Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

There is an entire stable in the horse race this year to replace two-term New York City Councilman Al Vann in the 36th District, which comprises a majority of Bedford-Stuyvesant and northern Crown Heights.
“I don’t remember people talking this much about a local election in quite some time,” says Frantz Cayo, president of the Stuyvesant Heights Parents Association, which is sponsoring the first candidates’ debate on Saturday, June 6 at Brownstone Books.  “The field of candidates is fearless.  They truly believe that they have the opportunity to unseat Vann.”
Considered a neighborhood institution by many, Vann has represented central Brooklyn, first as Assemblyman, for 34 years—just as long, or, longer than a couple of the other eight contenders have been alive.
History favors him.  Incumbent council members have been re-elected 97 per cent of the time over the past 20 years, a recent City Limits article reports.  Plus, with a candidate list longer than the line for roti at Trinidad Ali’s, November’s victor would only need a slim plurality.
But changing demographics and the ‘Barack Obama effect,’ the belief that youth and change is preferable to the establishment, could throw the race to a nimble horse. For those who did not grow up in the district and homegrown residents taking stock of what has been done for them lately, Vann is just as new as the new guy.
It’s a development that lead challenger Mark Winston Griffith, 46, recently endorsed by the Working Families Party, is counting on.
“In the case of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, you have so much political leadership that’s been entrenched for generations, it should be a part of your platform to identify new folks and bring them in,” says Griffith, who opposed Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s extension of term limits that also allowed 35 of 51 City Council members, including Vann, to run again.  Back in the 1990s, voters twice supported referenda to impose term limits.
Griffith, executive director of the Drum Major Institute, a think tank that advocates for the working and middle class, has so far, out-fundraised everyone.  He has $35,000 in his war chest, according to public campaign finance records, much of it drawing from citywide and national progressive political circles.  But he also has establishment approval.
Griffith is one of two candidates to receive highest marks from a panel of community leaders convened at Vann’s suggestion in early fall of 2008, according to coordinator Esmeralda Simmons, to identify his possible successor.
Since Vann’s idea for the panel occurred around the same time that talk publicly surfaced of Bloomberg’s interest in extending term limits and Vann subsequently deciding to run, charges have been leveled that the panel was convened to identify his competitors—which Simmons, director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, refutes.
The other candidate with highest marks, attorney Mark Pollard, is now Vann’s campaign manager.
Despite his lengthy tenure in office however, some new small business owners, like Serena and Patrick Icart-Pierre and Nikima Frenche, are hard-pressed to say how Vann has helped them.
The Icart-Pierre’s three-year-old Exotic Homes & Gardens is the only lifestyle and design store to brave the gritty, noisy Atlantic Avenue thoroughfare.  Foot traffic is spotty, unlike around the corner on Nostrand Avenue, and largely drawn from pleasantly surprised passers-by trudging to the post office.  Developing and beautifying this border area is a prime concern for the Icart-Pierre’s.
“If this was Park Slope, it would be beautiful,” Serena says, pointing to where blackened bricks from the mouth of the Long Island Rail Road tunnel fall off into the street.  Serena says that she doubles as the street’s cleaner and beautifier.  She and her husband wonder why there are no trees for as far as the eye can see in either direction, unlike a friend’s store, also on Atlantic Avenue, but further west in Boerum Hill.
“If I haven’t met you, I don’t know how I’m supposed to vote for you,” says Frenche who owns the eponymous day spa and private tea room on the tree-lined Tompkins Avenue corridor, a haven for small businesses which have sprung up in the last five years to cater to residents with discretionary income.
Frenche wants her councilmember to be a strong voice for “the right sort” of small businesses in the area. Read: no more bodegas.
For that reason, she plans to vote in the council elections for the first time. Her choice is Tremaine Wright, 36, owner of nearby Common Grounds coffee house.  Wright, an attorney and small business advocate, has raised about $5,000, which places her near the bottom of the field.
The Icart-Pierre’s store bears evidence of a recent visit from David Grinage, a former police officer, whose $33,000 haul puts him a close second behind Griffith.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen these guys going around,” says Patrick, who seems impressed.  He has also met the youngest candidate, Saquan Jones, 33, whose $10,000 puts him just behind Al Vann—a closeness that Jones is not expected to maintain.
The appeal of Vann’s experience and seniority cannot be dismissed, particularly when viewed against a city dominated by a strong mayor and speaker of the city council.
“If you walk around the Albany chambers with him you’ll see the respect he’s amassed in his career,” says Colvin Grannum, president of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation on Fulton Avenue, who believes that term limits weaken the council.  He says that Vann’s longstanding personal relationships give him access to power.
“Vann can bring home the bacon to central Brooklyn,” says campaign manager, Pollard.
Indeed, with joblessness on the rise and Bedford-Stuyvesant having the highest foreclosure rate in the city, with north Crown Heights not far behind, an ability to coax federal stimulus dollars out of Albany’s hands is one of the major themes coming out of the Vann camp.
It has gotten the attention of Cayo who attended State Senator Velmanette Montgomery’s Small Business Empowerment Forum on President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.
“No other candidate was there but everyone knew Vann and wanted to speak with him afterwards about how to take part in it,” says Cayo, who plans to vote for Vann.
“Other candidates look like they’re trying to run uphill while he’s not having those same issues,” he says.
Frenche holds a slightly different take on the incumbent. “It’s time to bring in new blood.”

