The Oil Drum

Today was a good day for local produce and community development. The new greenmarket at St. Stephen's church brought together all the local elected officials in including Councilmember Jessica Lappin and Borough President Scott Stringer as well as the Father Angelo of St. Stephen (pictured above) and many folks from the local community board.

The Upper Green Side has a quick post about it up. It was great to see so many people talking, sharing recipes, bringing their dogs and children with them to shop.

And the crowds were bigger than expected because of the big outreach effort we did over the past two weeks.

I had the honor of being the last speaker to address the BP himself before he turned things over to his deputy. Full text of my speech below.

Personally, the public official that I am most excited about is the new Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer. While the Borough President's office is not as powerful as it used to be prior to the new city charter which disolved the Board of Estimate and empowered the City Council, it still has an important role on land use issues. As a result, it is often hard or impossible for any type of development to occur against the will of the borough president.

And Mr. Stringer has so far been very forward thinking on environmental and transportation issues, as he is in favor of making the Central Park Loop Car Free, Bus Rapid Transit, Green Buildings and creating more access to the waterfront with bike trails.

I hope he lives up to all these promises and can make these happen for Manhattan.