Our Testimony To Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams About Proposal To Turn Sunset Park Library Into Another No-bid Real Estate Deal

This is Citizens Defending Libraries testimony submitted to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams today about the proposal to turn the Sunset Park Library into another no-bid real estate deal.

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November 14, 2016

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams
Brooklyn Borough Hall
209 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201


Re:    Proposal to turn Sunset Park Library into another no-bid real estate deal

Dear Borough President Adams:

Since when do we have to turn our libraries into real estate projects serving real estate priorities, clandestinely conceived and managed ones at that?

Citizens Defending Libraries would like to think that since it shone a light and let the community know about the long-secret plans to turn the Sunset Park Library into a multi-use real estate project, that what was proposed became a better project in response.  Indeed, it is a bigger library, now proposed to be essentially the same size as what the shrink-and-sink disposal of the Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn’s heretofore second biggest library, will produce.

But approving this project is feeding the beast that ravages us and it is doubtful that this is what the community wants.  At the Community Board 7 Land Use Committee hearing testimonies were so relentlessly supplied by people with economic and employment relationships with the developer and the BPL (now itself styled as a development agency) that the hearing officer cautioned that these individuals should all preface their remarks by noting their conflicts of interest.  As more and more “testimony” was given by people with such conflicts, FAC employees, board members and the like, they were told that they COULD testify, but the moderator suggested that they should refrain because they drowning out the community and usurping the limited about of time available to speak.  Still, more and more FAC trustees, employees and BPL employees spoke.

The BPL suggested at one point that they didn’t think that people coming from outside the community should speak, and, in fact, virtually no one from outside the Sunset Park Community spoke except that the majority of these economically interested, salaried speakers were exactly that: From outside the community.

It was the same with hearings, including those held right here last year, when the Brooklyn Heights shrink-and-sink scam was proposed.  The Fifth Avenue Committee similarly marched out its economically interested troops to testify that Brooklyn’s second biggest library should be sold to net a minuscule fraction of its value to the public, handed off to a luxury tower developer in a pay-to-play de Blasio deal that we all understand is now under criminal investigation.  Thus, with this deal, and the Brooklyn Heights deal, we see a perpetuation of the bottom line no-bid hand-offs that began with the Donnell shrink-and-sink deal involving Donald Trump’s son-in-law and principal advisor, Jared Kushner, as a principal beneficiary.

Why is the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) along with other real estate and interests adverse to those of the public interests allowed such influence and sway over the BPL and its board?  Why is  Jamie Torres Springer, a real estate-company-employed spouse of the head of the EDC, allowed to be the head of the board of the Fifth Avenue Committee, the developer here, helping to push so many library sales?

It is all too incestuous, far too conflicted and way too much against the public interest.

The Sunset Park Library deal was conceived in secret, arriving full-blown without community or public input, and has been rammed down the public’s throat.  It is a subtraction from what the public owns, a significant subtraction, from the assets of the library system.  The proposed replacement library, stuck underneath a privately-owned residential building can never grow in the future.  That would not be so if the proposal were instead to build a  publicly-owned, public purpose office building.

And the larger library that Sunset Park might get if this clandestinely conceived deal is approved?  That depends on promises the BPL and developer cannot be trusted to keep!

In the course of the ULURP process for the Brooklyn Heights Library sale (that went on here) it was promised that the Heights library would not be shut and moved to a smaller, less adequate temporary library until the developer had closed on the transaction, ponied up the money the BPL says (at least pretextually) is the reason it is destroying the library.  That promise was not kept.

The BPL promised that the library would never suffer demolition until the public was thoroughly protected against loss and the possibility of the replacement library not being built.  That promise is not being kept either.  The developer is being allowed to trash and demolish the library while it is still publicly owned public property.  The developer with the deal under criminal investigation is being allowed to rush, once again damning the best interests of the public. The BPL doesn’t expect the developer to acquire the property for another two months. .  if even that happens.

Because the BPL says what it will do with Sunset Park is dependent upon the Heights deal, those broken promises also directly affect the Sunset Park Library proposal now being considered.