Photo caption: State Senators Bill Perkins, Velmanette Montgomery and Karl Kruger.

The first State Senate hearing since the 2005 announcement of the Atlantic Yards project was a spectacle to behold. State Senator Bill Perkins hosted the hearing, entitled “Atlantic Yards: Where are We Now, How Did We Get Here, and Where is this Project Going?” State Senators Velmanette Montgomery and Carl Kruger and Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries were on hand to ask questions.
Sen. Perkins is the newly-appointed chair of the State Committee on  Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, which has a mandate to oversee state entities that engage in state-supported economic and infrastructure development, such as the ESDC and all of its subsidiaries. The committee also shares oversight of the Port Authority and the Thruway Authority.
Perkins opening statement sought to explain why he called the hearing. “We are here to lend the will of the people to this process, to provide the check and balance that helps the Executive Branch do the right thing.” Perkins stressed this point: “Development, as I see it, is generally a good thing. I do not count myself among those who think ‘development’ is a dirty word that denotes the trampling of the powerless for the benefit of the powerful. But the truth is that development does have a checkered history in New York, particularly here in this city. Yet all too often,” he said, “in our strive to ‘go big or go home’ we have not taken into account the needs of all the legitimate stake holders. This is where development goes off track. Our goal here is to do all we can to make sure this project does not go off track.”
Of all the stake holders interested in Atlantic Yards who attended – MTA, Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC), various NYC agencies, Independent Budget Office (IBO), Council member Tish James, signatories to the Community Benefits Agreement, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), various union members, and community residents – the most notable entity missing-in-action was Bruce Ratner, who also failed to send a representative of Forest City Ratner.
Attendees had to walk a gauntlet of about 100 union members to gain entrance to the hearing. Once inside the capacity hearing, attendees were treated to union members heckling and loudly blowing whistles, disrupting those giving testimony. The union message, led by Anthony Pugliese from the Carpenters’ Local 152 and Dennis Milton from the Ironworkers Local 580, was loud and clear: they want jobs, and they want ‘em now!  Perkins respectfully asked several times for decorum.
State Senator Marty Golden’s dramatic, disruptive entrance half way through the proceedings irritated Montgomery, who reminded Golden that “This is my district.” (After the hearing, Montgomery noted Golden’s hypocrisy for whipping union members into a frenzy, since Golden is one of the state senators vehemently opposed to a new provision of the Rockefeller drug law that provides “conditional sealing” of criminal records, which would allow the formerly incarcerated to gain employment in the one field they may qualify for: construction trades).
Helena Williams, president of the Long Island Railroad and the interim executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, touted Atlantic Yards’ benefits to public transportation system: new rail yards, a new subway entrance for the arena, and new tax revenues (based upon the assumption that fans from NJ would come to Brooklyn to see the Nets). After intense questioning, Williams admitted the original 2006 deal for Ratner to pay MTA $100 million for the Vanderbilt rail yard would have to be modified due to the current economic climate. When pressed if it would be closer to $50 million, Williams said there may be an upfront payment of $20 million with incremental payments as MTA parcels are consumed by the project. In addition, the new rail yard would be downscaled from nine to seven rails to reduce costs. A final determination is expected when the MTA holds its next board meeting on June 24.
George Sweeting from the Independent Budget Office (IBO), said his office “has not undertaken a full updating of our previous (2005) analysis of the project.” He suggested that costs, increased city contributions and changes in the city’s economic climate, might make the arena a net money loser. Sweeting noted that under a special Internal Revenue code, tax exempt bonds for development of the arena must be issued before the end of the year or lose tax exempt status.
Rev. Herbert Daughtry was the most vocal individual to continuously disrupt the hearing with accusations that elected officials stalled the building of Atlantic Yards, and stated that the hearing was just one more stall tactic. When he testified, Rev. Daughtry described himself as the President and founder of the Brooklyn Downtown Neighborhood Alliance. While touting the Community Benefits Agreement, Daughtry referred to his “highly regarded” daycare centers that would be located in Atlantic Yards; he told of “the opportunity of participation in the architectural design” of an intergenerational complex to be located with the project.
