Bay Ridge Dealership Owner Apologized and Sets Up New Protocols After Death. Senator Gounardes Twisted Situation
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At the Community Board 10 Meeting this month, Robert Sabbagh, the owner of the Bay Ridge Volkswagon Dealership spoke about the tragedy that happened outside of his dealership last month.
Sabbagh took responsibility for how the incident happened with his valet service. These details were told to me on the day of the incident by Bay Ridge residents, but newspapers did not share that information. Sabbagh explained at the meeting (in the video above) that the victim had bent down outside the dealership (possibly to tie her shoe).
Sabbagh seemed sincere as he outlined the changes he had made for safety at his dealerships. He spoke about hiring additional staff to direct cars out of the lot, establishing better protocols with employees and renting space to park additional cars off the lot (he named the property behind the lot and in Centurys’ parking lot).
Senator Gounardes didn’t attend Community Board 10’s meeting. He sent a staffer because it is not an election year and he doesn’t need votes. By now, Gounardes should have corrected his statement on the accident!
When the accident happened, Gounardes blamed a heavy SUV vehicles for the incident. See press release below and here.
Gounardes continued to pursue the “heavy vehicle issue” instead of following up with Sabbagh, the dealership and the NYPD. Gounardes had a bill for the street activist group that supports him. He wrote a bill for them about rating heavy SUV’s so he teamed this fatality up with it. The bill was out earlier this year and has nothing to do with the incident on 4th Avenue. (See here) This is how “playing politics” hurts our neighborhood.
This is the second time I have seen Gounardes use the death of a senior in our community as political bait for an old bill he wants to push for his base, the bike activist group. When Frank Decolvenaere died, police said it wasn’t due to speeding. (See here) Out-of-district street activists used the story and said it was. (See here) Gounardes proclaimed he introduced a bill to prevent this from happening again, but the stagnant bill was introduced long before Frank’s passing.
Councilman Justin Brannan accepted money from another Bay Ridge dealership on 4th Avenue last year after calling that dealership out on social media. (See here) We have not heard of Brannan following up with situation either as his current social media is filled with politicians he is pushing for election in other areas in NYC.
Last year, this area in Bay Ridge was supposed to be re-evaluated, (See here) but politicians didn’t follow up because Gounardes thought this was caused by speeding. Brannan also wanted the police to say this incident was due to speeding. (See here)
Finally, both Gounardes and Brannan have endorsed speedster, Brad Lander for Comptroller. How does a politician who pushed red light speed cameras support someone who consistently disobeys the law? Lander has shown that driving through speed cameras and getting tickets isn’t a seriously issue. (See here) All three pols look like idiots because when Gounardes ran for office they made a big stink about Golden’s terrible driving record, which is just slightly worse than Landers.
Hugs,
marlene
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