This is what democracy looks like

Photo is of CB11 meeting last night regarding the plan to upzone the corner of Northern Blvd and Douglaston Pkwy. CB11 voted unanimously to reject the proposal. The applicant's attorney fled the room before he was scheduled to speak.

Katz & Moya to hold secret meeting on Willets Point

From Willets Point United:

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and Councilmember Francisco Moya are the co-chairs of the “Willets Point Task Force,” a cherry-picked group that is supposed to recommend potential uses for Willets Point land. The Task Force will hold its third closed-door meeting this Wednesday, August 22.

Katz and Moya are denying Willets Point United and all current Willets Point property or business owners the opportunity to attend any meeting of the Task Force – despite Queens Community Board 7’s recommendation that Katz and Moya consider allowing a Willets Point representative to attend. Even worse, Councilmember Moya’s office directly lied to us by telephone last Thursday, stating that no August meeting of the Task Force has been scheduled – when Queens Community Board 7 knew that the meeting is set for August 22.

Katz and Moya are shutting out not only Willets Point United, but also the press. We are aware that Borough Hall has rejected several reporters’ requests to observe Task Force meetings, and has been unwilling to provide even basic information regarding what land use options the Task Force is considering, or how it operates.

Per information furnished to Queens Community Board 7, the scheduled topic of the August 22 Task Force meeting is to “develop preliminary recommendations,” prior to the final September meeting which will “review final recommendations” to be sent to Mayor de Blasio.

In our view, Katz, Moya and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) are leading the Task Force to an outcome predetermined by them – and they are using public-sector Task Force members solely to create an illusion of community buy-in, not to solicit or seriously consider any creative Willets Point development ideas they may have. Given that Willets Point United has a wealth of knowledge about all that has happened with the proposed Willets Point development during the past ten years (and beyond), had we been allowed to participate on the Task Force we would have encouraged thorough consideration of all relevant issues and potential recommendations – not just the ones prioritized by Katz, Moya and NYCEDC. We believe it is for that reason, that Katz and Moya are deliberately excluding us (and in the case of Moya’s office, even lying to us).

While Katz and Moya are shutting us out of their meetings, they cannot stop us from informing Task Force members, via this writing, of issues we consider important, and recommendations we believe the Task Force should make to Mayor de Blasio regarding Willets Point. We hope that the more open-minded members of the Task Force (if any) will raise these issues during the Wednesday meeting as “preliminary recommendations” are formulated.

(Article continues at link above.)

One's out, one's back for another term, both were absent

Today's the day

From CBS 2:

Mayor Bill de Blasio will be questioned by federal prosecutors and the FBI on Friday, CBS2 has confirmed.

CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer confirmed through multiple sources Thursday night that de Blasio will be interviewed about the fundraising scandal that has swirled around the Mayor’s office for nearly a year.

The meeting will take place at the office of de Blasio’s attorney, Barry H. Berke of Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel, Kramer confirmed.

As CBS2’s Dick Brennan reported, sources said de Blasio’s team has agreed to meet with prosecutors for four hours tomorrow to answer questions.

CBS2 is told the interview was set originally set for two weeks ago, but was postponed until Friday.

Crowley actually knew about Maspeth shelter plan in MAY, said nothing

From QNS:

City Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks informed City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley about the proposed homeless shelter in Maspeth more than two months before it was officially announced, according to a source with the Department of Social Services (DSS).

The source told QNS on Thursday that Banks and Crowley exchanged phone calls “several times before the Aug. 3 community meeting” at the Maspeth library, where city officials announced plans to convert the Holiday Inn Express on 55th Road into a homeless shelter for up to 220 adults. Earlier this month, the city ultimately halted that plan and instead rented hotel rooms to indefinitely house 30 homeless men.

The earliest Crowley knew about the shelter plan, according to the DSS source, was in May at an initial meeting between Crowley and Banks. They had met on May 19 at Crowley’s legislative office in Manhattan and “subsequently had a number of additional, detailed in-person and telephone conversations” about the proposal. QNS has requested from DSS any recordings taken of those conversations.

“At the May 19 meeting, Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks informed Council Member Crowley that there were plans by a nonprofit service provider to convert the Holiday Inn in Maspeth from a commercial hotel into a homeless shelter for adult families, and that there was an urgent need for additional shelter capacity immediately,” the source said.

