JHS 202 and Robert Goddard High School of Communication Arts and Technology cut the ribbon on the new library in their Ozone Park school building last Friday.

The postmodern study hall features globe-shaped light fixtures, tables for group study and colorful bookshelves, though much of the tech-savvy school’s students read electronically.

The recent spate of arrests and criminal investigations involving public officials has ensnared a high percentage of minorities in the state Legislature, leading some in the community to ask if black and Hispanic lawmakers are being targeted.

State Sen. James Sanders (D-Jamaica) decided last week that the question of conspiracy or corruption was far better-suited for an open, frank and free-wheeling debate before nearly 200 people at the Black Spectrum Theatre in Roy Wilkins Park in Jamaica.

About a dozen restaurant owners and bikers got the 411 on Tuesday on new delivery regulations.

A package of city laws that went into effect on April 23 requires helmets, reflective vests, lights, bells and identification linking the riders to their employers’ establishments.

City officials broke ground Tuesday for a new K through 5 school in Ozone Park that is being constructed on the site of a former Catholic school.

The new school, called PS 316, is located at 90-07 101 Ave and will serve 444 students from the Ozone Park community and is currently slated to open in September 2014. It will feature reading and speech resource rooms, a library, guidance room and a medical suite. Two of the 20 classrooms in the school will be dedicated to District 75 students.

If published reports are right, state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) and seven others were taped in former Sen. Shirley Huntley’s home either at the request of the FBI, or at Huntley’s recommendation to the bureau.

In an interview following Huntley’s sentencing to prison last week, Peralta said he is at a loss to explain why either would consider him a possible target for a corruption probe.

Repairing the seawall in Queensbridge Park has been talked about for well over a decade. Last Friday those plans came to fruition when politicians, the Parks Department and dedicated neighborhood advocates dipped their symbolic golden shovels into a pre-dug pile of dirt to commence construction.

The $6.65 million project will raise the crumbling seawall separating the park from the East River in the most northern section of Long Island City across from the Queensbridge Houses. Plans also call for a 6-foot-wide promenade with benches, plantings and a small wharf at its northern end.

Corona residents gathered last Wednesday to talk trash.

As part of the ongoing $3 million effort to clean up Roosevelt Avenue, Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-Corona) held a town hall meeting so residents could ask her and representatives from the Department of Sanitation and two community boards about sanitation issues. About 40 attended.

The race for the 19th Council District has a set candidate for the Republican Party. Well, it had one up until Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) was arrested on corruption charges in April.

The incumbent has since announced he will not seek re-election, leaving the door open for a fresh-faced Republican to enter a field that is seemingly growing in number by the week.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is close to approving a new bus route that would offer more direct service to LaGuardia Airport while cutting the existing Q33 route short to focus more on neighborhood riders.

The proposed Q70 Limited line — “a new faster and more direct route to LaGuardia” — would run from transit hubs in Woodside and Jackson Heights along the 7 subway line on Roosevelt Avenue and provide a shorter link with the airport.

An Astoria man faces several charges for allegedly bringing what were described as two BB guns to a crowded park May 7, loading one of them with plastic pellets, firing at a tree and then handing them to his children so they could shoot too.

His 5-year-old daughter allegedly ran around the park waving one of the loaded guns at other children.

From his office on Bell Boulevard and 73rd Avenue, City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) says he can hear his frustrated constituents at the former Q75 bus stop swearing, yelling, and literally crying out for someone to restore the cancelled bus route.

The Q75, which ran from Oakland Gardens to the F train stations in Jamaica, was eliminated along with 32 other bus routes, 570 bus stops and two subway lines on June 27, 2010, a $93 million service reduction.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn,Queens) came to the May meeting of the Lindenwood Alliance, in the Fairfield Arms Co-op, to meet some of his new constituents.

Jeffries told the audience that he was concerned with resolving any issues that residents had with the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding Hurricane Sandy.

An Astoria father faces several charges for allegedly bringing what were described as two BB guns to a crowded park last Tuesday, loading one of them with plastic pellets, firing at a tree and then handing them to his children so they could shoot too.

