Christopher Leon Johnson testifies on Rockaway infrastructure and dedicated OEM unit
Chair Ariola introduces in-person public witness Christopher Leon Johnson. Johnson says he travels to and helps people in Rockaway and calls for more city, state, and federal funding for infrastructure like levees, better Broad Channel line resiliency, and a dedicated OEM unit for Rockaway because it is geographically isolated.
We do have one in-person public testimony.
How are you?
It's Christopher Leon Johnson.
You may begin when you're ready.
Hey, Joanne.
My name is Christopher Leon Johnson.
Thanks for having this hearing.
I travel to Rockaway a lot.
I help out a lot of people in Rockaway.
I think the issue here is that I think the city needs a lot of money from the city, from the mayor's office, the speaker's office, the state, and Gregory Meeks.
Hopefully, and I think with help of Gregory Meeks, I think Loric Gillen to get involved with that too, because I think you guys are like, but I'm not, I think.
Long Beach is like the sister to Rockaway Beach.
So I think you need a lot of funding.
I think that going forward, they need to push more for the levies, like the same stuff they put in by FDR Drive.
Y'all need the same stuff on the Rockaways.
I think that going forward, I think I need to work with the MTA to try to find a way to really put more resiliency on the Broad Channel line.
It's always a mess.
It's like they need to let people know what a band's like, when they're going to lift up the train bridge, because it gets kind of annoying sometimes when they lift up the train bridge and it's like, what are they lifting that train bridge up for?
And another thing going forward, I think that they need to dedicate, like, put like OEM unit in Rockaway.
Dedicate something only for Rockaway.
I think Rockaway is a
special area that needs special care because it's far out.
It's not even, it's in the city, but technically, unless like you drive through Nassau County, it's really not in the city.
It's like its own separate island to be exact, like Staten Island.
Okay.
Only to drive through the area, you got to go to Nassau County.
I think it's kind of stupid, but it just needs special care.
Going forward, I think y'all need to all get together in one room and say, look, we need to allocate money for more capital funding and like infrastructure to Rockaway.
So that's all I got to say.
Thank you so much and enjoy your day.
Thank you.
Very much appreciated.
Thank you.