My Barack O’Lantern Is Awesome! (And the Hallowe’en Party was fun too…)
October 29, 2008
Thank you to everyone who braved the cold rain and wind yesterday to come to my Hallowe’en party at Johnny Foxes on Second Avenue. The event was a great success.
I thought I’d post a few photos from the event. First and foremost, I wanted to show everyone my (awesome) Barack O’Lantern. Or Obumpkin if you prefer.
YES WE CARVE (www.yeswecarve.com) is a great little website that I discovered where you can download stencils, like the one I used, to show your Obama spirit this Hallowe’en. It’s really quite easy to download the stencil; print it; and use it to carve your pumpkin. You simply tape the stencil on to the pumpkin and use a knife to cut through along the lines so that when you carve for real, you have guidelines.
I dressed as a donkey (to keep with the election-themed spirit).
District Leader Frank Wilkinson brought some far, far west side spirit to the Upper East Side.
Here I am with LGBT activist and Upper East Sider, Caprice Bellefleur, whose costume was the best of the night.
My office’s Chief of Staff, Eliyanna Kaiser (the she-devil), and my Community Liaison, Paul Curtis (the clown), goofing off at the party.
My Office Manager, Ashley Roberts, rocked the time-honored black cat getup.
Thanks again to everyone who made the event so special!
More on School Overcrowding
October 24, 2008
Here is an audio file you can listen to of a recent interview I did about the problem of school overcrowding with CNPI reporter, Florence Wapimewah, in late September. The interview was recently aired on WBAI 99.5FM.
Click here to listen to this interview: Interview with Assembly Member Micah Z. Kellner on School Overcrowding
Take the GO GREEN! Challenge
October 17, 2008
In the following weeks, I will be distributing free tote bags to constituents at street fairs, greenmarkets, and outside grocery stores. The idea behind the campaign is to promote the use of durable reusable bags for grocery trips and other shopping needs instead of using plastic bags.
The average family uses 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store. These American-made (the company is Fabriko) Eco-Spun Recycler Tote Bags I am distributing are made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, a material known as PET. PET is considered the greenest material on the planet today and regularly using just one of these bags for daily shopping can eliminate over 1,000 plastic bags from entering our waste system.
My great hope is that my campaign will begin to raise awareness about alternatives to plastic bags. Single-use plastic bags accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years. In New York City, they comprise about 2.87% of our residential waste stream, and they are our largest source of plastic waste – and plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups. To read more about this issue, I highly reccomend the website ReusableBags.Com.
My GO GREEN! CHALLENGE comes just after New York City’s Local Law 1, the Plastic Carryout Bag Recycling Law, came into effect on July 23rd, 2008. This new city law requires stores across the City to establish in-store recycling programs for plastic bags and film plastic, such as plastic wrap, dry cleaning bags and newspaper bags. The law applies to stores that use plastic bags and occupy 5,000 or more square feet or have more than five branches operating in New York City. Stores are also required to sell reusable bags.
Introduced just over 25 years ago, the world consumes an estimated 500 billion plastic bags annually (almost 1 million per minute). According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year. Four out of five grocery bags in the US are now plastic. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.
I will also be exploring policy avenues to have an even larger impact. Using reusable bags needs to rise to the level of a social imperative, and I think it will, once people realize how simple it is to make such a big difference. A good example is Ireland. That country introduced a new tax in 2002, requiring customers to pay at the register if they wanted to use a plastic bag. Within weeks, use of plastic bags dropped by 94% as the Irish began to adjust to carrying tote bags to the store. Now using a plastic bag is socially unacceptable in Ireland. People are just more aware.
Feel free to stop by my office at 315 East 65th Street during business hours Monday to Friday, 10 am to 5:30 pm to get your free tote bag (while supplies last). Go Green!
Join Micah for a Hallowe’en Howl!
October 6, 2008
To RSVP email info@micahkellner.net.
The suggested minimum donation is $40. You can pay at the door or you can mail a check to:
The Kellner Committee
217 East 85th St. #117
New York, NY 10028
Hope to see you there!