Thank you for clarifying, QNS!

Elizabeth Crowley knew about Maspeth shelter in JUNE, told no one

Questioning @NYCHRA Commissioner Banks at BP @MelindaKatz's Borough Board meeting on homelessness in Queens. pic.twitter.com/e8yrExVVWu

— Jimmy Van Bramer (@JimmyVanBramer) October 19, 2016

Something a bit earth-shattering - at least if you live in Maspeth - happened last night at Borough Hall. As you are likely aware, DHS Commissioner Steven Banks gave a presentation to the Borough Board. He also took questions from the board members. Elizabeth Crowley got into it with him. He then responded by stating, "When I met with you in private in June and explained to you what our plan would be, I never said any of the things that you said." You can hear the exchange yourself by downloading the file from here. The exchange begins at 0:56:06.

So, despite what Crowley, Addabbo and Markey would like everyone to believe, this was known about long before that secret Maspeth Library meeting where she acted surprised and outraged in front of members of the community board and the community at large. And why would she meet with Banks privately, if not to make a deal?

Fuzzy memory on Rivington House deal

From the NY Post:

First Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris suffered numerous memory lapses about the Rivington Street nursing-home fiasco, telling investigators more than two dozen times that he couldn’t recall incidents, ­emails or details, records show.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s right-hand man claimed he couldn’t remember a meeting with Stacey Cumberbatch, a city commissioner, or the content of any conversations they had about Rivington in 2014.

His schedule showed a July 25, 2014, meeting with Cumberbatch, then head of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, where the deal was on the agenda.

Shorris also said he believed his decision that the property should remain a nursing home — rather than be sold on the open market — was communicated to the agency.

But he couldn’t recall how.

“I’ve asked myself that question. I do not remember the exact mechanism. I just don’t,” he told investigators for city Comptroller Scott Stringer, according to a transcript of the July 27 interview obtained by The Post through public-disclosure laws.

Asked if he had met with Cumberbatch about Rivington in 2014, Shorris replied, “Probably. I can’t say I remember exactly.”

Markey vs. Barnwell at Maspeth shelter hearing

Thought you'd enjoy these. They are quite something. Perhaps a preview of primary day?

As constituents protest, electeds hold secret meeting with Maspeth shelter operator

This gets more and more interesting. Apparently as protesters continued their nightly vigil outside the hotel, one night before the public meeting about the shelter, Maspeth's electeds and members of CB5 decided to hold a secret meeting at O'Neill's Restaurant (no one would ever see them there) with Acacia Network in order to discuss the security plan for the shelter they are supposedly fighting. We're still 30 days away from the opening of the shelter and these people have already thrown in the towel by meeting to discuss the security plan.

The only problem is that when you have a secret meeting in a place half the town visits regularly, you are bound to get caught. That's exactly what happened. The police notified the electeds that the protesters were storming up to the restaurant and they ran away just before they got up there.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Katz FOILed again!

From the Queens Chronicle:

A Whitestone resident and media producer is suing the Office of the Queens Borough President and the borough president herself, Melinda Katz, alleging repeated violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Law for failing to respond to his requests for information concerning records related to the Willets Point neighborhood.

Robert LoScalzo, who says he has been working on an independent documentary about the Willets Point area since 2007, says he requested records concerning meetings held by Katz on Jan. 29 and March 3 of this year to discuss the deteriorated streets in the area, a possible city Department of Transportation contract to repave the streets for $9.1 million, waste-hauling tractor-trailers that park in the neighborhood and the status of its redevelopment.

LoScalzo says he made his initial FOIL request on May 12 and an appeal on June 4, and didn’t receive a reply to either one.

State law requires one within five business days, and a lack of response is tantamount to a denial, according to the state Committee on Open Government, which monitors compliance with the FOIL and Open Meetings Law. The only recourse available is to sue an agency.

A copy of the lawsuit says it was filed on Aug. 12 in state Supreme Court in Queens.

Katz’s office said it has not been served with any suit and wouldn't comment on pending litigation if it had, but that it has responded to the FOIL request. The office did not respond to a question about when the response was sent, and as of press time, LoScalzo said he hadn’t received a response.

In a sharply worded press release, LoScalzo accused Katz of hypocrisy and duplicity with the public.