Mollie Rouzie, representing the Community-Based Planning Task Force, was one of the few to note how planning of Atlantic Yards bypassed normal local land use provisions. She resurrected the Unity Plan, which calls for housing to be built only on the footprint of the Vanderbilt Yards.
Michelle de la Uz from the Fifth Avenue Committee pointed out that per unit housing costs at Atlantic Yards are more than twice what the Fifth Avenue Committee or the Pratt Area Community Council pays. De la Uz compared Atlantic Yards to the project on Gowanus Green where 70% of the housing is permanent and affordable.
Daniel Goldstein, co-founder of DDDB, called upon ESDC to “see the healthy development of the Vanderbilt Rail Yards, with competitive bidding, truly affordable housing, open space the public can use, with a scope and scale that respects the surrounding community while still meeting a desirable and reasonable density.” Goldstein said, “It is time to officially scrap the Atlantic Yards plan and start over.”
Ron Shiffman, professor at the Pratt Center for Planning and the Environment, board member of DDDB, and urban planner for the Unity Plan, said Atlantic Yards “takes housing dollars from other neighborhoods.” Shiffman called “eminent domain dangerous to poor and low income communities,” and said a concrete definition of eminent domain should be a part of public policy, along the lines of the original Urban Development Corp. Use of “eminent domain on a case-by-case basis erodes principles,” said Shiffman. During his testimony, hecklers reminded Shiffman that Pratt Institute was built by non-union labor and was currently using non-union labor in its expansion.
Gloria Woodland, former president of ACORN, said  the organization has a “commitment to affordability and housing for low and middle income people.”
Henry P. Weinstein, president of the Pacific Carlton Development Corp., blasted ESDC, saying it “stood silent and allowed the ultimate misuse of the threat of eminent domain to be used by a private developer, caring little for the truth and the rights of those affected.” He accused ESDC of abusing its power and the public trust “by allowing the private developer, who has the most to gain to self-certify almost all documents and facts submitted for public review.”  Weinstein said “Bruce Ratner was allowed to self-certify that he controlled my property to ESDC.” (Weinstein recently won an appellate court decision against Ratner, concerning the illegal assignments of the leases of some of Weinstein’s properties in the footprint of Atlantic Yards.)
Assemblymember Jeffries asked strong questions regarding whether or not public benefits will be preserved, including the  affordable housing component. Concerned about “gentrification and displacement, with working class folks being forced out,” Jeffries asked “What if housing is not affordable by the people who would build it?” Jeffries said the goal of 200 affordable on-site condos out of 4,500 units is “not significant enough.” Jeffries called for “proportional affordability.”
Sen. Kruger said he was “an early supporter of Atlantic Yards”; is concerned about the “lacking facts and substance from MTA,” and wants to see construction begin.”
Council member Letitia James summed up changes in her district since she took office and described what Atlantic Yards would do. James reminded everyone that “Normally, a project like this would begin the long City planning and approval process known as the Land Use Review Procedure or ULURP. A process with public hearings at each level of city government, ending in a vote by the 51 members of the City Council.” James lamented, “But, this project would be different. ULURP would be bypassed, in favor of a state override and a state process consisting solely of environmental impact disclosures. There would be no vote by the City Council, or by the three community boards that meet inside the boundaries of the proposed project-area.”
It would be a state takeover of the largest project in Brooklyn history,” said James. “Instead of public hearings and strict review, there would be zoning overrides and violations of existing zoning regulations.” For instance, James pointed to a NYC zoning regulation that prohibits arenas within 200 feet of residential areas. “This project would not respect that rule,” she said.
James told the hearing, “It has been five and a half years since the project was unveiled and we still have no idea how much the developer stands to make from this project. There has never been a public cost/ benefit analysis undertaken. We are unsure of the total of direct City and State subsidies. We are even less sure of the indirect benefits the developer would receive, in tax breaks and exemptions, land values, PILOTS, and other incentives. It has been conservatively estimated at upwards of one billion dollars.”
Council member James closed her testimony by saying she wants to see development built at Atlantic/ Vanderbilt Yards, including affordable housing. James told the hearing that a source from ESDC said what will be built is an arena alone. “What we need,” said James, “is housing and housing loans.”

