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Mosley aligned with construction unions, James satisfied with local contracts & jobs

By Stephen Witt

The remaining lawmaker aligned with construction unions is waiting for more i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed before he considers withdrawing from a lawsuit to halt the massive City Point project in Downtown Brooklyn.

Fort Greene Assemblyman Walter Mosley said through his spokesman Javier Lacayo that he will not drop out of the lawsuit until the developers provide more specific details regarding the local workforce on the 1.9-million-square-foot mixed-use development located on the former Albee Square Mall site just off the Fulton Mall.

“Since the beginning of the City Point proposal – before even elected to public office – Assemblyman Mosley has been for the fair and equitable development of the site. He has repeatedly made a single request to the developers: to provide him with the name of even one community member working on the project. It has been nearly a year and Assemblyman Mosley has yet to receive such information,” said Lacayo.

“Assemblyman Mosley’s commitment is to his constituency and the working families of Central Brooklyn. In lieu of empirical data to substantiate claims made by the developers, Assemblyman Mosley plans to proceed with his support of the lawsuit,” he added.

The lawmaker’s skepticism comes a little more than a week after City Councilwoman Letitia James dropped her name from the lawsuit after a group of local workers and activists from the community planned a protest in front of her office and the developer certified a high percentage of WMBEs (Women and Minority-owned Business Enterprises) on the project.

Albee Development spokesperson Tom Montvel-Cohen said between phase one and phase two of the project, $35 million has been let out in WMBE contracts and that 85 percent of the people working on the job today are either people of color, women or Brooklyn residents.

“The City Point team is very proud of its commitment to local contracting and hiring. This is evidenced by the extremely high percentages of the local and minority workforce and contacting with local and minority- and women-owned businesses as certified with the city’s Department of Small Business Services,” said Montvel-Cohen, adding that upon completion of construction, City Point will also have 120 units of desperately needed affordable housing and provide over a thousand jobs.

Much of the brouhaha concerning the development stems from it being an “open shop” project, meaning it utilizes a mix of both union and nonunion workers. The construction unions argue that by using nonunion workers the pay scale is lowered to minimum wage while local contractors argue that unions rarely employ local workers.

Currently, nobody on the City Point site is making under $20 an hour.

Martin (Ab) Allen, whose company PPEE Construction, 790 MacDonough Street in Bed-Stuy,  is located in Assemblyman William Boyland’s district, just a few blocks from Mosley’s district, said he currently has 40 people working on City Point from NYCHA’s Farragut, Wyckoff and Gowanus Houses as well as residents from Brownsville, Fort Greene, Bed-Stuy and Bushwick.

“If this project was a full union shop none of these people would be working there,” said Allen, who is himself a union member.

Congressman’s endorsement comes as Inez Barron looks to succeed her husband

By Stephen Witt

Call it the need for a change, payback or plain politics, but Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is backing community activist Christopher Banks over Assemblywoman Inez Barron in the race to succeed Barron’s husband, the term-limited Charles Barron for the 42nd District City Council seat representing East New York.

Jeffries, whom political pundits consider a pragmatic progressive Democrat, defeated the outspoken Charles Barron in the hotly contested race to succeed retiring Congressman Ed Towns last year.

“Chris Banks is a smart, talented, energetic and committed civic leader with a track record of success. He will serve the community well in the City Council, and I look forward to working with him,” said Jeffries in a statement.

Banks said, who has raised the most money in the crowded primary field including Sean Henry, Nikki Lucas, Regina Powell, John Whitehead and Prince Lewis, attributed both Jeffries’ support and the crowded field to “Barron Fatigue.”  Charles Barron has been in the City Council for 11 years, and Inez Barron in the state Assembly since 2009.

“I believe the community is dealing with Barron fatigue and folks are hungry for change,” said Banks, who heads the nonprofit organization East New York United Concerned Citizens.  “The congressman wants a partner in government that represents the 42nd Council District and he has a strong belief the Barrons are not providing the representation that the people in the district need.

Banks said the Barrons’ often confrontational style within the political system has shown itself to be ineffective in getting much-needed services in the district.

Specifically, Banks said the Barrons have promised to get a community center built in NYCHA’s Linden Houses since 2006 with $2.3 million in allocated money, but the project still hasn’t gotten off the ground. They also have allowed two new homeless shelters to come into the district in the past two years and they said they didn’t know anything about them even coming, Banks said.

“Over the last 11 years, the entire Barron team hasn’t created a job. There’s good development and bad development, but you can’t be antidevelopment. You have to sort out what is good development. If we trust the Barrons again and allow Inez to go forth with the same old that the councilman has articulated for the last 11 years, then I believe we’ll be stuck in the same rut,” said Banks.

Inez Barron refused comment on Jeffries’ support of Banks, but defended both her and her husband’s record.

