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Thanks to Village Keepers, A Handball Court, A Garden and A Park Will Grow on Ellery Street

Fabiola Ramos
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What started out as a nightmare for Ellery Street residents near Charlie’s Park, turned out to be a change for the better.
On July 21st, kids rushed to Charlie’s Park excited for another play day when their excitement turned into anger and confusion. They were shocked to see their handball buried under a blanket of dirt.
Members of the Raise the Roof Farm organization had dumped the soil and begun planting healthy food to benefit the community. For their initiative, Raise the Roof in partnership with the Brooklyn Charter School, planned to create a model farm program to – as they say — help children get involved in community and after-school activities in North Brooklyn.
It was a good mission, but the only problem was nobody told the community who lives there.  After an impromptu meeting hosted by Henry Butler, President, Community Board 3, and called by the Ellery Street residents, New York City Parks & Recreation Assistant Commissioner/Senior Counselor Jack T. Linn agreed to have the soil removed from the handball court. Linn was the person who originally gave the group permission to create the garden at Charlie’s playground. He is taking full responsibility for what appears to be a misunderstanding and also is taking the proper steps in having the garden relocated to another area in the park.
“He’s going out of his way to correct the situation,” said Butler.
Yet neighbors say that since July 19th, they have only removed half of their materials and have continued to water their plants. Not showing any signs of removing their materials completely.
“They have great ideas,” said resident Raphael Dominguez. The problem is not creating the garden.  Neighbors are in disbelief that people would even consider taking any part of Charlie’s Park without communicating with them or getting the proper permits. 
“There’s nothing left in the area right now for young people and families,” said Gershwin Ledain. “Charlie’s Place playground, which is just cement and rocks, is the only location in the area where kids can play without having to worry about getting hit by a car.”
Another issue that neighbors are concerned with is the parking lot that was built on half of the playground by the school next door.  Although Charlie’s playground is considered a city park, the school sent their janitors to draw parking lines on the field and since then have continued using it for parking.
Dominguez explained that this parking lot is used by other locations such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses church around the block and city employees from local hospitals. The parking lot, which contains abandoned cars, has become a threat to the health of children. Before kids were able to play football and other sports, now they enjoy using the resources around them to create new “games” such as throwing rocks at each other.
Commissioner Linn researched the park and found that the school has no authority over it anymore. No department of Education vehicles parked illegally there are being ticketed.  Once the summer session of the school is over on August 13, no one will be allowed to park there.   The principal is grateful to have adequate time to inform teachers returning to the school in September that Charlie’s Park is closed to vehicles.
Once the parking lot is cleared the farm will be built on one side of the park and the community will be involved in the process of creating the farm.  Also, the handball court is being restored.
Butler says that budgets for 2011 have been completed.   Rehabilitation of Charlie’s Park will be at the top of Community Board 3’s agenda for 2012 budget requests. With this budget, improvements will be made to the park and the community will be able to get involved in the remodeling of the park.
“It will take at least two-three years before a shovel is placed into the ground to make Charlie’s Park the park it should be,” said Butler, acknowledging that much has to be done before the park is transformed into the North Brooklyn neighborhood kids deserve.

500 Men Making a Difference

Editor, Our Time Press
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John White Steps Forward to Fulfill Sentence

Editor, Our Time Press
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Flanked by his wife and sons, last week John White reported to the courtroom of the Honorable Barbara Kahn in the Suffolk County Court. He began his sentence of 2-4 years resulting from the incident in which John White was defending his family and home from a mob of drunken teens. That incident resulted in the death of one of those teens.
Noel Leader, along with other members of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, escorted John White and his family to the court “because of the sensitivity of the case and threats made to him, his wife and sons.” Leader said, “Members of our organization picked the family up at their house and had the unfortunate task of escorting him to the courthouse, where he was then taken into custody to complete his sentence.”
Describing the mood of the family, Leader said “Surprisingly, John was more upbeat than all of us were. Because of the magnitude of the injustice to him as well as his family, we all were sad. He was very upbeat. He knew what he did was the right thing to do. He had nothing to hang his head in shame over. He was sad over the fact that he was going to miss his wife and children.”
According to Leader, John White’s “sons were, of course, very sad. They know that they are going to miss their father for the next couple of years unless Governor David Paterson does the right thing and grants clemency or a pardon.”
Someone close to the family said John White could not submit a clemency application until White was in custody inside the prison.
John White has exhausted all appeals on the state level. Since that last state appeal was rejected, something occurred to give the family additional hope. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in McDonald v. City of Chicago that the Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, also applies to the states (not just the District of Columbia, as decided in the Heller case). The family will need to raise funds to start a federal lawsuit.
“Everyone who is familiar with the facts of this case knows that we are not holding our heads down for John.  He did nothing wrong,” Leader said. “All of us will miss him. All of us share the unfortunate time he will now serve in prison. Right now, what everyone is pinning their hopes on is the governor intervening.”
The weapon involved in the incident was a family heirloom. It originally belonged to Napoleon White, John’s grandfather. According to family history, the White family was chased out of Oneonta, Alabama in 1929. One night the Klan came to the family home to get someone in the family. Napoleon White was able to defend the family and get most of them out. The Klan set the house on fire. One of John’s aunts was not able to get out. She died in the fire. In the aftermath, the White family split up. Some settled in Cleveland, others in Georgia. John White’s branch of the family landed in New York.