His 5-year-old daughter allegedly ran around the park waving one of the loaded guns at other children.

City Councilman Donovan Richard Jr. (D-Laurelton) is inviting the public to a community meeting at 6 p.m. on May 21 to discuss the problem of speeding that is occurring in neighborhoods in Southeast Queens.

The meeting will take place at IS 231, located at 145-00 Springfield Blvd. in Springfield Gardens.

Rose Guida, a chairwoman of the Richmond Hill South Civic Association, celebrated her 95th birthday on April 14.

A Richmond Hill resident for most of her life, Guida attended PS 108 and John Adams High School. She has been involved in a number of charities. She has also been an active member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish, volunteering for numerous church events. She joined the RHSCA in 1974.

Preet can’t be beat, unless you think Loretta is better. The U.S. attorneys for the southern and eastern districts of New York, respectively, Preet Bharara and Loretta Lynch, are in the midst of stellar work that should do more to clean up the political corruption that seems endemic to Albany than most so-called reforms have ever managed.

They’re going after corruption in case after case and knocking down one elected domino after another. Any city or state lawmaker who’s on the take and hasn’t been charged yet must be very, very nervous.

The names of six Democratic state senators and a city councilman from Southeast Queens were among those contained Wednesday on a list of people who had their conversations with then-state Senator Shirley Huntley recorded by an FBI listening device in 2012.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York declined to comment on Wednesday on the names, contained in a sentencing letter connected to Huntley’s case, or U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein’s order to unseal the letter.

The School Construction Authority came before Community Board 11 on Monday night with a proposed new 416-seat school, pointing to what it calls a strong need for more classrooms in one of the city’s high-performing education districts.

The agency ran headlong into the gaping maw of Northeast Queens’ ire, fueled by the potential school’s incredulous neighbors, who claimed the city did not look hard enough for a better site.

City Comptroller John Liu continues to run for mayor as if confident he can overcome the embarrassment of a campaign finance scandal that could send one of his top former aides and a contributor to prison for decades.

How much impact the case will have is an open question. But according to two political science experts in Queens, the Liu campaign faces multiple challenges arising from the convictions last week of Jia “Jenny” Hou, his former treasurer, and Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan, a fundraising “bundler,” who secured donations from other parties that then went to the campaign.

St. John’s University President Rev. Donald Harrington announced his retirement on Friday in the midst of enduring accusations of corruption.

The 67-year-old, who previously acknowledged that he accepted sumptuous gifts from crooked former Dean Cecilia Chang before she committed suicide, sent an email to students and faculty declaring that he will step down effective July 31. Harrington served as president of the University for 24 years.

Elected officials, members of the public and Queens Library employees gathered Tuesday on the steps of the Flushing Library to decry a $29.6 million fiscal buzzsaw in the mayor’s proposed budget looming over the institution.

The gathering starts what has become something of an annual cut-then-rescue ritual inspired every year by Mayor Bloomberg’s budget. Inevitably, hizzoner puts out dollar figures that cause lawmakers to use terms like “unacceptable” and “draconian.”

Developers looking to build housing facilities as tall as 30 stories on a desolate peninsula might be giving their prospective tenants a gateway to the rest of the city.

A proposal to develop 1,701 apartments and condos at the barren seven-acre Hallets Point waterfront site in Astoria might include private shuttle service for residents to and from the 30th Avenue N and Q line station, according to lobbyist Sean Crowley, brother of Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens, Bronx).

The responsibilities of a borough president have recently become the subject of debate. While some have said these borough-heads who cannot make any decisions on legislation are irrelevant, Queens borough president candidate Barry Grodenchik says the position is about more than rules and regulations.

“The job is about bringing people together,” Grodenchik said in a sit-down with the Queens Chronicle editors last Thursday. “We live in the most diverse place in the country and probably the world, and while it’s easy to scream and rant, the tougher job is to work with the people.”

The reviews are in, and critics of Mayor Bloomberg’s final executive budget are saying they have seen this show before.

And, as per usual, there is likely to be a rousing closing dance number when City Council members restore funding for the same fire companies, after-school programs, senior centers and libraries that have been proposed for cuts by the mayor for years.