“Just before this past Fourth of July weekend, Melinda Katz sent an email to her list, quoting loftily from the Declaration of Independence and imploring everyone to read America’s founding documents and get acquainted with our hard-won rights,” the release said in part.

“Ironically, when those of us who know our rights attempt to exercise them at Borough President Katz’s office by requesting public records, those rights are denied.”

Maspeth homeless shelter meeting was quite a spectacle

I will try to summarize the most relevant points about the Maspeth homeless shelter meeting below.


This video shows the first 30 minutes or so of the meeting, featuring a screeching Liz Crowley and Yabba Dabba Joe Addabbo. Some of the first public speakers are also included.

(Incidentally, I believe this is the video that Gothamist reporter Emma Whitford used to write her false headline which Brooklyn BP Eric Adams then got his knickers in a twist over. Why actually attend a meeting and gather your own facts when you can just crib off someone else's work and call yourself a reporter on your résumé?)


I don't know if anyone has an estimate of how many people showed up Thursday, but suffice it to say that hundreds were inside the auditorium and hundreds more were turned away.


Perhaps the best comment of the night came from Maspeth activist and Republican Assembly candidate Tony Nunziato, who pointed out that people are upset because the city wants to dump something in Maspeth that will require security and additional police manpower in order to protect the community from it. (Incumbent State Assemblywoman Marge Markey did not attend the meeting.)

Those who couldn't get in marched down to the hotel to protest. When the meeting concluded, many others joined them. One person received a summons for disorderly conduct.

Lincoln Restler attended but did not speak. He spent the whole night with his nose in his cell phone. Acacia Network did not send a representative to answer questions for some reason.

There was no mention of the "alternate" plan proposed earlier.

Today it was revealed that the Acacia Network has been looking to hire social workers for the Holiday Inn shelter since July, well before the secret meeting at the Maspeth Library.

Everything's a secret in de Blasio land

From the Queens Chronicle:

Did you know there was a meeting Tuesday night among representatives of the Department of Transportation, NYPD and Community Board 6 about how crowded Austin Street is and what might be done to make the strip safer and more workable for all?

You do if you’re reading this week’s Central, Mid or North Queens editions of the Chronicle, or visiting qchron.com. We don’t know if other papers have the story. We do know that if it were up to the DOT, we wouldn’t either.

No, no, no — that department’s press office was not at all happy to hear that we had learned about the meeting and had the gall to ask questions about it. The nerve of the press! In America, no less! True, we already had perturbed the office by contacting an actual decision-making official directly, at the recommendation of a knowledgeable source, so we had to get the old “You must go through us!” speech again. Yawn.

But eventually the DOT press people were quite helpful. When the Chronicle’s Christopher Barca asked what was discussed at the meeting, whether the agency would study traffic on Austin, and whether it has a plan going forward, we got this detailed response that was more than we could have hoped for in our greatest reportorial dreams:

“While DOT currently does not have a proposal to adjust traffic patterns on Austin Street in Forest Hills, we are aware of the community’s concerns related to congestion.”

The DOT is not alone in this by any means. This is rapidly becoming standard for city agencies. So why single out the transportation agency? Because it happened to be the one to try to cover up a newsworthy event this week. Luckily another well-placed source supplied the little information we got about the meeting. Like that it had taken place.

But most agencies and officials are getting less prone to answer the questions of a free press. That’s why you see so much “said in a prepared statement” in our stories. No interview allowed; take an email. That’s why the New York Press Club periodically writes letters reminding the mayor of the First Amendment, which then run in these pages. And that’s why Barca made a number of calls and sent several emails over two days to confirm that big secret: that a meeting had been held. Among public employees. On a matter of public interest. Expect a follow-up one day ... if anyone will talk.

Katz and Ferreras freeze WPU out of important meeting

Willets Point United (WPU) – the group of property and business owners that for years has advocated for the repair of dilapidated Willets Point streets – is being shut out of a second meeting scheduled for today by Borough President Melinda Katz to discuss that issue, one month after also being excluded from the first meeting. Neither Katz nor City Council member Julissa Ferreras responded at all to multiple letters and email sent by WPU requesting an invitation to the second meeting to discuss the very issue which WPU has championed.

