By Adam Kramer
State Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens Village) is her own worst constituent. Whenever she sees something amiss in the community, she calls her office and tells them this or that needs to be taken care of and fixed.
Clark, who lives in Cambria Heights, has been representing a swath of southeast Queens and a section of northeast Queens in Albany as part of the borough’s 16-member delegation to the state Assembly for the past 15 years.
“I am probably the biggest complainer,” she said during an interview with the TimesLedger to discuss the needs of her 33rd Assembly District. “When I am out in the community, I’ll make between three and five calls to my office to get things fixed.”
Clark said she will call in to tell her office where there are holes in the street that need to be fixed, trees that hang over stop signs and garbage on the street.
Clark is running for re-election in 2002 and faces Republican Rolaine Antoine of Queens Village in the November election. There is no Democratic candidate opposing her.
“It is all about growing, caring and preserving the community where we live,” she said. “Preserving what I see as a comfortable community.”
She said some of the projects she is working on are improving the business districts, alleviating traffic problems, saving community gardens and getting the district’s public education back on track.
Elected in 1987, Clark — who has lived in the Cambria Heights for the past 31 year and raised her family there — is a member of the Children and Families, Education and Labor committees in the Assembly. Her district stretches from Queens Village to Hollis and from Cambria Heights to Bellerose. It also includes a sliver of St. Albans.
The main business arteries in Queens Village and Cambria Heights need to be improved, she said, to keep people in the area from spending their money in other communities. She said the streets should be beautified to attract a customer base, which involves cleaning windows, creating more parking and taking measures to keep streets uncluttered.
“I think people would stay here and shop if businesses had what they need,” Clark said. “Businesses do not locate here (in Queens Village or Cambria Heights) because they believe people will go to the mall to shop.”
It is difficult, she said, to draw businesses into black communities and southeast Queens is no different than other black neighborhood around the United States.
“The ability to capture money in our community is very difficult,” she said. “I don’t understand why a computer company does not locate here. There is the money and market.”
Transportation problems — street traffic and streets in disrepair — have affected the business community, she said, and need to be fixed.
She said she has more than $1 million in intermodal transportation funding to fix certain road problems in the area and $580,000 allocated for a transportation study. But said that it was only a start.
Clark hopes to allocate monies for work on the intersection at Francis Lewis Boulevard and 119th Avenue, efforts to reduce truck traffic on the avenues, installation of a light at Francis Lewis Boulevard and 120th Avenue, and measures to fix potholes and drainage problems.
In addition to the business districts and traffic problems, she said, School District 29 has been plagued by a lack of permanent leadership and poor performance on standardized reading as well as math tests. “Three years without a superintendent is a bad thing for the community,” Clark said. “But to appoint a superintendent who has not moved the district forward makes no sense. It is detrimental to the community.”
The school district has been in flux since Celestine Miller was fired in February 1999 by then-Chancellor Rudy Crew for not immediately reporting that an 8-year-old boy had brought a loaded gun to a Rosedale school. She was indicted in November 2000 on bid-rigging charges involving computer sales to schools under her control.
After Miller left, District 29 had an acting interim superintendent, but Levy suspended the school board, which was reinstated after District Administrator Michael Johnson arrived on the scene in early 2000.
Clark said the community and politicians had given Johnson a try at improving the district, which used to be ranked as high as No. 10 in the city’s school district rankings, but the educational numbers in the district have declined.
“Something is wrong with the picture that our schools are the worst in Queens,” she said. “There is a massive failure.”
Clark said the area covered by District 29 that stretches through southeast Queens is the richest or one of the richest black communities in the nation with the majority of residents holding college degrees even though the children are failing.
Some of the problems hurting the children, she said, are lack of experienced teachers, lack of paraprofessionals, outdated books and crowded classrooms.
She called for a surcharge based on a New York City resident’s income over the next five years to raise billions of dollars, which would alleviate those problems by spending that money on the students. The graduated surcharge, Clark said, would not be that high — $139 for a resident making $100,000 per year.
“I think all the children can do better than they are doing,” she said.
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