Community Council Formed to Support Boys & Girls High School
By David Mark Greaves

In 1815 Peter and Benjamin Croger of Bridge Street African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church,  started the first School in Brooklyn to educate African-American children, it was called “The African School.” In 1841 the city of Brooklyn annexed the school and named it “Colored School Number One.” Taken from a plaque at the Charles Alexander Dorsey School.

Community involvement in the education of young people has a long history.  It is now being updated with the formation of the Boys & Girls High School Community Advisory Council, a group of residents and community leaders that grew out of conversations between New York State Regent Lester Young, Jr.  and Councilman Al Vann who had expressed to each other their concerns about the stresses put on the school, and joined by Principal Stephen Holder, they decided to convene a community council.
“Councilman Vann and I have been talking about Boys and Girls for some time,” said Regent Young.  “It is one of the few remaining large high schools in New York City.  The school has tremendous potential and a history and tradition of excellence, but it has some challenges that it’s facing.”   Regent Young said that rather than “stay on the sidelines as critical observers, we thought it was important to maintain the original integrity of community involvement and create a strategy that would support the further development of the school.”
Councilman Vann says that Boys and Girls High serves a “unique and significant function” with things that are very good about it and things that have to be improved to survive as a community school.  “It was along those lines that we asked people if they wanted to serve.  What is great is that so many Bedford-Stuyvesant leaders and community residents feel strongly enough about our school that they were willing to put their time and energy into making things better in our community.”
Principal Holder said that this support was welcomed and needed.  The school has already been working with The Algebra Project to improve math scores with intensive staff training, and with the Lorraine Monroe Institute on education strategies.  In the Fall session, the school will be reorganizing into four magnet communities within the school centered around themes such as humanities, law, business, entertainment and art.  “Everyone is very excited about this change” says Holder.  “The objective is to bring the staff and student closer together, and to give the students a way to follow their interests.  It will give the students a choice.  This is a model that has worked,” says Holder.  “We expect ups and downs, but it is the change we believe the school needs.”
Holder said they also need stronger parental involvement  when we asked about the DOE’s Learning Environment Survey Report and the disheartening numbers for the school, with 11% parent participation and low academic expectation ratings being two examples.
Asked about the low community involvement rating on the Survey, and if that was something the Council was looking at, Regent Young said   “Absolutely, that’s one of the primary purposes.  I think there’s a link between school development and community development.  The activities of the school have to be transparent.  There must be a community outreach process.  If you talk to people in schools they will tell you the parents are not involved when their kids get to high school. However that is not the same as saying community involvement doesn’t help the school.  This structure that we’re putting in place is a vehicle to getting the community more involved in the school.”
Dr. Young explained that “As children get older in school, parents, quite naturally begin to disengage and pursue there own survival strategies.  They may be able to go from a part time job to a fulltime job, because now ‘my child is older and I don’t have to worry about them going back and forth’ things of that nature.  And as kids grow into adolescence, they begin to move away from their parents.”  He says that one of the charges of the advisory council is to help Boys & Girls become more effective in expanding parental involvement.  “We can be more effective in bringing the parents out,” Young insists.
