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Council members urge guv to keep workers in Jamaica

By Michael Morton

“Robbing Peter to pay Paul is never a good idea, especially when Peter is already struggling to make ends meet,” Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) said March 9. “The governor should not rebuild Lower Manhattan on the backs of local, small businesses in downtown Jamaica.”In recent years, elected officials and business leaders have worked to revitalize Jamaica, once a blighted and crime-ridden area from which merchants and residents fled. They fear that the move of the employees, who work in the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance at Gertz Plaza on Jamaica Avenue and Union Hall Street, will slow or stop those efforts and discourage private investment. By the end of the month, 120 state Health Department employees are scheduled to complete a move from the same office to Lower Manhattan, where there is an ambitious effort to restore the area in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.”By closing the Jamaica office and relocating the workers to Lower Manhattan, the state is sending a signal of divestment in Jamaica, that Jamaica is a place to leave, not move to,” Gennaro said.”I view it as a betrayal of our efforts to rebuild a vital business district in the outer boroughs,” added Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans). The councilmen said the disability assistance office had an annual payroll of more than $9 million, with workers patronizing area businesses.The employees process claims for Social Security disability and Supplemental Security Income, and work in the only office to do so in the outer boroughs or Long Island. In protests against the move, employees have complained about longer commutes to Manhattan, both for themselves and their disabled clients.An office spokesman, however, said the move was in response to a smaller work force and declining case load, and was meant to save on rent, not rebuild Lower Manhattan. But in a letter announcing the Health Department move, Pataki said that switch was intended to help the area devastated by the Sept. 11 attacks.Borough President Helen Marshall said the latest move would actually cost the state more, and Queens' state Assembly members wrote a letter to Pataki in protest. A time frame for the move has not yet been set.Reach reporter Michael Morton by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.