials said Monday, but for Staten Island council members they’re a non-starter.

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Published Aug. 3, 2024, 11:03 a.m. ET

By Matthew Sedacca

Seven Staten Island pols are pressing Gov. Hochul to remove an MTA board member who recommended stripping the forgotten borough of its promised new railcars. 

The reps penned a letter to the governor excoriating the “outwardly hostile bias and callousness” of nonvoting MTA board member Norman Brown at a June committee meeting on the now-paused $15 congestion pricing tolling program.  

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