For the Sake of Truth and Clarity NuLeadership Responds to President Pollard’s Message

Editor, Our Time Press
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Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York (CUNY) was named after a slain civil rights hero and Black leader who spent his life fighting for the rights of all people  to be included in the economic, social, political and educational mainstream of American society without bias or prejudice.  The college that bears his name was founded to provide higher educational opportunities to the underserved urban populations of Central Brooklyn and beyond.  Since its inception, Medgar Evers College (MEC) has been true to that mission.  One of the ways it fulfills its mission is in the creation of centers within the college, which concentrate on specific population groups or academic disciplines: for example: the Center for Women’s Development or the Center for Black Literature. 
One of the centers at MEC, the six-year-old Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, has been singled out for attack, severe criticism and special treatment.  Ironically, and perhaps coincidentally, this center focuses on the population of students who have been formerly incarcerated but are now seeking to turn their lives around through the acquisition of a college education.  For the past several weeks, there has been a continuing controversy between the Center for NuLeadership and the college’s newly appointed senior management staff, led by President William L. Pollard, Vice President Lloyd Blanchard and Provost Howard L. Johnson, over the legitimacy of the Center for NuLeadership and its funding.  President Pollard referenced these issues in the July 8th issue of Our Time Press. It is imperative that we clarify and provide background information on these issues.
In “Summer News from Medgar Evers College,” Dr. Pollard writes about a funding grant proposal submitted by the Center for NuLeadership in January and the fact that “Provost Johnson received the [funding] proposal in May 2010 and raised in writing a series of questions reflecting the college’s legitimate concerns.”  To be clear, there was no grant proposal submitted in January.  The Center for NuLeadership was solicited by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to begin a series of negotiations on a Court 2 College grant that would provide formerly incarcerated people with an opportunity to attend college. The proposal to which President Pollard is referring, is a draft proposal and the Center for NuLeadership attempted to meet with the president for several months to discuss the proposal.  Furthermore, the Center for NuLeadership was provided with the provost’s questions related to the proposal on the same day that President Pollard sent a message re: nonresponse to questions on the proposal to the college community. 
The college’s senior management team has used the request for authorization of the proposal as a basis for questioning the legitimacy and status of the Center for NuLeadership. The funding proposal has nothing to do with our application to be approved as a center.  By mixing the two, the president has given the impression that the Center for NuLeadership is unwilling to cooperate with the provost.  Nothing is further from the truth. 
In April 2009, at the request of MEC’s former president, Dr. Edison O. Jackson, the Center for NuLeadership – with the assistance of the college’s legal counsel – submitted a formal written proposal to be recognized as a center within the college.  The proposal was presented to the Medgar Evers College Council, the highest governing body within the college, and approved by a unanimous vote.  The College Council instructed the former Provost to forward the proposal, with their recommendation for approval, to the CUNY Office of Academic Affairs, for final ratification by the CUNY Board of Trustees.  This was never done.  Provost Johnson, with the approval of senior management, has still refused to forward the approved proposal.  Instead, he has drafted a series of questions and demanded that the Center for NuLeadership answer them before he forwards the proposal. 
Simply put, the provost has decided to supersede the authority of the College Council and CUNY Central by disregarding the established CUNY guidelines for the establishment of centers and creating his own prerequisites for approval.  The Center for NuLeadership has no objection to answering the provost’s questions, and will.  However, it firmly maintains that the proposal should not be subjected to any additional prerequisites or requirements not asked of other centers, nor should its application be held hostage pending answers to these additional requirements.  The College Council, not the provost, is the governing body of the college.  It has already voted approval of the proposal.  The provost cannot now impose further requirements and ignore the College Council’s mandate.
For over six years, the Center for NuLeadership has operated at Medgar Evers College with absolutely no problems.  We were assigned an account with the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (RF), in the name of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, for purposes of funding, payroll and other expenses.  We have received extensive funding opportunities for the college and have always been self-sufficient in covering the costs of our staff, operations and programs. There has never been any question or issue with any of our grant proposals.   We have always followed CUNY rules and regulations to the letter and have always complied with any and all of the “legitimate concerns” of the college to secure approval for these funds.
While the controversy focuses on the Center for NuLeadership, its outcome has broad implications for all of the Centers in the college and for the relationship between the College and the Central Brooklyn community.  The centers were established to serve both the College and Central Brooklyn Community.  When the college interferes with the governance and programmatic issues of the centers, this negatively impacts the community.  Will the new managers of the college adhere to and respect the rules governing the college or will they continue to attempt to create their own rules, or change the college’s rules when those rules do not suit their purposes? 
Based upon our six-year history at Medgar Evers, there are no reasons why the Center for NuLeadership’s proposal should not be sent to the CUNY Office of Academic Affairs immediately.  There are no prerequisites involved. Sending our proposal to CUNY does not require approval of anyone at the college beyond the approvals already secured.  Finally, there are no reasons why the president and the provost should not welcome the work that the Center for NuLeadership is doing as opposed to trying to curtail it.
Dr. Divine Pryor, Executive Director
Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions
 Mr. Eddie Ellis, Deputy Director
Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions

