Queens Chronicle

FDNY Engine 308 celebrated its centennial on Oct. 30, marking 100 years of responding to emergencies and protecting the South Richmond Hill community. 

The celebration, held at the firehouse at 107-12 Lefferts Blvd., brought together current and former FDNY members, as well as their family and friends, to recognize the milestone. 

Capt. Kevin Smith of Engine 308 served as the master of ceremonies, welcoming attendees and introducing speakers, including the FDNY’s Queens borough commander, Assistant Chief Joseph Schiralli.

“We are here to celebrate a milestone that very few institutions ever achieve: one hundred years of unbroken, dedicated service to the City of New York,” Schiralli said.

An Ozone Park native who grew up down the road from the firehouse, Schiralli acknowledged the company's importance to the neighborhood.

“I know exactly what this firehouse means to this community,” he said. “For one century, when the tones go off on Lefferts Boulevard, the response has been the same — immediate, professional and completely selfless.”

Schiralli noted that while the neighborhood has changed over the decades, the character and dedication of its firefighters have remained consistent.

“Throughout Engine 308’s 100 years, the faces may have changed, the equipment has evolved and the challenges have grown more complex. But the mission has remained the same: to protect life, to preserve property and serve the people of this great city,” he said.

City Councilmember Ty Hankerson (D-Jamaica) and Phyllis Inserillo, chief of staff for Councilmember Joann Ariola (R-Howard Beach), also attended the celebration. The two presented Engine 308 with a proclamation recognizing its 100 years of service.

Healthy living was on the menu at Stop & Shop in Rockaway, where residents gathered Oct. 30 for a free community health and wellness fair packed with resources, activities and a little friendly competition. 

The event, at 70-20 Rockaway Beach Blvd., brought together area businesses and organizations offering health services, nutrition advice and information about community resources, along with plenty of family friendly fun. 

Participating organizations included Food Bank For NYC, Healthfirst, LiveOnNY, Rockaway YMCA and the Joseph P. Addabbo Family Health Center. Guests enjoyed music, children’s crafts, prizes and opportunities to learn more about healthy living. 

Stop & Shop registered dietitians offered nutritional guidance and hosted a “Spin to Win” table featuring giveaways and coupons. Pharmacists were also on hand to administer vaccinations, and the first 100 visitors received bags of healthy food. For more information about Stop & Shop’s Registered Dietitian services, one may visit stopandshop.com/nutrition.

“Our goal is to create a welcoming, family-friendly environment where individuals and families can connect with valuable resources and gain the knowledge and tools they need to make healthier choices every day,” said Tina McGeough, a Stop & Shop dietitian.

The fair also highlighted food insecurity across Queens, where more than 360,000 residents, or 15.5 percent of the borough's population, struggle to access enough food, according to Food Bank For NYC.

Janis Robinson, Food Bank For NYC’s vice president of institutions and partnerships, said collaborations such as the one with Stop & Shop help families access nutritious food, health resources and essential services.

“Strong partnerships are at the heart of lasting community impact,” Robinson said. “We’re proud to support this effort and work alongside a partner dedicated to strengthening local communities.”

A Queens grand jury has handed up a 40-count indictment of a Nassau County man for an alleged apartment rental scam that reportedly included seven properties in Queens and one in Brooklyn.

According to the office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, Rajat Verma, 35, of Franklin Square, LI, allegedly rented apartments by providing forged checks to landlords and, in turn, rented out the same properties to numerous unsuspecting tenants, duping them out of $61,625 in security deposits and other payments.

“As alleged, this defendant took advantage of those seeking housing by purporting to be a real estate agent and renting out properties that did not belong to him,” Katz said in her statement. “The unsuspecting tenants gave him payments and signed phony leases that left them without their money and housing.”

Katz asked that anyone who suspects he or she may have been taken advantage of by Verma contact her Consumer Fraud Helpline at (718) 286-6673.

Verma was charged with first- and second-degree scheme to defraud; seven counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument; 13 counts of third-degree criminal possession of stolen property: 12 counts of third-degree grand larceny; two counts of first-degree identity theft; two counts of fourth-degree grand larceny; and two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property.

Queens State Supreme Court Justice Leigh Cheng ordered him to return to court Nov. 23. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.