Persons involved in the secret meetings confirmed to WPU that on January 29, 2016, Borough President Katz convened a summit meeting at Borough Hall to discuss the problem of horrendous Willets Point street conditions. That first meeting was also attended by City Council member Julissa Ferreras, Marilyn Bitterman and Eugene Kelty of Queens Community Board 7 (CB7), representatives of the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), and three large Willets Point businesses: Tully Construction, Fodera Foods and House of Spices.

Although WPU was promised that it would receive notice of that meeting so that it could send a representative, no such notice was ever given and WPU was inexplicably excluded from the meeting.

WPU believes that it has certainly earned a seat at the table to discuss Willets Point street conditions, because WPU – not any other entity – has consistently testified at public hearings of CB7 and the Queens Borough Board to request that the city allocate funds to reconstruct Willets Point streets, and has championed that issue for the past several years. As a direct result of WPU’s efforts, CB7 and the Queens Borough Board have included Willets Point street reconstruction in their budget priorities for fiscal years 2015, 2016 and 2017. That no dollars have actually materialized, however, underscores the need for more involvement by responsible officials. CB7 has recently written to the Mayor that the response of NYCDOT is “absolutely ridiculous” – emphasizing the urgent need to set the record straight with NYCDOT concerning circumstances at Willets Point, as WPU is equipped to do.

So, after being frozen out of the January meeting at Borough Hall, when WPU heard of the follow-up meeting scheduled for today, WPU sent letters to Borough President Katz and City Council member Ferreras, requesting that they invite WPU to attend. Those letters were delivered on February 25 and 26 – but WPU received no response whatsoever from Katz or Ferreras.

Yesterday, WPU tried again, by sending a copy of the letter to Katz’s Chief of Staff, Jay Bond, by email. Mr. Bond did not respond at all to WPU.

How do Katz and Ferreras possibly justify totally ignoring important communications from their constituents, concerning meetings everyone knows are important to those constituents? There are WPU property owners who pay $53,000.00 or more in annual property taxes, while receiving virtually NO municipal services in return – and for them, receiving not even the courtesy of a response from their elected representatives is adding insult to injury.

Avella invited to de Blasio town hall meeting at the last minute

Seeking solutions for Fresh Meadows flooding

Daily News photo

From the Queens Tribune:

The Department of Environmental Protection is not doing enough to stop the flooding that has plagued Fresh Meadows for decades, residents said at a town hall meeting last Wednesday.

Billed as a meeting “to educate homeowners on how to protect their property from rainwater” and to inform them about recent infrastructure developments to reduce flooding, the town hall at the Utopia Jewish Center turned into a platform for homeowners to vent their frustration about a problem that’s been plaguing their neighborhood since the 1940s.

The strategies addressed two kinds of flooding, both of which occur in Fresh Meadows. The first is sewer backups, caused when sewers exceed their capacity due to heavy rain, and overflow out of basement toilets or floor drains. The second is street-level flooding.

Causes of flooding can range from cooking grease in the sewer pipes to tree roots to roads that slope the wrong way. In Utopia, chronic flooding has led to an abundance of theories on the causes – like a special valve that prevents flooding to LaGuardia airport and redirects the water towards Utopia.

That rumor was dismissed by the DEP. But either way, it’s clear that the problems with flooding in Utopia and Fresh Meadows are systemic. The question is how much the city can, or will, do.

BDB losing support among black community

From the NY Times:

Dozens of black ministers, justice reform advocates and civil rights activists and four black members of Congress gathered last Monday at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem to discuss a delicate matter: What to do about Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Over the course of the morning meeting, attendees voiced a series of concerns: Mr. de Blasio, some complained, seems to have lost his appetite for criminal justice reform. The mayor, they said, has been too slow to take action against the police officer whose use of a chokehold on Eric Garner, an unarmed black man on Staten Island, led to Mr. Garner’s death. Other participants grumbled that Mr. de Blasio and his staff have simply not done enough to communicate with black community leaders on issues like affordable housing.

The unusual congregation of community influencers, convened by the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, was part gripe session, part strategic huddle, revealing the first hints of frustration with a mayor who won 96 percent of the black vote when he was elected in 2013.

Black voters have been an essential base of support for the mayor, remaining largely enthusiastic about him even as his support has wilted with other groups in the city. The bonds were forged in Mr. de Blasio’s early criticism of stop-and-frisk policing, and reinforced by politically resonant images of his biracial family broadcast during the 2013 campaign.

