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Editorial A backroom deal in a political clubhouse? Sounds like a cliché. But as we report in this issue, several Bronx members of the state Assembly met with Department of Environmental Protection commissioner Chris Ward at Democratic party headquarters in Westchester Square last week to discuss putting a filtration plant in the Norwood section of Van Cortlandt Park. There are many problems with this, but there are a few big ones. The first is that local park and community advocates, active on this issue for the past decade, have not been consulted, even though they have tremendous concerns about how the project would affect residents' health, particularly those with asthma. Building in the park would also go against the wishes of Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who represents Van Cortlandt Park -- a blow to usual collegial protocol. The politicians who are ready to go along with the city on this will have zero credibility the next time they complain about a disruptive city project slated for their community. A more obvious problem is the message it sends to Bronx residents when critical community issues are discussed in political clubhouses instead of with the people who will be most affected by their decisions. This site, which borders a densely populated area of Norwood, is the wrong place for a project of this magnitude. Luckily, there are many obstacles in the city's path, including the resoluteness of Norwood residents and park advocates who vow to fight until the end. It's also not too late for Bronx Democrats to change their mind and admit that they made a mistake. An Idea Whose Time Has Gone And you might say that car alarms are the perfect quality-of-life issue, because New Yorkers, regardless of income bracket, zip code, and skin color, all despise the darn things. So, it's a little odd this hasn't become a hot political issue yet. Maybe it's because graffiti and litter are not promoted and protected by a legal industry. But even the usual vagaries of political life, where special interests often trump popular opinion, should be no match for the popular will of eight million angry New Yorkers. Luckily, a real fight to ban car alarms may have finally begun. A new report issued by Transportation Alternatives, the cycling advocacy group, called "Alarming Useless: The Case for Banning Car Alarms in New York City," documents what most New Yorkers intuitively understand about car alarms: They don't work. Studies have shown no difference between the theft of cars with car alarms and those without them. And everyone knows no one ever calls the cops when they hear a car alarm go off. There are alternatives. Brake locks are cheap and tough to defeat. And the report points out that "Personal car alarm pagers buzz a vehicle's owner when a car is disturbed rather than annoying an entire neighborhood." Car alarms are a public health hazard. Kids have trouble concentrating when exposed to the type of noise the alarms produce. Such noise has also been linked to cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal illnesses in adults. The trick now is to get a bill banning alarms out of the City Council's Environmental Protection Committee, where it has languished since 2000. Tough decisions necessitated by the city's severe budget crisis are certainly not going to help the quality of life in city neighborhoods. But banning car alarms won't cost the city a red cent. In fact, in terms of the health and productivity of its citizens, it could even save the city money. We urge our City Council representatives to seriously consider a ban on car alarms. For the full TA report, go to www.transalt.org.
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