Last night, NAG had a packed house at its town hall organizing meeting. The meeting drew about 150 area residents to hear about and discuss the critical issues facing Williamsburg and Greenpoint. In the latter part of the meeting, the crowd was broken up into groups to brainstorm about the issues they would like to NAG tackle in the coming year and beyond. Interestingly, the big ticket issues – affordable housing, parks and open space, industrial retention and development – took a back seat to issues that have a more direct impact on people’s day-to-day lives. Which is not to say that these larger issues weren’t issues – housing, construction, and open space all came up – they just manifested themselves in different ways. The most commonly cited issues were related to community preservation, infrastructure and quality of life.
As promised, we all got to leave in time to watch Frances McDormond reprise her Academy award winning role in last night’s vice presidential debate. You betcha.