Yet the perception that Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has eased up on his commitment to police reform has plainly begun to rankle some: At a weekend gathering this month at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, publicly lamented that “broken windows policing,” the aggressive enforcement of minor violations, was still policy across the city.

Mr. Jeffries, who also attended the gathering at Abyssinian, said in an interview that there was “growing disenchantment with the administration in the black community.”

“The disenchantment relates to policing issues, the mayor’s support of broken windows, his lack of support for banning
chokeholds and his willingness to support making resisting arrest a felony,” Mr. Jeffries said, adding: “We’re very early in the mayor’s first term, and there’s a lot of room for progress.”

Pink sculpture not popular

From PIX 11:

On Wednesday night, it was a packed town hall meeting at MOMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens. The town hall addressed many topics including affordable housing for artists, and also a sculpture slated to go up on Jackson Avenue.

One speaker said, “I think it’s an amazingly interesting piece of art, I think the location should have been discussed a little more in depth before the decision was made.”

According to a spokesperson for city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the sculpture is slated to go up on Jackson Avenue near 43rd Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, a public art project with a price tag of $515,000 funded by city capital dollars. The sculpture is called “The Sunbather.”

Some neighborhoods are being aggressive with illegal conversions

From Brooklyn Daily:

Residents of Dyker Heights are declaring war on illegal home conversions, and now local politicians are joining the fray with proposed laws to give the city more weapons for fighting the residential scourge.

Two civic groups are holding a town hall meeting on illegal conversions in Dyker Heights on Feb. 26. The practice of dicing one- and two-family homes into multi-family apartments is pervasive in Southern Brooklyn, locals say. The illegally altered buildings can lack light, fresh air, and safe exits — putting residents and firefighters in harm’s way. Because the subdivided homes increase a neighborhood’s population, they also tax city services and can contribute to school overcrowding.

State and local politicians have introduced several bills to help combat what they have characterized as “an epidemic,” and we have boiled them down for you ahead of next Thursday’s town hall.

Click the link to read about the legislation proposed.

Jackson Heights knows what it doesn't want at Bruson Building

From the Queens Chronicle:

Residents eager to help decide the fate of the reconstructed Bruson Building crowded into the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights Thursday evening, causing the town hall’s organizers to add extra chairs and bump out the back wall to make room.

The meeting, spearheaded by state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst), was organized to gather community input regarding the fate of the Bruson Building, which burned down in a five-alarm fire last April, displacing tenants such as Plaza College, which has a new campus in Forest Hills, Armondo’s Italian Restaurant, which will reopen in February on Northern Boulevard and Frank’s Pharmacy, which reopened three blocks away in October.

Suggestions from residents, many of which were written on pieces of paper and read by Peralta, included a Jewish deli, a bakery, an American-style restaurant, a medical facility, an interfaith center, a bookstore, a Hallmark store, a pediatric urgent care center, health facility, a Housing Works Thrift Shop and a Wells Fargo bank.

Many were averse to the idea of more 99-cent stores, or more ethnic eateries or shops. Many were also against a fast food chain coming into the building.

A popular idea, which was brought up again and again throughout the meeting, was to have a Trader Joe’s. But, some residents were concerned the grocery store would bring more people into the already-congested neighborhood.

Resident Jimmy Wohl brought up another suggestion that drew oohs and aahs from the crowd: A co-working space to attract area entrepreneurs and thought-leaders, similar to what exist throughout Manhattan and other parts of Western Queens.

Silver & deBlasio are best buds

From the NY Post:

Turns out Mayor de Blasio has shown his unwavering support for “the thin blue line” — just not the one most people are familiar with.

The embattled mayor uttered the colloquial term for police to heap support on the unlikeliest of public protectors: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

At a closed-door meeting of Silver’s Democratic conference last year, the then-mayor-elect praised the speaker, who is currently under investigation by federal prosecutors, by using a phrase usually reserved for line-of-duty cops.

“I have very strong feelings about Speaker Silver,” de Blasio told the assembled.

“In times when the ideas of our party, the ideas of the Democratic Party, the progressive ideals for what New York is historically known for, were under attack, Shelly stood firm and was often, in my view, the thin blue line that kept a rollback of our progressive ideals from happening.”

Silver, long a symbol of Albany’s dysfunction and questionable conduct, has come under investigation by Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara for alleged unreported outside income.

Boy, this mayor sure knows how to pick his pals, doesn't he?