The charges state that the alleged scheme took place from Sept. 23, 2022, to Nov. 24, 2023. Verma is accused of posing as a tenant seeking apartments from small landlords in Glen Oaks, Rego Park, College Point, Ozone Park, Hollis, Maspeth and Brooklyn. 

He allegedly gave the landlords forged checks and then received keys to the properties. During the next several days, as the landlords waited for the checks to clear, Verma reportedly advertised the properties for rent online. He allegedly used different aliases, phone numbers and email addresses.

Prospective tenants who wanted the apartments allegedly provided Verma with payments that often amounted to thousands of dollars. Some received keys to their new homes only to find out the keys did not work. In one instance, a tenant arrived at an apartment to find another family, also allegedly duped by Verma, living there.

Verma is accused of used the aliases Rajvinder Kaur, Rajib “Raj” Sharma, Sammy Miah, Berihai “Barry” Padmanabhan, Barry Padmanabhan, Barry Padman, Bobby Gupta, Dave Mair, Ahmed Abbas, Samir, and Abbas Mithun.

The DA alleges that he defrauded at least 15 people during the yearlong scam.

Fourteen months after the second and final phase of the Queens Bus Redesign went into effect, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was calling it a win at its board meeting on Monday.

The agency, in a press release following the meeting, said Queens local buses are faster and more reliable, with new routes, extended routes and adjusted routes getting people to neighborhoods and key destinations quicker.

“The Queens Bus Network Redesign is delivering on the promises of faster buses, greater reliability and increased access to jobs, education and more for the City’s most bus reliant borough,” said NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow. “These improvements are the result of years of community input to ensure a bus network for the modern era.”

“Thanks to the redesign, Queens riders are spending less time waiting for the bus and less time on the bus which amounts to real times savings for New Yorkers,” said NYC Transit Executive Vice President of Buses Frank Farrell.

The MTA said overal Queens local buses are traveling 1.7 percent faster on weekdays. Off-peak speeds increased 1.9 percent. Rush routes have seen an average 4.6 percent increase.

“Citywide 24 out of 25 routes with the greatest speed increases from Spring 2025 to Spring 2026 occurred in Queens, the agency said.

The original planning and outreach on the redesign took place before the Covid pandemic struck in 2020. Public feedback that had been accumulated up to that time led the MTA to incorporate major changes.

Phase 1 went into effect on June 29, 2025, with phase 2 kicking in two months later on Aug. 31.

The MTA said Monday that since the rollout 124,000 more Queens residents have access to a bus that arrives every 10 minutes or better between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.; and 68,000 more Queens residents have access to 24-hour bus service.

In a presentation to the board, Evan Bialostozky, the MTA’s senior director of network redesigns and special projects for bus service planning, showed data on subjects from routes with increased speed to changes that have been made based on customer feedback since the rollout.

The entire presentation can be viewed online at tinyurl.com/yc25hjts.

Charlton D’souza, founder and president of the advocacy group Passengers United, was unable to attend the board meeting.

But reached by the Chronicle on Tuesday, the Queens Village resident said he was unimpressed by the MTA’s conclusions.

“We’re not happy with the Queens Bus redesign,” D’souza said. “It’s just been one disaster after another. Right now, we haven’t been delivered what we were promised.”

He said the Q82 route, which runs between the Jamaica bus depot and Belmont Park just across the Nassau County border, has not had the frequency of buses promised.

“And if one bus is canceled, you could wait an hour,” D’souza said of the Queensbound service. He said he also has both seen and heard about many problems along the Q2 route that connects Jamaica and Queens Village.

A school nurse called 911 three times for a 14-year-old boy who was suffering a stroke, his mother told the City Council on Oct. 20.

By the time an ambulance reached St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows on Sept. 28, she had already driven him to the hospital herself.

“He was slurring his words. His speech wasn’t clear,” Jennifer Daly of Howard Beach testified via Zoom. “I called his cardiologist and I said, ‘We have to get him over to the hospital. What do I do?’ She said, ‘Wait for the ambulance.’ I said, ‘I cannot wait for the ambulance.’”

