Community Board 6 Loses It's Vice-Chairman

The Brooklyn Eagle is reporting that Community Board 6's Vice Chairman, Ray Lohler, is being appointed by President Obama to be a judge, which, as you can imagine, is a "Godfather" offer.

"In February, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer announced that he was recommending Lohier to fill the vacancy, which was created when Hon. Sonia Sotomayor left to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lohier, a federal prosecutor and attorney, serves as the first vice-chairman of Brooklyn’s Community Board 6, which represents Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia Street District, Gowanus, Park Slope and Red Hook.

On Wednesday, Obama made Lohier’s nomination official, as well as nominating Ohio federal Judge Kate O’Malley to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."
Image from Brooklyn Eagle.

Superfund Designation Still Eyed Warily by Some

The hits just keep on coming. From the Brooklyn Eagle:

"Dolly Williams, a former member of the City Planning Commission, told an overflow crowd at a public meeting last week that a potential deal fell through because of the stigma associated with the designation, which will trigger a $500 million federally overseen cleanup of the polluted canal.

“I just lost the sale. It’s because of Superfund,” said Williams, co-founder of A. Williams Construction, a general contracting firm based on Third Avenue.

She said the prospective buyer of a property on Ninth Street read about the designation, and was suddenly “no longer interested.”

Williams said a depressed real market has people already adopting a “wait and see” attitude. But the designation is going to make buyers even more cautious, she warned, making it difficult for people like Williams who, she said, “work and create [to] jump start the economy.”"

As my old boss would have said "too bad, so sad". Our economic problems are a little deeper than the Gowanus.