Do Over! Carmen Martinez doesn't make the short list, so a new search begins!

The riot never stops over at CB9. The April general meeting was Popcorn Night! Every attendee was handed this playbill

featuring Board member Tim Thomas with added (by the artist, not by TT) clown nose and wig, as well as a bag of kosher popcorn, a gesture much appreciated by former Board chair Jacob Goldstein, who again found a way to let his contempt for current chair, Demetrius Lawrence, be known. This month his objection was to the scheduling, by Lawrence and Housing Committee chair Carmen Martinez, whom he also clearly despises, of a housing information forum on a Saturday. Never would have happened on his watch!

Protestors wore clown noses, too. Here I am; Alicia Boyd is behind me.

Much time was given over to the consideration/issuing of liquor licenses, to the growing disgruntlement of the community. Someone suggested the name of the neighborhood be changed to "Liquor Heights," while another pointed out that Black people prefer to buy liquor from the street side of bulletproof glass and sell it at home; I didn't know that. In other words, the bars proliferating on Franklin are not serving Black people. In so many ways. One applicant kept correcting himself every time he referred to his "restaurant" as a "bar", what it actually is, something more like this:

Then came the problem of what to do about Carmen Martinez, Eric Adams' choice for the new district manager of CB9, the former true-blue treasurer for convicted Brooklyn powerbroker Clarence Norman, Jr. and a woman allowed to retire from her job at the City Comptroller's office after admitting she stole 14 years of public service, basically keeping Clarence's dirty little empire in shipshape while the master did his time. Nice choice, Eric! This is a woman as loyal as she is self-serving and knows how to get things done!

You may remember that last month, Chair Lawrence said the Search Committee was going to have to be rejiggered and start all over again because quorum had never been achieved in their meetings. Lawrence was present at all of the meetings, of course, and had no objection at the time, not so long as the committee was putting a good face on the selection of Adams' candidate.

But, lo and behold, the Search committee chaired by Lawrence's go-to guy, Hector Robinson – at one point, Robinson chaired three committees – did their job and selected the three most qualified applicants, none of which was the disgraced crony the Borough President prefers. What's a puppet chairman to do?

And so the Board went into an illegal executive session to discuss. I say "illegal" because executive session is reserved for discussion of matters like the personal information of the applicants, salary negotiations, etc., not matters of policy and procedure, which are subject to the Open Meetings Law. Rumor has it that the session was a brawl, replete with accusations and recriminations. In the end, the Board, with few exceptions, voted to create a new Search Committee with members hand-picked by Demetrius Lawrence, who understand their marching orders, and grasp the need to fill the position by the end of the fiscal year in June, to accomplish in two months what they have been unable to do in eight.

Can they do it? I'll do my part to make sure it doesn't happen. Join me! We have our work cut out for us. Martinez is already running the CB9 office on Nostrand Avenue, following the sudden disappearance of Terry Witherspoon, who had been answering the phones since her former boss, Pearl Miles, was kicked to the curb last September. Witherspoon has been variously described as on vacation, sick, and on extended sick leave. Meanwhile, Martinez is in there, setting up her fiefdom.

Not this Carmen Martinez:

Disgraced Crony is Eric Adams' Pick

I don't read the New York Post, but maybe I should because so far the paper is the only one covering this shameful story, under the headline, "Community Board Feeling Heat To Hire Disgraced Politician's Crony," concerning Eric Adams' backing of serial offender CARMEN MARTINEZ to replace the ousted Pearl Miles as District Manager.

The last time Martinez earned $140,000 a year from the City (the DM job could pay as much), she was working in the Comptroller's office. In 2014, she was allowed to "retire" after having been accused of stealing 14 YEARS of public service while acting as the head of the Comptroller's Community Action Center, according to Conflicts of Interest Board documents. There were also other, unspecified, charges of misconduct.

Martinez continues to associate with convicted felon and former Kings Co. Democratic strongman, Clarence Norman, Jr., a regular at CB9 meetings in suits for which I think he paid too much. Released from state prison in recent years, Norman has been looking to re-consolidate his power. He certainly had/has his eye on the Bedford Armory development; a second community meeting to discuss its future is scheduled for tomorrow night at First Baptist, where Clarence Norman, Sr. was long the pastor. Junior would be a shoe-in if his father were alive.