And while we ask about the secrecy with which this and other library deals were conceived and pursued and whether that secrecy should be tolerated, we should also ask why one of the country’s top private spy agencies like Booz Allen Hamilton, working almost exclusively for the federal government, should have been engaged to be so intricately involved in the overhaul of New York City Libraries and their destruction. . .

. . .  Our libraries are supposed to be a public commons, a zone of free speech and freedom of thought and concomitantly a zone with protected privacies.  They are not supposed to be a playground for developers or at the disposal of anyone else.

Sincerely,

Michael D. D. White
Co-founder,
Citizens Defending Libraries

Report on March 1, 2016 Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams & Brooklyn Borough Board Vote On Selling and Drastically Shrinking Brooklyn Heights Central Destination Downtown Library

Levin's quote is the concluding line of the Patch article's coverage

This page will be updated.

First, before considering the vote, consider a background reference this page (with pictures) about our rally the day before outside Brooklyn Borough Hall with links to our press release and letter to Borough President Eric Adams asking for instillation of transparency and that the vote be delayed and not occur without it.  This page has links to press coverage, including a radio report from WBAI reporter Mitchell; Cohen.

 •        Monday, February 29, 2016, PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: February 29, 2016 Press Conference- Request Eric Adams Postpone Brooklyn Borough Board Vote

Here is press coverage of the vote (comments possible at the sites):

Brooklyn Paper/Brooklyn Courier coverage

 •         Brooklyn Paper: Adams changes tune on Heights library sale, votes to approve/Beep OKs Heights library sale, by Lauren Gill, March 2, 2016

 •         Patch: Brooklyn Borough Board Hands Over Public Library to Condo Developer- Say goodbye to the Brooklyn Heights public library in its current form, by Simone Wilson, March 1, 2016

    •    Brooklyn Heights Press & Brooklyn Daily Eagle:  Borough Board approves sale of Brooklyn Heights Library- BP Eric Adams votes in favor of sale, By Mary Frost, March 2, 2016.  (Commenting on the article is easier on the Brooklyn Eagle version)

We were the cover story in the Heights Press

The Patch article has the brilliant concluding quote from Councilman Steve Levin used in the image at the top of this page.  (The Brooklyn Eagle article has a picture of a lonely Levin being interviewed by NY1 in a vast empty Borough Hall space around the time he gave that quote.)

City Council members who disgraced themselves voting for this rigged deal included not only Council members Levin and, of course, the fervent library sales advocate Brad Lander (ditto David Greenfield), but also Carlos Menchaca who favors pushing through the no-bid sale of the Sunset Park Library for redevelopment, Mark Treyger, Vincent Gentile (despite the fact that when he was campaigning and needed and wanted voted he signed our letter of support calling for the opposite) and Laurie Cumbo who, in her statement at the City Council vote let the cat out of the bag that Steve Levin had been working against, the community's wishes for months.

Picture on the cover of the Heights Press

Here is video of the Borough Board vote (we hope to have our own version of this video up soon with better audio):

 •          VIDEO of the vote of Brooklyn Borough President Adams and Brooklyn Borough Board to, without requiring transparency a prerequisite, sell and drastically shrink (down to 42%) the Brooklyn Heights central destination downtown library selling it to net (maybe $23 million a minuscule fraction of the library's value ($120+ million to replace this recently fully expanded fully upgraded library). (click through t YouTube for best viewing)

Beginning at 17 minutes in you will see activists, including members of Citizens Defending Libraries (thank you Patti and Mary), holding up signs that express that they are opposed to the sale of the library.(some images below).  This turned into an image the Brooklyn Papers used in its coverage of the event.  Just before that moment Borough President Adams silences Citizens Defending Libraries  co-founder Michael D. D. White threatening to eject him from the proceedings for calling on Councilman Steve Levin to state when he would finally take action to to insist on transparency seated himself to state his support for the sale and shrinkage of the library (without transparency).

