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PUBLIC TESTIMONY

Testimony by Constance Lesold, Retired Social Worker

7:02:12

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149 sec

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Constance Lesold, a retired social worker, testified about her experience with summer youth programs and expressed concern about a specific incident involving police interaction with a family. She urged the committee to restore funds for families and children.

Highlighted the success of a community garden project lasting 50 years
Described witnessing a concerning police interaction with a family on February 3rd
Raised issues about the use of EMS resources and the separation of family members during the incident

Constance Lesold

7:02:12

My name is Constance Lisold, and I am a retired social worker who has worked extensively with summer youth programs over the years to successfully set up at least one community garden that's lasted about fifty years.

7:02:35

With no expense to the city except that we have had to work hard to keep that garden over the Franklin Avenue shuttle, not to go for something else.

7:02:49

I hope that your committee can get all your funds restored for families and children.

7:02:56

It's so it's so important.

7:02:59

They make up an essential part of the the city.

7:03:04

I'm here especially to to call your attention to an event, that I witnessed on February 3 on Rut Rutland Road near Schenectady Avenue where an ordinary looking family, probably African American, was accosted by a huge group of the seventy first precinct and possibly other agencies.

7:03:31

They were looked like an ordinary well dressed middle class group.

7:03:38

The father was carried off in a fire department ambulance 1377, and I bring this to your attention, that he had no medical or psychiatric problems going on.

7:03:52

He was trying to find out why the police had stopped him.

7:03:55

He was yelling that's why I saw it from my Fourth Floor window on Mudwood Street.

7:04:02

I bring to your attention the AM article about the cuts well, not cuts, but how desperate the situation is for EMS.

7:04:15

And not only did they put take the father off improperly in a fire department ambulance, but they took the mother, put her in handcuffs, put her in one car, and put two different children, her two small children, their two small children, in a separate police car and off they went.

7:04:36

Now, since February 3, I have tried to find out what was going on because I'm a

Althea V. Stevens

7:04:41

citizen.

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Testimony by Roberto Rodriguez, Program Director of Teen Center at Kingsbridge Heights Community Center on Increasing Funding for After-School Programs

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Testimony by Christopher Leon Johnson, Member of the Public