One of the stresses on the school is the 21% “special needs” student population.  Advisory Council member Jitu Weusi said that number should be about 10%.  Councilman Vann agrees.  “21% is disproportionate to what other schools have. We’re going to meet with the chancellor.  And unless he can show otherwise, we’re going to ask him to make the modification for the incoming class.”
One of the notable facts about “The High” is the large number, almost 40, of teachers and administrators who are former students.  “They bring with them an understanding of the many issues that our young people face before they even come in the classroom,” said Principal Holder. A large percentage of our students go through major challenges every day and need to hear encouragement every day.”
But the school is only one section of the school-to-future pipeline that the children are in.  “We said to Spencer, you’re on the receiving end” noted Regent Young.  “While we are prepared to assist you to figure out the challenges here in this building, in a lot of respects we’re just dealing with the symptoms.  The real cure is in prevention.  We have to look at the feeder pattern and how do we reach out to those middle schools to better prepare students for the high school experience.”
Councilman Vann says that part of the problem is that the majority of the students Boys & Girls receives are coming in with very weak skills.  “The school has the additional challenge to bring them up to standard and then bring them forward so they can graduate.”  What is needed says the Councilman is for the Advisory Council to be an educational family and ask what how they can help the schools feeding Boys and Girls.  “The initiative starts with the high school, and then it will extend down to the feeder schools as well.”
“We plan to do several things,” says Regent Young. One is be an advisory body to the principal. Two, we hope to better communicate to the community what is happening in the school.  Three, we are an accountability mechanism to ask the right questions and report back to the community.  And our members can provide some advocacy and some resources to the school as well.”
We have to celebrate the success of our students,” Dr. Young continued.  “We have youngsters going to some of the top schools in the country.  Some of the top scholarships offered in the country have been won here at Boys and Girls.
The school is one of the few remaining large high schools located in a community of color that doesn’t have metal detectors, is not an impact school with a lot of police in the building.  There is a culture that was established by the former principal and we want to build on that existing culture and move forward.”

Boys and Girls High School Community Advisory Council
Ms. Deborah Akinbowale
1700 Fulton Street ~Room 117
Brooklyn, New York 11213

Ms. Ava Barnett, President
Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Inc.
PO Box 330009
Brooklyn, New York 11233

Ms. Brenda Fryson
63 Chauncey Street
Brooklyn, New York 11233

Mr. Colvin Grannum, President and CEO
Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
1368 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, New York 111216

Ms. Bernice Green Greaves, Co-Publisher
Our Times Press
679 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11216

Rev. David Hampton
Bethany Baptist Church
460 Marcus Garvey Boulevard
Brooklyn, New York 11216

Mr. Spencer Holder, Principal
Boys and Girls High School
1700 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216

Mr. Dourdy Jordain, Executive President
Bedford Stuyvesant YMCA
1121 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11216

Ms. Phyllis Hurd, Director
Quincy Senior Residence
625 Quincy Street
Brooklyn, New York 11221

Mr. Lloyd Porter, Representative
SOLA (Shops on Lewis Avenue Association)
403 Lewis Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11233

Ms. Claudia Schrader
Medgar Evers College/ CUNY
1650 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11225

Ms. Andrea Toussaint
439 MacDonough Street
Brooklyn, New York 11233

Councilman Albert Vann
613-619 Throop Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11216