A Blueprint for the Freedom Party

Editor, Our Time Press
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By Alton H. Maddox, Jr.
While a political party may be established at any time, a political party with ballot status in New York can only occur during a gubernatorial election which, in New York, is every four years. A general election for governor of New York will occur on November 2, 2010. To achieve ballot status, the political party must collect 50,000 votes.
If a political party fails to collect 50,000 votes in a gubernatorial election, it will lose ballot status for the next four years. This means that its statewide candidate for governor must gather 15,000 valid signatures once again. The Working Families Party, for example, lost its ballot status four years ago.
The Freedom Party intends for its petitioning in 2010 to be “one and done”. Once it acquires ballot status, it may nominate its gubernatorial candidate. An example is the nomination of Andrew Cuomo for governor in 2010. By petitioning, however, the person carrying the petition of Charles Barron gets the opportunity to engage the voters during the petition drive.
It is very important to distinguish a designating petition from an independent nominating petition. A designating petition is associated with a primary. On the other hand, an independent nominating petition is associated with a general election.
Any registered voter can vote in a general election and any registered voter can sign any independent designating petition. The names of the statewide slate of the Freedom Party will appear on the ballot in November and not on the ballot in September. The general election happens in November. In New York, only an enrolled member of a political party can vote in its primary.
Before Smith v. Allwright (1944), Blacks were usually barred from voting in primaries. They were referred to as “white primaries”. In this country, there have always been barriers to voting. Universal suffrage is not respected. Thurgood Marshall hailed Smith v. Allwright as his greatest legal victory.
Marshall elevated politics over education. Brown v. Board of Education would be decided in 1954. The sine qua non of politics is the selection and not the election of candidates. The South operated under a one-party system; namely, states’ rights. This was the overt agenda of the Democratic Party before 1968.

Terrorism was the instrument employed before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to enforce “white primaries.” Co-optation is the tool employed today. Leading Blacks are paid-off not to resist white supremacy. This enables white supremacists to hand-pick “our” Black elected officials. Thus, Black voters endorse their own oppression.
Neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party was established to abolish slavery. The “founding fathers” of the Democratic Party include Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. They were white supremacists. Jefferson penned “Notes on Virginia”. Jackson nominated Roger Taney to head the U.S. Supreme Court. Taney wrote the Dred Scott decision. White Democrats still honor them.
The disenfranchisement of Black and Latino felons must be a concern of the Freedom Party. Our voting ranks are being depleted. In New York, half of the parolees and probationers are Black and a third are Latino. Only Maine, Vermont, Utah and Massachusetts lack a criminal disenfranchisement statute of “one type or another”.
Felony convictions are wreaking havoc in New York. Although the Rockefeller drug law has been softened, New York still refuses to enact “second chance” legislation for ex-felons. Decent employment opportunities still continue to escape them. The lack of “second chance” legislation boosts recidivism.
The three-fifths provision of the U.S. Constitution still apply to Black felons without equivocation. It was sanctioned by the Thirteenth Amendment. Thus, Black and Latino felons are counted in their places of incarceration and not their actual places of residence. They are incarcerated in areas that are hostile to Blacks and Latinos.
Political leverage will be important for the Freedom Party and it will start on August 11. This should be our initial shock in New York politics. It will start with our submission of at least 100,000 signatures to the Board of Elections. This would be more that six times the statutory minimum of 15,000 valid signatures.
In 1994, the Freedom Party was a novice in politics. Yet, the party was able to collect more than 53,000 signatures without the organization nor personnel that exists today. Today, the Freedom Party should be able to easily double its efforts of 1994 although our access to the Black media is more accessible than it was in 1994.
In 2009, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, could not leave home without the Independence Party. In 2010, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has said that he is unable to leave home without the Independence Party. When Councilman Barron secures 500,000 votes, no Democrat nor Republican candidate for statewide office will be able to leave home without the Freedom Party.

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