We wondered why, at the last general meeting of CB9, Chair Demetrius Lawrence suddenly announced that the Search Committee tasked with identifying qualified candidates for the District Manager job had acted improperly and that the whole process would have to begin again. You could see the shock/embarrassment on the face of committee chair Hector Robinson, the Board chairman's go-to guy, who has chaired, however briefly, as many as 3 committees in his first year on the community board (got to be some kind of record).

The Post article asserts that the Search Committee re-boot can be traced to their collective failure to identify Carmen Martinez as a qualified candidate, even though they never properly advertised the job in the city newspapers because it is so expensive [I transcribed the tapes of one or more Search Committee meetings during evidence gathering for our case against CB9 in Brooklyn Supreme, which started this week]. Perhaps they actually identified qualified candidates! Poor Hector. What's a yes-man to do while still pretending to integrity?

I would be disappointed to learn that the terms of Martinez's retirement did not contain a promise not to pursue another high profile and high-paying job with the City of New York and I will be asking Scott Stringer just that. That Eric Adams would choose to return power to the likes of Clarence Norman and Carmen Martinez is, to me and mine, evidence of his growing desperation in terms of delivering Empire Boulevard to the Big Real Estate interests that got him elected. At the end of June, he will have failed for two years running; that's way past leg-breaking time.

The Unblackening Continues Apace

The New York Times, of all real estate-driven papers, reports this morning on the extent to which the disappearance of the 421-a tax break will "dampen" the number of so-called affordable units ever to be built in this city under the fantasy housing policy known as ZQA/MIH.

On the one block-long street where I live, the Unblackening (to borrow Larry Wilmore's monumentally shaming, heart-breaking phrase) continues. Three houses have sold in the last year, all to white people. I can think of two, probably three more destined for the same change, currently owned by aged black people, retired civil servants. My white boyfriend has been an owner on this block for 30 years: He was always made to feel welcome, loved for his curious choice of neighborhood. Now, we agree that once Black Crown Heights comes to fully resemble Park Slope, we're moving to Mexico. There ought to be a happy medium, but there's not; neighborhoods just turn over from one group to another. That's America.

If City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo thinks that these white newcomers are going to keep her as their representative, she is courting delusion. I have written her again today, urging her to stand with her current constituents in order to keep her office. We are watching.

Where to begin? Last week's disgraceful CB9 meeting

It is hard to know where to start when describing the disturbing events at last week's monthly meeting. Here are the lowlights.

The evening began with the long-awaited presentation by the Empire Study Group to the full board and to the community. ESG represents the combined efforts of several community groups most threatened by the prospect of luxury towers along Empire, in collaboration with Professor Tom Angotti, director of the Center for Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College. We gave our time, energy, ideas and our money to support the creation of an alternative vision for the long-deliberately blighted stretch.

After 15 minutes, Chair Demetrius Lawrence cut off the presentation, saying time had expired and despite the stunned presenter's insistence that she only had two slides left to show. Sorry, no go. Uproar ensued and never stopped. As it happens, I was part of the ESG presentation to ULURP the month before, at the end of which ESG was promised 40 minutes to present to the full board. Lawrence lied, and ULURP chair Michael Liburd was (conveniently?) out of the room when the outrage occurred. They're really mad about the lawsuit filed against CB9 last week, Index #1865/2016.

There was the part where (white, Jewish) activist Jay Sorid, who has been trying, for two and a half years, to have an illegal vote from Sept 2013 corrected, explained, among other things, the difference between "house Jews and field Jews," sending former and then-Chair Jacob Goldstein into apoplexy. Goldstein who had just gone out of his way to embarrass the feckless Demetrius Lawrence, who dwells so far beneath his contempt, for not posting the 2016 Lien List to the CB9 website, and offering to explain to the assembled (and by implication, Demetrius Lawrence) what a lien is. Lawrence said he didn't know about the list, hadn't received it, asked where Goldstein got it. Goldstein said, "Everybody got it!" and then that he saw it in the newspaper like "millions of other people," words to that effect. Next, Dr. Fredericks called Goldstein out for trying to make the board "look bad" instead of just providing the information. All three were board members speaking at length during the Public Comment period.

Notably, we see now that Demetrius Lawrence doesn't read the newspapers, perhaps explaining why he didn't think them important enough to spend the money to publish the District Manager job opening in the Times, News or Post. Besides, everyone knows that serial felon Carmen Martinez is to be the new Pearl Miles.

