CITYWIDE

CITY, TEACHERS UNION TO MEET FOR FIRST TIME IN MONTHS

The Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers will sit down together for a negotiation session today for the first time since October.

The meeting was organized by the Public Employment Relations Board, which has declared an impasse between the teachers union and the city. The teachers’ contract expired more than a year and a half ago. A mediator from the employment relations board has already met separately with representatives of the union and the city. This afternoon’s meeting at the PERB offices in Downtown Brooklyn will be the first time the two sides sit down together since negotiations broke down three months ago. Unless the city comes up with significantly more money to pay teachers, the teachers union predicts the employment relations board will give up on mediation and enter the fact-finding phase. PERB does not have the power to conduct binding arbitration.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

OLYMPICS COMMITTEE PRESSES LEGISLATORS ON STADIUM

The New York City bid committee for the 2012 Olympic Games has sent a letter to state legislators that includes a New York Sun article from January 13, “Meet the Frenchman Who Aims to Deny New York Olympics,” to show how Paris has exploited the controversy over the Jets stadium to scuttle the American effort at securing the Games. Several individuals who are behind the New York bid have signed the letter. They included New York State Assembly members Steven Cymbrowitz and Michael Gianaris; state Senators Martin Golden and Serphin Maltese; the president of the New York Building Congress, Richard Anderson, and the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, Steven Spinola.

In part, the letter reads: “Olympic experts increasingly see this competition coming down to New York and Paris. Paris’s intent to exploit the fact that they already have an Olympic Stadium is an urgent reminder that we need to proceed with the New York Sports and Convention Center if we are to win the Olympics on July 6th.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

GIRL, 10, DIES AFTER ACCIDENT IN THE SNOW

A 10-year-old Brooklyn girl was killed in an accident related to the storm that brought the city to a standstill this weekend. Nicole Weaver was playing on a snowbank at the corner of Wolcott and Richards streets in Red Hook, Brooklyn, when a passing vehicle accidentally struck her, police said. The girl was taken by emergency services personnel to Long Island College Hospital, but died a short time later from her injuries.

Police reports revealed that Weaver may have been struck by a snow plow, though initial reports ruled the accident a hit-and-run by an unidentified vehicle. An inspection of the four plows that service the Red Hook area by sanitation workers and highway officers yesterday was inconclusive, detectives said, but police are still investigating possible involvement of a plow.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE ARREST PROSTITUTE IN HOTEL STABBING

A Queens man was found stabbed to death on the floor of a hotel room Saturday after an argument with a known prostitute, law enforcement officials said yesterday.

Police did not know how long Avinash Roopkhum may have lay bleeding on the floor of an Ozone Park Econo Lodge hotel room after he was stabbed multiple times in the chest and face. But at 5:40 a.m., police arrived to find the 26-year-old man dead, and his wallet, cell phone, and credit cards missing, law enforcement sources said. Though the adjacent rooms were occupied, there were no reports of screams, a front-desk clerk at the hotel, Manish Patel, said.

Detectives are still unsure what provoked the argument, but shortly after they discovered the man’s clothed body, they arrested Quanyel Cullins, 21, a known prostitute with a criminal history. Cullins has been charged with robbery and second-degree murder.

– Special to the Sun

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