Making Red Hook Better, by George Fiala

There are more than 3400 local governments in New York State. The state population is about 20 million, which means one body of government for every 6,000 residents.

Red Hook has twice as many people, but not much in the way of local government. Our councilman has Sunset Park to worry about, which is much larger than we are. Our community board seems more involved with the concerns of its other constituents, Park Slope and Cobble Hill.

Without any official kind of representation, we are left with a plethora of ad-hoc organizations, representing interests of small sub-communities.

Resilient Red Hook is worried about the climate. NYCHA tenants are represented by two tiny groups that talk mostly to the friends of the two presidents. There are two separate police entities, the 76th precinct, and the housing cops, each of which hold separate meetings. The businesses are represented, only virtually, by a fairly inactive Facebook group.

In addition we have separate fiefdoms operated by Good Shepherd, Red Hook Initiative, the Parks Department and others who all hold occasional meetings.

With all these groups holding all these meetings at various times of the month, it is no wonder that the meetings that we go to are so often underattended. To me, it seems that rather than being underserved, Red Hookers are overwhelmed, with all the people who are seeking to do us good, or at least comply with their grant funding.

It’s my opinion that Red Hookers would be much better served by one overarching “super-organization,” that would hold one meeting a month where all important topics would be discussed and voted on if necessary.

Such a clearing house would bring together the best of all of us, all at one time. We would all have the same information, and those wanting to tackle particular items could form sub-committees to do so.

For this to work, we’d need to come up with some sort of budget.

Other communities form Business Improvement Districts (BID), which allows local businesses to be taxed a bit more, with all the extra money going for improvements to streets which for some reason the city doesn’t do.

Why not create a Government Improvement District (GID), and allow a slight assessment to fund a paid Red Hook Supervisor, as well as a small office.

Then we would have at least one well trained professional working every day for our interests. The office could include something else we sorely need, a local Chamber of Commerce which would cater to the needs of the thousands of tourists who visit us every summer and provide local businesses with some extra cash.

That office could also be a repository for something else needed by our historic community, its own Historical Society, or at least a repository for unique documents that might otherwise get thrown in dumpsters as our old-timers move on.

What I envision is a four hour meeting once a month at a venue such as Pioneer Works, which has plenty of room, is centrally located, and can offer professional audio-visual services.

Each meeting would provide an excellent opportunity for other branches of government to send representatives to find out what’s going on here.

We would expect our councilman, the CB6 District Manager, a top-level NYCHA person, and representatives from city organizations handling things like streets, resiliency and infrastructure, to be there.

The GID would provide for two-way communication between people who live here and people who want to tell us things.

If we are going to be lobbied by advocates of things such as trolley cars, nursing homes and bicycle paths, let them lobby us all together, not try to divide us up to suit their own particular needs.

gbrook@pipeline.com