Brooklyn Attorney Steve Harrison and Staten Island educator Mark Zink will announce the forming of the non-partisan SIBRO Civic Association in a 7 PM July 18 press conference at the Staten Island South Beach Boardwalk Gazebo overlooking Southwest Brooklyn. For disclosure purposes, I'm SIBRO's acting corresponding sec.

SIBRO (Staten Island/Brooklyn) Civic Association is dedicated to narrowing the Narrows and bridging the gap between people who live on opposite sides of the bridge, focusing issues that impact Staten Island and Southwest Brooklyn residents together.

They brainstormed the idea in January 2006, before Steve ran for congress, in popular Staten Island hangout Schaffer's. Schaffer's is one of my favorite Staten Island bars because of their extensive beer selection (I'm a beer geek) although I'm always puzzled how they can close before midnight on Saturdays.

They were friends for more than a decade, which they realized was unusual for people who lived on opposite sides of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. They marveled that despite the Island and Southwest Brooklyn sharing Congressional (Vito Fossella), State Senate (Diane Savino), State Assembly (Janele Hyer-Spencer) and City Council (Jim Oddo)districts , that the people on each side of the bridge know little about each other and the adjacent borough in general.

People who live in the same political districts should have common interests that their electeds can represent. The combined Staten Island/Brooklyn districts run counter to this because the bridge and its $9 toll separates both borough's residents from each other, creating what Steve calls a split personality that dilutes the clout that would normally belong to constituencies their combined size.

Staten Island and Brooklyn are linked educationally as well, although you would never know it based on how Department of Education bi-borough Region 7, which straddles the bridge, operating as separate entities in Staten Island and Southwest Brooklyn.

NASCAR’s 2006 attempt to tie up traffic by building New York’s largest stadium was considered Staten Island’s problem and ignored by most Brooklynites. But NASCAR would have inspired delays on both sides of the bridge.

Brooklyn’s Gowanus Expressway’s traffic jams negatively impact Staten Island drivers and bus commuters as much or more than Brooklynites. It is impossible to get to Manhattan by land after crossing the Verrazano without transversing the Gowanus. Yet recent proposals to replace the crumbling Brooklyn roadway with an underground expressway like Boston’s are not on most Islanders’ radar.

SIBRO Civic will be a forum for people on both sides of the bridge to discuss issues of common interest from bike paths and tolls to flight noise over the district, a fact finding group dedicated to identifying issues effecting people on both sides of the bridge.

For more information you can contact me @ (718)370-3977.

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