“I’ve encountered people in the district that are excited to build on the legacy and work that the councilman has done,” said Barron in defending both her and her husband’s style and substance. “If people don’t confront injustice then you’re not doing what you should be doing for the community.”

Specifically, Barron said the Linden Houses community center wasn’t built because the Bloomberg Administration cut services and programs. The $2.3 million was capital funding, but Bloomberg cut the operational funding, she said.

Barron also blamed the Bloomberg Administration for putting the homeless shelters in the district because he declared a state of emergency on the issue which allowed him to put in the shelters without the input of either the local council member or the community board.

Barron, who does have major service union support from DC37, 1199, 32BJ, the TWU and the UFT, listed her husband and her accomplishments to include the building of an $80 million school, renovations of five parks in the district and the addition of science labs in all the district schools and a recording studio in another school.

“It was also a major accomplishment to keep the Wal-Mart out of the Gateway Center and replace it with the construction of a store with wholesome foods that will come with permanent jobs,” she said.

Barron added that the project at Gateway also includes the development of the Elton Street corridor which comes with many opportunities for small businesses.

By Stephen Witt

In the wake of last week’s double homicide in Fort Greene Park, coupled with the federal court ruling that the Bloomberg Administration’s stop-and-frisk policy is unconstitutional and illegal, Our Time Press asked the candidates for the 35th District City Council seat –  Laurie Cumbo, Olanike (Ola) Alabi, Ede Fox, Frank Hurley and Jelani Mashariki – the following question:

How do you think the police department should strike a balance between keeping the community safe and unwarranted stop-and-frisks?

Laurie Cumbo: “The challenge of dealing with gun violence in our community needs a holistic approach with all hands on deck. Just to hand the responsibility to the police department is both an unfair and unrealistic way of obtaining real sustainable results. When you develop one side of a district and not the other side of a district then these types of shootings and violent and tragic incidents occur because people are seeing a level of growth, development and prosperity that they are not a part of. There has been no real investment in communities of color within the district despite overarching and overreaching development and prosperity throughout the community.

When you want to really address how to decrease gun violence in the community you have to talk to the parents, families and children who say they want more activities such as more summer youth employment and community centers brought back. I had a conversation with the director of the Ingersoll Community Center and was told that due to budget cuts they had to close the center on weekends during the summer.

The issue of young African-American men being killed is still not seen as a human issue, it’s seen as a black issue. One of the reasons I’m running is people think as long as black-on-black violence remains black-on-black there will be no real level of a  battle cry to action or any major resources put into addressing the issues. This issue of black-on-black crime won’t stay eternal. It will spill out of control if we don’t put some real resources, infrastructure and plan with real results to be implemented that will involve everybody and not just the black community.”

Ola Alabi: “First, let me express my condolences to the families of the two men who were murdered in Ft. Greene Park last week. The stop-and-frisk policy, as employed by the NYPD, was determined by a federal judge to be unconstitutional. The policy is one that has been used by some in law enforcement to harass individuals based on the color of their skin and not the content of their character or reasonable suspicion.

Given that an appeal of the ruling on stop-and-frisk is expected, it’s important in the meantime that we continue to strike a balance between community policing, gun control reform, employment opportunities and rehabilitative programs to prevent and deter crime.”

Ede Fox: “There is no need to strike a balance between keeping the community safe and unwarranted stop-and-frisks because stop-and-frisk does not keep the community safe. It is racist policy, a waste of resources and serves mostly to alienate residents of the 35th District. If the goal was to keep the community safe, then we wouldn’t stop residents based on the color of their skin.

Bring back community policing where police officers stay with the same precincts and walk the beat rather than drive around in patrol cars.  We used to know the men and women who policed our streets by name and they knew all of us. While I understand this will require additional funding, as a council member I will be happy to support such an increase to ensure safer streets and an end to such a discriminatory policy.”

Frank Hurley: “Sensitivity training can help. Stop-and-frisk has been around forever. It’s not the law that is the problem, it is the racial profiling that is the problem. Some officers use stop- and-frisk as an excuse to racial profile. Even black officers are guilty of racial profiling. Training is the key. Stop on suspicion. Frisk on reasonable suspicion. What is reasonable to one person may be unreasonable to another. We need to define what is reasonable.”

Jelani Mashariki: “In dealing with the increase in crime in the 35th District it is going to take a multipronged approach to policing. The police department is only one prong. However, increasing the community-police relationship through activities would break the walls of distrust and have more community members active in policing using current technology.

Statistically, it is proven that when law enforcement works with  community members there is a decrease in crime. The transformation of a nation takes place in the homes and minds of its people. The moral compass is off, people are walking around as psychologically scarred victims and witnesses of violent crimes and they need support. Increased poverty levels coincide with higher crime incidents. Those are some of the other prongs needed to address violence in the district.”