Boy, oh boy. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s final proposed 2009 budget, released last week, has angered many New York City commuters and led one South Jamaica resident to suggest a boycott.
   Seeking to close a $1.2 billion gap in its $11 billion budget, the MTA proposes to increase fare and toll revenue by 23 percent next year, while simultaneously making deep cuts in subway, bus and commuter rail services.

   Celebrating the 2nd Annual ‘Take a Veteran to School’ Day
    

   Students celebrate the art of Pablo Picasso
    

   The South Queens Boys & Girls Club held its 52nd annual dinner last week to celebrate more than half a century of “providing hope and opportunity to the youth of our community,” according to Carol Simon, the club’s executive director.
   Saluted at the Nov. 20 event for their support of and dedication to the club were labor leaders Terence O’Sullivan and Armand Sabotini, president and secretary-treasurer of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, respectively. The SQBGC named the two “True Labor Leaders of the Decade.”

   Students from Martin Van Buren High School raised $500 during their open school night last week to help out another school in need.
   The funds are for P.S. 121, located at 126-10 109th Ave. in South Ozone Park, which lost millions of dollars worth of equipment and materials when its fifth floor caught fire last month.

   Suraj Khellawan of Jamaica was granted the Gold Medal of Achievement, the highest honor given by the Royal Rangers scouting organization, on Saturday.
   The Rangers are a group similar to the Boy Scouts but with a greater focus on their Christian religion. Khellawan is a member of Rangers Outpost 234 in Ozone Park.

   For the fifth year, Brian Sandler’s fifth grade class at P.S. 55, located at 131-10 97th Ave. in Richmond Hill, is holding a toy drive to benefit the children at Jamaica Hospital’s pediatric ward.
   The students are collecting new and unused toys for children of all ages. On the morning of Dec. 18, the students will personally deliver the toys to children at the hospital.

   A second Rockaway man declared his run for the 32nd Council District February 2009 special election, bringing the total number of contenders to four.
   Retired NYPD lieutenant and life-long Rockaway resident Glenn DiResto announced last week that he is ready to compete with opponents Frank Gulluscio, Eric Ulrich and Lew Simon, each of whom is a district leader with name recognition in his respective community.

   The Howard Beach hunter who accidentally shot and killed a toddler while hunting upstate was released from the Sullivan County jail on Monday after posting bail, which was set at $50,000 cash or $100,000 bond.
   Edward Taibi, 45, was charged with second-degree manslaughter for allegedly firing his rifle too close to the home of 16-month-old Charly Skala’s grandparents, located in the small community of Swan Lake in the Town of Bethel.

   On the evening of Oct. 25, the night his pregnant girlfriend was due to give birth, Derrick Redd found the 25-year-old stabbed to death in her South Ozone Park apartment.
   Last week, Redd, 35, was charged with her murder. He allegedly stabbed Niasha Delain multiple times in the neck, arms and torso — including six stab wounds to the fetus in utero — in the back room of her Lefferts Boulevard apartment, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.