As The Brooklyn Public Library Holds Gala At The Barclays Arena Honoring Nets And Barclay’s Arena, Citizens Defending Libraries Is There With A Message: End Faux Philanthropy; Take Less And Don’t Sell Our libraries!

The date, May 22nd, finally came and the Brooklyn Brooklyn Public Library held it’s 2019 annual gala at the Barclays basketball arena, of all places, honoring the nets basketball team and the Barclay’s arena itself.

. . .   “Of all places” has several implications.  A weird place to hold the gala?  Yes, but weirder if you know that BPL president Linda Johnson has shacked up (in a Brooklyn Bridge Park apartment) with real estate developer and mega-subsidy collector Bruce Ratner who created the arena as part of the ill-famed Atlantic Yards eminent domain project.   And that weirdness grows more ominous when you realize all the connections that exist between the real estate industry, Mr. Ratner’s Forest City Ratner development company in particular, and the sale and shrinkage of libraries, the elimination of books and the deprofessionalization of librarians.

That weird ominousness continues when you consider how the BPL now likes to focus on “partnering” its public, supposedly democratic commons with private corporate interests such as the Nets and the Prokhorov/Ratner arena.  That, in fact was something that the BPL’s press release made a point about.

Sometimes you just gotta be there- Citizens Defending Libraries was outside the gala leafleting with a message as gala attendees arrived.

Our message which we chanted was “Put a stake in faux philanthropy: Take less and don’t sell our libraries!”   We also sang our library don't sell our libraries song written for us by Judy Gorman.  We displayed this visual:

Admittedly, our chant about eliminating “faux philanthropy” and “taking less” instead of selling libraries was borrowing from the spirit of Anand Giridharadas, author of  “The Elite Charade of Changing the World” (we've written about him before), who has said that “giving has become the wingman of taking. Generosity has become the wingman of injustice. Changing the world has become the wingman of rigging the system.”

Upon hearing our chant one of the developers entering the arena came over to joke with us: “How about if I want to buy a library?”  David Kramer, whose Hudson Companies is replacing the downtown Heights central destination library with a luxury tower in a shrink-and-sink real estate deal, was one of the attendees. Although often quipful himself, Kramer was not the fellow who offered this clever quip.

This is the flyer we handed out to those entering plus to some passersby:

Here is the text.

Spending Public Library Money To Partner and Party With Private Real Estate Interests Destroying Our Libraries?

 NYC Public Libraries Are Mostly Public Tax Dollar Funded– And The BPL Is Partnering & Partying With Private Interests, Honoring Real Estates Interests Dismantling Libraries?

Our libraries should be a civic commons for public discourse and learning.  Instead, the mantra afoot with our library officials is to “partner” with, advertise, and undeservedly burnish commercial corporate brands and the reputations of companies unraveling our democracy, companies involved in privatizing our public assets and turning our libraries into real estate deals that eliminate the  books, librarians and libraries the public has invested in.   

NY Times columnist Jim Dwyer wrote that NYC libraries “have more users than major professional sports, performing arts, museums, gardens and zoos - combined,” but the city diverted its funds instead into subsidies for the very controversial private Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” arena with:

at least $464 million to build new baseball stadiums . .  and $156 million for the Barclays Center. That's $620 million for just those three sports arenas - a sum more than one-third greater than the $453 million that the city committed for capital improvements to the its 206 branch libraries and four research centers, which serve roughly seven times as many people a year as attend baseball games. ( . . the teams are getting an additional $680 million in subsidies spread over 40 years.)

Our presidential-candidate mayor underfunds libraries as an excuse to sell them while the BPL holds a gala to honor the Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets, brought to us by subsidy-collection meister Bruce Ratner?  It’s insane and absurd: BPL president Linda Johnson said turning libraries into real estate deals was her biggest priority. Topping the list: Two libraries next to Ratner property, including Brooklyn’s second biggest library.  Ms. Johnson is now literally shacked up with Bruce Ratner.  The dots to be connected are myriad.  See:

The (Ugh) Upshot After Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson Shacks Up With Bruce Ratner?: The BPL Will Hold Gala On May 22nd Honoring The Ratner Barclays Center And Nets!