During the consideration of applications for liquor licenses, a resident stood to point out that "Crow Hill", the chosen name for a proposed artisanal cocktail lounge, is a racial slur, referring, he said, to the Black inmates in the Brooklyn Penitentiary that once stood on Carroll between Nostrand and Rogers. Indeed, a single google search of "Crow Hill Brooklyn" produces this link to a site called Ephemeral New York link, on the landing page of which you can read the following: “Most historians agree that the name Crow Hill was coined in derogatory reference to the black community of Carrville and Weeksville, whose residents were sometimes known as “crows,” writes Henry Goldschmidt, author of 2006’s Race and Religion Among the Chosen People of Crown Heights." This means the lounge owners either did no research or decided to use the name anyway. I look forward to the demonstration.

Several residents who serve on the ULURP Committee rose to clarify for the audience and for the Board that the Empire Study Group had been permitted 15 minutes to present to the committee. At the end of that presentation, a vote was take as to whether ESG could present to the full board and community at the monthly meeting. That vote passed overwhelmingly. Indeed, the presentation was so successful that member Warren Berke requested that the full presentation contain more specifics, and a motion was made (I think by the disgruntled ex-Transportation Committee chair Tim Thomas, though he had earlier said he was no longer a ULURP member either) to remove Empire Boulevard from the study parameters (!!), causing panic and seizure in Carmen Martinez and Borough Hall's Richard Bearak, both of whom have their marching orders. Sadly, a vote was not taken on that matter. Chair Michael Liburd asked Professor Angotti how long he needed to present. He responded, "40 minutes," and Liburd assured him that time would be allotted.

Conveniently, Liburd was not in the auditorium when Demetrius Lawrence killed the ESG presentation and lied, outright lied, about the agreement made at the ULURP meeting regarding the length of the presentation. Something about an emergency call from his daughter and him having to step out. I get it; they're angry about the lawsuit filed last week. They're also vindictive, they do not represent, much less advocate for, the people they are charged to represent.

1000 Words

Photo taken at Brooklyn Museum. Artist unknown.

The ZQA Hearings: A Warning to Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo

Dear Councilwoman Cumbo,

As I'm sure you know, Community Board 9 voted resoundingly against the Mayor's rezoning plan, as did the vast majority of community boards across the city.

What has this summary rejection of the Mayor's plan achieved for us? City Hall promptly issued a pamphlet reminding elected officials that community board recommendations are only advisory, not binding, which is to say they may be safely ignored. Safely, as in legally, but not safely if you expect re-election.

The Mayor behaves as though he is starring in some demented episode of that old television show, Father Knows Best, only in this case, Father only does what's best for him and for the real estate developers who fund his campaigns, and yours, and that of probably every elected official in this city, yourself among them.

Now the Department of City Planning is leaning on elected officials like you to vote against the LOUDLY EXPRESSED conclusions of their constituents. People like me see the city we love disappearing, handed over to an absentee oligarchy who don't even live in more than 50% of the luxury buildings displacing our people and utterly changing the fabric and character of our beloved home.

The stunning success of both the Sanders and the Trump campaigns speaks to the FURY of the American people at a rigged and corrupt system. America is divided over the causes of our troubles, but united in our resolve to say, "Enough is ENOUGH." The anti-gentrification battle in New York City is further evidence of that fury, be advised.

If you are to have ANY chance of re-election, you will stand against the Mayor's plan as your constituents clearly expect you to do. Otherwise, we will work as tirelessly to unseat you as we are working to stop this pillaging of the city we built. The diversity of our people, of every color and from every walk of life, our dreams, our energy, ideas, hard work, commitment to succeed, is the engine of this city, not its financial speculators. Without us, New York will soon be nothing but an overpriced Disney-esque shopping mall for the global elite.

Stand for us, or be un-seated. That is your choice.

You can't blame the wind!

How dare they, whoever they are, blame this Tribeca crane collapse on the wind?? Wind had nothing to do with it!! Have you ever seen a coal tipple?? These things, wood and nails, bore thousands of pounds of weight and stood for a century: WIND PASSES THROUGH THEM. That's why cranes are made in essentially the same way. Today's accident has everything to do with failure to inspect and even approval for use. If I hear another word from the Mayor's office about "today's modern construction methods....."