user: City and Federal Officials to Manage Jamaica Bay

Mylan Cannon/The New York Times

The city and the National Park Service will work together to plan restoration projects for over 10,000 acres of parkland.

New York City and the National Park Service formalized a partnership on Tuesday to jointly manage more than 10,000 acres of parkland in and around Jamaica Bay, which stretches across south Brooklyn to Queens.

Under the agreement, city and federal officials will for the first time work together to improve access, foster research, run education and recreation programs and plan restoration projects for the bay, which is an important estuary and a migratory stopover for hundreds of species of birds. The move followed an announcement last fall that sketched out the vision for such a partnership.

“The United States and New York City have joined forces to establish a single seamless park that is readily accessible to New Yorkers,” said Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, who, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, signed the agreement at a news conference at City Hall.

Jamaica Bay is an unusual patchwork of private, city, state and federal lands. City parks in the bay area total 3,300 acres and include Canarsie, Idlewild, Marine, Paerdegat Basin and Spring Creek Parks, as well as Rockaway Beach. The federal holdings, which span 7,300 acres, include Floyd Bennett Field, Fort Tilden, Jacob Riis Park, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and a smattering of salt-marsh islands, all making up part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.

The announcement came after years of efforts, sometimes sputtering, by environmental advocates, city officials and nonprofit groups to protect the bay. Intensive development, industry, sewage treatment plants and Kennedy International Airport have all hampered water quality and caused erosion. But last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council signed an agreement with state and city officials that would cut in half the amount of nitrogen discharged into the bay from four treatment plants, improving the health of the bay.

The new partnership also calls for the creation of a conservancy or friends group dedicated to the bay, to encourage philanthropy. Similar conservancies have helped other large parks in New York City, including Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, find new streams of revenue, but they tend to be in affluent neighborhoods. Given that the bay is ringed by largely working- and middle-class communities, however, it is uncertain how successful that effort will be.

Mr. Bloomberg said he had appointed a task force to make recommendations for the friends group, and named Thomas F. Secunda, one of the founders of Bloomberg L.P., as its chairman. The fund-raising group will most likely be modeled on the Park Service’s most successful friends group, at Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco.

In addition, the partners will invite proposals from academic and science-based institutions for a new research program — and potentially a new science center — that will focus on the bay’s restoration. The Park Service and the mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability released a “request for expressions of interest” on Tuesday; responses are due in early November. The Rockefeller Foundation also committed $1.5 million to establish such a center, which would study the resilience of coastal environments in the face of climate change. Last fall, the foundation pledged $250,000 to develop a Jamaica Bay parks master plan.

“This historic partnership,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “will improve our city’s great natural treasure — Jamaica Bay — by creating restored, resilient natural landscapes, more outdoor recreation, new and cutting-edge research collaborations, and an improved, sustainable transportation framework.

“This is an important example of the great things that can happen when different levels of government work together.”

Summary: New York City and the National Park Service will work together to improve access and plan restoration projects for more than 10,000 acres of parkland.


School stabbing suspect allegedly triggers bomb scare at hospital

A bomb scare Friday night at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood was due to a threat made by a man who had been arrested on suspicion of stabbing his estranged 17-year-old girlfriend to death at South East High School in South Gate earlier that morning, sheriff's officials said.

The suspect, Abraham Lopez, 18, a senior at the school, claimed during questioning by detectives that he had placed explosives at various locations, including the parking structure of the hospital where the girl was taken after the attack, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department report.

An arson and explosives team was sent to the locations he identified, including the hospital parking structure, and found no suspicious devices, according to the report.

Coroner’s officials have not released the name of the girl who died. Lopez has been charged with murder in her death.

The attack occurred shortly before 11 a.m. as lunchtime was beginning at the high school at 2720 Tweedy Blvd.

According to the report, Lopez began hitting the girl, then fell on top of her and began stabbing her. A student, a school dean and school police officer stepped in to stop the attack. The student and dean were cut and the police officer suffered an injured back, authorities said. All were treated at area hospitals.

Girl fatally stabbed at South Gate high school

Photos: Stabbing at South Gate high school

Football player who broke up high school stabbing identified

Photo: Los Angeles School Police look at photos from surveillance cameras after a stabbing on the campus of South East High School. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Summary:

assistant: A bomb scare Friday night at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood was due to a threat made by a man  who had been arrested on suspicion of stabbing his girlfriend to death at South East High School in South Gate earlier that morning, sheriff's officials said.