It Gets Personal, But This Gossip Is, In Fact, Real News About The Business of Selling Libraries- Two From That Constellation of Library-Selling Stars Hook Up As A Couple: Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Library President Linda Johnson– Guess Where?

Sign our petition on the web: Citizens Defending Libraries

* * *

Note that the two Citizens Defending Libraries posts above contain a ton of information about the almost unbelievable number of dots that connect when it some to library real estate sales, Linda Johnson, her shackmate Bruce Ratner, Forest City Ratner and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation board similarly pushing for development there.   

The BPL issued a press release that day:  Brooklyn Public Library Honors Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center ..  [plus a few more]

This is some of what it said (emphasis supplied):

Nearly 500 supporters gathered at Barclays Center last night to raise funds for Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and to recognize Brooklyn’s leaders in business, sports and literature.

“In addition to raising funds for our collections and services, the gala provides Brooklyn Public Library the opportunity to recognize organizations and individuals emblematic of Brooklyn’s innovative and creative spirit,” said Linda E. Johnson, Brooklyn Public Library President and CEO.

“The Barclays Center and Brooklyn Nets have inspired the borough with the power of sports, and in the process supported the Library and local community-based organizations. We are delighted to honor all of their accomplishments.”

* * * *

BSE CEO Brett Yormark—who oversees the business enterprise that manages and controls the Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center and other sports and entertainment venues—accepted the award on behalf of the Barclays Center. In his remarks, he announced a special initiative to provide two free tickets to a Barclays Center event to every child who completes Brooklyn Public Library’s summer reading challenge.

“We are honored to be recognized by the Brooklyn Public Library, one of our borough’s pre-eminent cultural institutions,” said Yormark. “Hosting the Gala aligns perfectly with Barclays Center’s mission of bolstering other key Brooklyn organizations and we are proud to continue that support by partnering on the summer reading challenge.”

Opened in 2012, Barclays Center hosts an extensive variety of events, including the Brooklyn Nets, premier concerts, major professional boxing cards, top college basketball, family shows and the New York Islanders. The Nets relocated from New Jersey upon the opening of the arena, and have reached the postseason four times since moving to the borough. In all of its community efforts, BSE Global aims to inspire lives through the spirit and the power of sports and entertainment.

* * *

Furthermore, the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center have partnered with Brooklyn Public Library on a number of literacy initiatives including Team Up To Read, a program to support children ages 5 to 9 as they work to become strong readers.

* * * *

Special guests included Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams . . .

* * * *
Baratunde Thurston, a trustee of Brooklyn Public Library and Emmy-nominated futurist comedian, writer and cultural critic, served as host for the evening. Thurston helped re-launch The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. . .

(An aside: Does it seem that the Daily Show has gotten increasing flat and corporate in its messages recently?)

As for the "nearly 500 supporters," that's also what the BPL told the police, but our own count was far below that.  We had an idea of the number based on the number of flyers we handed out to those who arrived plus a good sense of the high proportion of people taking them.  Maybe nearly "nearly 500" is the number of people for whom tickets had been bought, rather than people who actually showed up?

It was amazing how many of the people who showed up didn't know about the library sales or dismantlement.   One of the attendees walked over to specifically thank us for handing out the flyer.  At least of the police officers on duty for the even was also very thankful to learn about much that he said he didn't know.

There seems to have been virtually no coverage of the gala.  The BPL, itself, put up pictures here:

Join the crowd?

On the right it's Bruce Ratner

Ratner girlfriend BPL president Linda Johnson, glad to have her arms around two local politicians who want to become mayor, City Councilman Corey Johnson on left, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on right.  Borough President Adams has been a regular attending BPL galas.