Mr. Jitu Weusi
1107 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, New York 11238

Dr. Lester W. Young, Jr., Regent
New York State Education Department
55 Hanson Place ~Suite 400
Brooklyn, New York 11217

With rising unemployment and amidst a failing economy there is fierce competition for the jobs that do exist, and an example of that dynamic can be found at 534 Myrtle Avenue, home to a new $50 million dollar administration building being built for Pratt University with objections from union labor, but with a work force that includes workers from the surrounding community.
The union argument is put forward by Anthony Williamson, an organizer for Local 79 of the Construction and General Building Laborers union.  With over 9,500 members, it is the largest construction local in the United States and second largest in North America.
Williamson says, “The new construction is not paying a living wage with benefits.  Pratt’s budget is over $160 million dollars.  It is unacceptable for them not to hire contractors that pay workers a living wage with decent benefits.”  Williamson says that as an organizer, he sees that  situation as exploiting the workers.  “How can you pay guys $10-12 dollars an hour and expect them to raise their families,” he asks.  “We have people from the building trades who live in the surrounding community who can benefit from jobs like that.”
On the question of diversity of membership, he says, “Our union is considered one of the most diverse and progressive.  I’m part of the executive board.   We have a Latino business manager and a membership of African-Americans, Latinos and Caucasians.  In that community we have a number of members who want to be a part of the project.”
Nolan Herrera is on the executive board of the Steelworkers Union and said “We have a collective bargaining agreement throughout the city where we are paid proper wages for the work we do.  These contractors bring in people and pay them well under the standard for the work they are doing. There are unsafe conditions and some of the people don’t speak English, they’re illegal, and they pay them what they want. They have nothing to say because they have no backing.  They’re being exploited.”
One man’s exploitation is another man’s well-paying job.  Activist Darnell Canada of Rebuild says he has been able to successfully place men on the Pratt site and at other sites around Brooklyn.  Mr. Canada says it better that someone be making $25/hour and be able to support a family, than waiting to join unions that had all but closed their books. “We have 70% unemployment in the Farragut Houses, in a surrounding area with 50% unemployment.  We need jobs.” Asked about the influx of immigrant labor to the area, we havr seen Hispanic women doing laborer’s work in Bedford Stuyvesant, Canada said he had been on some job sites where “if I had pulled out a badge, everyone would have run.  We’re being squeezed between the unions on one side and immigrant labor on the other.”
Speaking of Pratt, Mr. Canada described the University as a good partner, both in employing local labor and in their contributions to the surrounding community.  Speaking of the Myrtle Avenue site, Canada said, “We had 10 men working on the foundation and one man training in steel on a five-man crew.   These are relationships we’ve built up with contractors over the years.  We just don’t give them anybody.   We do training and deal with job retention.  We constantly work with our people.  A lot of them have not been in the world of work for many years.”
Councilwoman Letitia James said that she has worked closely with, and fully-supported Mr. Canada in his employment efforts.  Since the beginning of this year, Canada says his group has placed approximately 60-70 people in jobs.  “For a group that gets no money, we do a better job of getting jobs than organizations getting” tens of millions of dollars a year.  Those organizations train and get people ‘work ready’, we get them jobs.”
Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, (D) said “I remain hopeful that Pratt will find it economically feasible to use some union labor as part of completing the building.”  The Assemblyman said he had spoken to members of the administration and urged them to come to some agreement with organized labor as it relates to the project and I’m hopeful they’ll be in dialogue to reach a mutually acceptable resolution.”
Asked about the relationship between union labor and “community labor” Jeffries said he had also urged Pratt to “insure that to the extent they are unable to use union labor, that a significant percentage of the people employed on the project come from the community.”
The Assemblyman added that “It’s also important that Pratt hire local businesses, as part of the construction process.”  He said he “made that position clear” to President Thomas Schutte as well as to other senior officials.  “They have indicated to me that they are going to take all steps possible to incorporate both community members and businesses into the process and I take them at their word.”