Borough President Eric Adams threatens to evict, demanding silence when CDL's Michael D. D. White calls out to Councilman Levin asking when he will observe his fundamental obligation as a city councilman to demand transparency about the library sales.

This is the image that made it into the Brooklyn Paper article

Heights Press Coverage (continued)

Heights Press Coverage (continued)

Picture from the Heights Press coverage

Citizens Defending Libraries in the Borough Hall lobby awaiting the electeds coming out of the Borough Board vote after the vote.  NY1 was filming, but reports on the national primaries is what aired instaed, plus a library story- See next image.

Opening up a new battlefront (of making further advances on it) NY1 reported this same evening that ex-mayor Bloomberg presided over the installation of his man, Dennis Walcott, as the new chief of the Queens Library, the one NYC Library system that resisted selling libraries and turning them into real estate deals.  Bloomberg is, of course, the mayor who underfunded libraries at an unprecedented level, an excuse, when he introduced the idea, to sell and shrink them.  BPL Linda Johnson says that the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library will be used a s model for transactions in all three systems.   

PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: February 29, 2016 Press Conference- Request Eric Adams Postpone Brooklyn Borough Board Vote

This page will be and has been updated.

From one of two Brooklyn News 12 coverage reports that night

The press release describing the event is here:

    •     PRESS RELEASE- Citizens Demand Brooklyn Borough Board Postpone Critical Vote on Future of Brooklyn Heights Library- A Call for Transparency, Full Investigation of BPL Hoaxes & Bid-Rigging - Monday, February 29, 2016

The letter delivered to Brooklyn Borough President Adams is here:

    •     Monday, February 29, 2016,  Letter to Borough President Eric Adams Requesting Insistence on Transparency and Full Investigation Into Cooked Books and Rigged Bidding Before Calendaring Brooklyn Borough Board Vote On Brooklyn Heights Library

The media advisory noticing the event is here:

    •     MEDIA ADVISORY- Citizens Demand Brooklyn Borough Board Postpone Critical Vote on Future of Brooklyn Heights Library- A Call for Transparency, Full Investigation of BPL Hoaxes & Bid-Rigging, Sunday, February 28, 2016

Here is a link to a 8.5 minute special downloadable March 1st radio report on the press conference by WBAI reporter Mitchel Cohen who has already produced several other radio reports on the library sales aired by WBAI:

LINK TO DOWNLOAD special 8.5 minute March 1st radio report on the press conference by WBAI reporter Mitchel Cohen

We are looking for better photos when the entire crowd had arrived.  Please send if you have them.

Here is more press coverage:

•        Brooklyn Daily Eagle:  Group files federal complaint over sale of Brooklyn Heights Library- Borough Board to vote on issue Tuesday night, By Mary Frost, March 1, 2016

    •    The Jewish Voice: Activists: Bklyn Public Library Sitting on $100M Despite Crying Poverty, by Guy Malone, March 2, 2016

     •    The Home Reporter/The Brooklyn Spectator: Sale of Brooklyn Heights library to impact Sunset branch, by Jaime DeJesus, March 7, 2016.

    •    The Home Reporter/The Brooklyn Spectator: Star of Brooklyn: Christopher Robles, By Christopher Malone, March 7, 2016.

Robles has been a strong voice in the battle against the development at the Sunset Park library.

For more Brooklyn Eagle reporting on the rally and on the vote see:

    •    Brooklyn Heights Press & Brooklyn Daily Eagle:  Borough Board approves sale of Brooklyn Heights Library- BP Eric Adams votes in favor of sale, By Mary Frost, March 2, 2016.

For a report on the vote the next day as well as coverage see: 

    •    Report on March 1, 2016 Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams & Brooklyn Borough Board Vote On Selling and Drastically Shrinking Brooklyn Heights Central Destination Downtown Library

Laurie Frey of Love Brooklyn Libraries

From evening's second Brooklyn News 12 report

From Brooklyn News 12 report: Eric Adams at Borough Hall as we rallied outside about the library.

Picture from Home Reporter coverage.

Note: Quality audio of the press conference is available to member of the press upon request.