Daly reached NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens hospital at 9:52 a.m., she said. Her son, Kevin, was later transferred to Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Manhattan.

FDNY EMS Chief Paul Miano, during the City Council’s hearing on response times hosted jointly by the Committees on Fire and Emergency Management and Hospitals, called it “a tragic incident.”

The call was passed from NYPD dispatch to EMS dispatch, Miano explained, and was entered in the system to say Kevin had an “unknown condition” because EMS never spoke with the caller to triage it, so it was not made a priority.

Miano said 911 was handling more than 100 calls above normal that morning.

“Our life-threatening, our most serious calls ... do not hold,” Miano said. “Those calls are immediately dispatched out as soon as an ambulance is available.

A report by City Comptroller Mark Levine released Oct. 16 found that the average response time to life-threatening emergencies rose 3 minutes, 50 seconds, or 41.2 percent, to 13 minutes, 9 seconds, from fiscal years 2015 to 2026, which City Council Speaker Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) at the hearing said “is just wholly unconscionable.”

Over that same period, life-threatening medical emergencies grew 22.9 percent, while the paramedic workforce stayed about the same size.

Pay is part of it. An EMT’s first-year salary is $43,932, compared with $54,122 for a firefighter, and is the lowest of any city first responder or uniformed title.

EMT salaries also climb more slowly. From hiring date through year five, salaries rise 56 percent, compared with 94 percent for firefighters. After five and a half years, an EMT’s base salary is $68,700, compared with $105,146 for a firefighter, a gap of more than $35,000.

Local 2507, which represents EMTs and paramedics, has been without a contract since July 29, 2022. Current EMT and paramedic salaries do not reflect a new deal, which would bring retroactive raises, the report says.

More than 500 EMTs left their jobs in fiscal year 2026, or 19.5 percent of average headcount.

The comptroller’s report did not specify the number of hires, but said there were 2,540 EMTs at the end of that year.

Also in fiscal year 2026, 58 percent of EMT departures left to be firefighters. The median EMT has 3.8 years with the title, compared with 8.1 years for firefighters.

FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito said at the Council hearing that 358 EMTs and 63 paramedics left to become firefighters in 2026, adding that the department is “responding to more calls with fewer ambulances.”

“It’s a positive outcome for the city to have firefighters with EMS and paramedic level medical training, but it also has a severe impact on EMS staffing in the short term,” Esposito said.

“You cannot train your way out of a workforce crisis when you refuse to address why people are leaving,” testified Michael Greco, president of Local 2507.

Training costs for new EMTs rose 300 percent between fiscal 2015 and 2026, from $15 million to more than $62 million, the report found.

Menin at the hearing said that low pay has driven “rising attrition and low recruitment, which of course perpetuates this understaffing issue.”

“We all know at the end of the day what we need first is more money for our EMTs,” said Councilmember Joann Ariola (R-Howard Beach), who chairs the Fire and Emergency Management Committee.

She called for giving EMTs uniformed first responder and civil service status so they can “rise up in the ranks.”

The city classifies EMTs as civilian employees, the comptroller’s report notes.

Closing the gap would be costly. If EMS pay rose to firefighter levels, with the full pattern of raises uniformed workers received, the Comptroller’s Office estimates the net cost at $1.23 billion across fiscal years 2023 through 2027, after accounting for $163 million already in the city’s financial plan.

The report cautions that pay parity “alone is unlikely to substantially lower emergency response times,” though better pay and retention “could ease operational pressures.”

Esposito said the union is negotiating with the city’s Office of Labor Relations and the department is “hopeful that a resolution to the next contract will provide a recruiting boost.”

Ariola believes “we are at a precipice of change” when it comes to EMS pay.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time when more people were looking at the pay levels of our EMS personnel, and I think that this will spur the change we need,” Ariola said.

The Diwali motorcade in Richmond Hill kicked off at Phil Rizzuto Park last Saturday, a mostly stationary affair these days, going for its second colorful celebration since restarting last year.

The Hindu festival of lights was cause enough for thousands to descend on the park, a group that included children dressed as gods, and longtime community leaders, such as Community Board 9 Chair Sherry Algredo, center, as well as prospective leaders, like Saritha Komatireddy, right, a lawyer running a long-shot campaign to become the state’s first-ever Indian American attorney general, as well as the first Republican to hold the job since Dennis Vacco.

