Vote on how to spend city funds, escape to Rat Island, & more

By Nikki M. Mascali | April 5, 2019 - 11:00AM

It’s participatory budget week: Depending on your district, you have until Sunday to tell your council member how to spend their chunk of $35 million in municipal funding (Gothamist)

Mayor de Blasio names Vicki Been, his former Department of Housing Preservation and Development head, the city's deputy mayor (The Real Deal)

Profits for rent-stabilized landlords rose for the 13th consecutive year in 2017, but so did their costs (Curbed via Rent Guidelines Board)

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help more than 100 Sunset Park residents who were displaced by a six-alarm fire in their building this week (Brooklyner)

A New Yorker wants to make 2.5-acre Rat Island, which he bought in 2011 and is a 10-minute canoe ride from City Island, Bronx, into an eco-friendly destination (New York Post)

To save it from the wrecking ball, a Queens preservationist is trying to give Rego Park’s Shalimar Diner away for free—but you’ll have to pay to move it ASAP (QNS.com)

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