Two Park Slope residents won an Oscar this week for their short documentary Freeheld. Directed by Cynthia Wade and produced by Vanessa Roth, the film reports the struggle that Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester faced trying to transfer her pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree. Hester was a 25-year veteran of the Ocean County, N.J., police force when she found out she had terminal cancer.
Yesterday’s NY Daily News included several pages of properties with city liens against them. What was different about this set is that many of the properties are there for unpaid water bills.
Apparently, about 18 percent of the city’s water customers don’t pay their bills. And that’s no drop in the bucket; collectively they owe some $600 million.
A new law, signed early this year, lets the city impose liens that can be sold to collection agencies. As a last resort, those agencies can foreclose on a deadbeat's property for unpaid bills.
"What was going on for a long time was similar to four people going out to dinner, and one of the four people then goes to the men's room or ladies' room and never comes back. So what that meant is that the three that were left were left with the bill for the fourth person," said Councilman James Vacca of the Bronx.
Owners of single-family homes don’t face the new lien approach nor do those who get tax exemptions for seniors, the disabled and the poor.
Curious about the future of the Gowanus Canal area? The blog Curbed has renderings and maps of a development planned by the Toll Brothers. The project, aimed to open in 2011, has a ways to go, including securing city approval.
And Brownstoner has photos of buildings now occupying the Toll Brothers’ target area.
Union Hall's prohibition of strollers attracted the attention of the New York Times. But the Grey Lady got it wrong. The watering hole had already declared a truce with Park Slope parents, offering to open for strollers during some afternoon hours.
Here's the Times story if you missed it.
According to a story on Fox News, a real estate agent in England was showing some would-be buyers a house when he discovered a body inside a closet. The body in question turned out to be the former owner, whose son had inherited the property.
"The buyers were shocked as well. But we exposed as few people as possible to the body," said the agent.
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