Helen Sears ignores the needs of immigrant constituents in the "melting pot" of Queens: Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, Rego Park, Woodside, and Corona. She's also suspiciously silent about the homophobic smear campaign being waged against one of her opponents.
Video of empty and eerily silent Coronary Care Unit of St. John's Queens Hospital, after the hospital was closed earlier this year.
Where are we going to go, if we get sick ? And when the H1N1 flu strikes again this winter, it isn't going to look good, people.
Look at all the healthcare infrastructure, resources, and technology that are going to go to waste. What you don't see is all of the highly educated and trained medical staff -- what is happening to them, where are they going to work now ? So many people don't have access to healthcare, and here we are taking entire hospitals offline. OUT-rage !
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Councilwoman Helen Sears must surely have no sense of compassion or caring for the 2,000,000 people in Queens, who keep losing more and more hospitals, firehouses, and post offices.
In case anyone has forgotten, Helen Sears was among the members of the New York City Council, who voted themselves the ability to run for a third, consecutive term in office. Their act, made possible only by unscrupulously circumventing a public referendum on the matter -- and flying in the face of two past referenda -- revealed a conflict of interest. How can a municipal council make self-interested rules favoring their own re-election, when they know the historical advantage of incumbents returning to office ?
"Speaker Christine Quinn, who brought the mayor's bill to the floor, defended the extension of term limits by saying it was increasing voter choice."
""Make no mistake," said Speaker Quinn. "I believe that our great city will get through these challenges and emerge stronger than ever before. I also believe that in challenging times like these, the voters should have the choice — the choice to continue their current leadership. They should have the right to vote for the current mayor, or a new one, for their current City Council member, or a new one. That is exactly what is at stake today."
To listen to the entire WNYC radio report, please click on the mp3 player above.
"She betrayed the expressed will of the people and voted to extend term limits for herself." -- Source: You're a Disgrace, Helen Sears
#02 : Prejudice, hate, and homophobia are not important to Helen Sears
A spokesperson for councilwoman Sears had no comment about the sleazy homophobic smear campaign being waged against one of her politicial opponents.
#03 : Flashback to 2003
We just can't trust Helen Sears. Here's one reason why from NYC Council Watch :
"Lots of Democrats are in the pocket of real estate interests. But most of them pretend to be on the side of tenants when there is a really obvious, blatant issue at hand, especially one that impacts children’s health.
"And then there is Helen Sears. Quirky, cranky Helen Sears. The (now) octogenarian Queens Council member was one of two Dems to vote on the "other" (wrong) side of the lead paint bill when it came up, back in 2003."
Helen Sears' love of lead paint reminds me of a video I once saw on YouTube :
#04 : No hot dogs, pretzels, or roasted nuts ? Hey, lady, this is New York !!
Helen Sears opposes sidewalk Halal cart vendors, other food cart operators, and street vendors -- on the silver spoon notion that street vending hurts the economy. In reality, her advocacy is anti-immigrant and related to the race of the street vendors, who tend to be immigrants trying to make a decent, honest living in New York.
#05 : Helen Sears voted "YES" to the biggest property tax hike in New York City History !!
#06 : She calls herself a "former healthcare professional," maybe it's because there's a reason.
From Councilwoman Sears' official webpage :
"As a former healthcare professionall, Sears is particularly sensitive to healthcare issues, having served as Director of Government and Community Affairs for the Health and Hospitals Corporation at Elmhurst Medical Center. There she gained experience managing budgets and union negotiations. As a board member of the NYC Health Systems Agency, Sears played an important role in the expansion and modernization of citywide hospitals."
One has to question how has Sears used her "former" healthcare professional experience, when it has come to finding a solution to the dangerous overcrowded conditions at several Queens County hospital, especially following the bankruptcy and closing of St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst. Overflow patients are now flooding into Elmhurst hospital, among others. This redistribution of patients is resulting in dangerous overcrowding, decreasing response times, and increasing anxiety. How well can other hospitals be expected to perform if they are constantly over-crowded ? (Incidentally, on the link provided below, somebody commented that as a result of the hospital closings, "The community also lost 11 ambulances.")
Emergency room doctors at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center used to notice that patient volume followed a pattern each week - starting with a big uptick on Mondays and Tuesdays.
"And then it would sort of correct itself during the course of the week," said Dr. Geoffrey Doughlin, the hospital's chairman of emergency medicine.
But ever since two neighboring hospitals - Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica and St. John's Queens in Elmhurst - filed for bankruptcy in early February, that pattern has been thrown out of whack.
"The problem is that, in the last couple of weeks, it's not really correcting during the course of the week," Doughlin said.
As Queens residents began seeking new health care options as the bankrupt hospitals prepared to shut down, volume at Jamaica Hospital's ER began "trending upward in a very significant fashion," Doughlin said.
And things may get worse. Mary Immaculate and St. John's Queens were closed Sunday as part of the bankruptcy plan for embattled hospital operator Caritas Health Care.
Mary Immaculate used to have a trauma center. That means Jamaica Hospital, which also has a trauma center, will be forced to pick up much of the slack.
MORE REASONS TO FOLLOW SOON.Please feel free to leave comments, if you can think of other reasons why we should not elect Helen Sears to the New York City Council.
10. End the practise of politicians using gossip, gay-baiting, and homophobia in political campaigns. Somebody is engaging in a whisper campaign against Daniel Dromm, the leading challenger to Mrs. Sears. And Mrs. Sears' campaign is eerily and suspiciously silent about it, and thus far has not denounced such dirty political practises. She joins the company of such nasty political minds as Karl Rove with her lack of etiquette.
9. Less taxes. In 2002, Mrs. Sears voted for the largest property tax hike in New York City history. We need to elect a Democrat, who won't raise our taxes by 18.5% in one year.
8. A return to focusing on real problems. Mrs. Sears likes to distract everybody with unimportant issues like regulating/banning street vendors by fanning the flames of xenophobia, meanwhile, what we need in Queens is for city councilmembers to focus on noise, filth, illegal conversions, and developer abuse.
7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to her constituents and turning a deaf ear to them.
6. Lead Paint. In 2003, Mrs. Sears voted on the wrong side of a lead paint law. She cares not about environmental hazards that NYC residents are exposed to, because she's on the side of real estate interests.
5. Make Love, Not War. Mrs. Sears also did not support a resolution against going to war in Iraq.
4. End Cronyism. Over the course of her tenure, Mrs. Sears has paid over $100,000 out of her campaign funds to two of her sons and one of her daughters-in-law; we'll make no progress with restoring trust in government unless candidates themselves earn our trust to do the right thing.
3. Slush fund scandal. What did Helen Sears know, and when did she know it ?
2. Change. We need to bring about change in city government, and the only way to do that is to usher in the next generation of leaders.
... In 2008 [Helen Sears] voted to overturn term limits-no surprise that she herself was term-limited at that point. None of the other Council members who voted for it however complained that the opposition voices against it (namely the population at large) were “intimidating” her.
"I don't think my office has ever been so threatened, I don't think my phones have ever been so tied up” (AFP, 10/23/2008). One hopes that calls to one’s Councilperson’s office in support of twice-affirmed term limits will not be interpreted as “threats,” but clearly Ms. Sears feels differently.