— Andrew Karpan

Hundreds of thousands of city dwellers cast ballots during the first four days of early voting.

By the time the polls closed Tuesday, 294,604 people across the city had voted, according to preliminary numbers from the city Board of Elections. In Queens, 71,106 residents had checked in.

But even before that, New Yorkers made an impressive showing at early voting sites over the weekend. Last Saturday, more than 86,000 people across the five boroughs — 20,839 in Queens — checked in on day one alone.

That figure for the borough nearly doubled by the time the polls closed Sunday — 40,281 Queens voters had checked in by then. 

By the end of the weekend, the cumulative citywide total was 165,143.

Fox News reported that the weekend’s numbers were up slightly from last year’s early voting figures during the mayoral race, but down from the ones recorded in 2024 for the presidential election.

As of Wednesday morning, Queens had the third-highest number of early voters in the five boroughs. Brooklyn led the city with 85,849, and Manhattan was not far behind with 82,438. The Bronx and Staten Island recorded 30,848 and 24,363 check-ins, respectively. 

This time around, New Yorkers are making selections for a number of state races, including governor, comptroller, attorney general, Senate and Assembly. 

Voters also are seeing contests for judgeships and congressional seats on their ballots, as well as five proposed City Charter amendments.

A full list of the candidates across Queens is available at tinyurl.com/3djzr35p.

The remaining early voting dates are: 

• Today, Oct. 29, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.;

• Friday, Oct. 30, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;

• Saturday, Oct. 31, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and

• Sunday, Nov. 1, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

There is no early voting Nov. 2.

The polls will be open on Election Day, Nov. 3, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Early voting and Election Day poll sites may differ. 

Voters may search for either location or view their sample ballots at findmypollsite.vote.nyc.

Around 100 kids on Oct. 17 attended a frightfully fun trunk or treat event hosted by the City Line Ozone Park Civilian Patrol in collaboration with the Our Neighbors Civic Association and hosted by the Goodman McDonald’s Group.

The afternoon, at the McDonald’s parking lot at 75-20 Liberty Ave. in City Line, saw kids enjoying the sights of the spookily decorated vehicles while getting to dig into candy and activities. The City Line McDonald’s has partnered with COPCP to offer $3 and $9 meal deals.

“It’s all about bringing our community together and giving our kids something to enjoy right here in their own neighborhood,” said Daniel Hill, communications director for COPCP and vice president of ONCA.

— Kristen Guglielmo

Gov. Hochul on Tuesday announced $3.3 million in state funding will be allocated to support three projects throughout Southeast Queens.

The investments include $1.5 million for a new training facility at the Springfield Gardens Educational Campus, at 143-10 Springfield Blvd.; $1 million for the expansion of River Fund’s Food Distribution Center, at 89-11 Lefferts Blvd. in Richmond Hill; and $800,000 to support lighting upgrades around Queens Supreme Court, at 88-11 Sutphin Blvd. in Jamaica, to improve public safety near the facility. The funding will be administered by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, per the governor’s office.

“Every New Yorker deserves a safe and thriving community with access to the resources and services they need to succeed,” Hochul said in a statement. “These dollars will support necessary projects across Queens from expanding workforce training opportunities to strengthening food access and improving neighborhood safety.”

— Kristen Guglielmo

Cops are searching for a man they say stole a car — occupied by a 5-year-old boy — in broad daylight last week in South Richmond Hill.

Police said that on Oct. 20, at around 10 a.m., an unidentified man entered a Honda Accord parked in front of a home on 94-31 118 St. The child was in the back seat.

The suspect proceeded to drive the vehicle to the vicinity of 131st Street and 101st Avenue, cops said, where the child was able to exit unharmed. The perpetrator then fled in the vehicle to parts unknown.

Police said the child was transported by EMS to NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens in stable condition.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1 (800) 577-TIPS (8477), or, for Spanish, 1 (888) 57-PISTA (74782). One may also submit tips by going to crimestoppers.nypdonline.org; or by texting 274637 (CRIMES) and entering TIP577; or by going to @nypdtips on X.

All tips are strictly confidential.