Early September 2015: Borough President Adams ponders over 2000+ signed and individualized petitions opposing the sale of the second biggest library in Brooklyn that were collected by Citizens Defending Libraries in August.  The petitions impressed him, and he surprised the real estate industry by refusing to approve the deal selling the library that had been brought to him.  After the City Planning Commission and the City Council ignored his opposition, Borough President Adams eventually fell in line behind everyone else giving a last approval of the shrink-and-sink sale that converted the library site to a luxury tower project. 

Here is a link to must read from National Notice how on issue after major issue, a robust system of NYC libraries being an excellent example, elected officials, succumbing to the influence of money  are not giving the public what it wants and could easily have (plus how the corporate press is complicit):

Everybody’s Realizing It Now: The Political Establishment Is Not Willing To Give The Public The Things The Vast Majority Of Americans Want And That We Could Easily Have, May 11, 2019.

Outside the gala we took some of our own photos.

A guest of honor, Bruce Ratner, the BPL president's Brooklyn Bridge Park development shackmate, arrives.

David Giles who now works for the BPL after writing to endorse library sales working at the Center for an Urban Future

Library trustee and Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation board member Hank Gutman.

In addition to our own posts, there was pre-coverage of the event by Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report:   Ball for Brooklyn: Barclays Center site of Brooklyn library gala, where arena is honored; Bruce Ratner and BPL's Linda Johnson buy a Pierhouse condo, May 03, 2019.

Here is some of what Mr. Oder wrote:

It's unsurprising that the library, like the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Children's Museum [which itself is involved with a BPL library real estate deal] and the Brooklyn Historical Society, would enmesh itself with a major company. Still, it remains unfortunate that such nonprofit institutions, which are supposed to act in the public interest, ally themselves with big-money sponsors whose interests are not necessarily in sync.

* * *

I don't think--I don't like to think--that the need to keep warm relations with potential sponsors affects Brooklyn Public Library programming decisions or materials selection.

Let's see. The library, during the height of the project controversy (and before Johnson's time), faced charges of censorship for culling certain politically charged pieces of art when re-mounting an art exhibit called Footprints. (It was unwise caution, but I thought other omissions were even more meaningful.)

About library real estate deals (which have been in the works since about 2004 or earlier, at first mostly in secret) Mr. Oder said:

The devil is in the deal, and the details: clearly the New York Public Library's Donnell Library deal in Manhattan was a disaster. I'm reserving judgment on the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Heights Branch.

As comments to Mr. Oder’s article Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White wrote:

One might reserve judgement about the sale of the central downtown Heights library, a central destination library that was the second biggest in Brooklyn and hope that it will be a good deal for library patrons in the end, but that hope must factor in what we know now:

It will no longer be a Business Library.
It will no longer be a Career Library.
It will no longer be an Education Library.
It will no longer be a federal depository library.
It was all of these things until recently.
It will be approximately 40% the previous size.
The proportion of space the public visits will be pushed underground: Previously there was almost 38,000 square feet of space above ground (plus two underground stories kept books at the ready). The new library will have just 15,000 square feet above ground. [More of the comment at the site.]

And:

For those interested in the Curriculum Vitae for BPL president and Ratner apartment mate Linda Johnson, her work as an environmental lawyer (on the wrong side) and her “rise” via her father’s company, we have it posted here:

Brooklyn Public Library Trustees- Identified + Biographical and Other Information Supplied.

A few days after the gala, BPL trustee (also Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation board member) Hank Gutman, dressed for tennis out side the Brooklyn Casino on Montague Street, ran into CDL co-founder Michael D. D. White.  Gutman attended the gala, while White was outside with other leafleting library defenders.  Gutman told White that White should have come to gala and `why not contribute to the library to do so.'  He asked White why White wasn't busy donating to the library--  But that sort of missed the basic point of the flyer that was handed out that evening, that we the taxpayers do pay for our libraries, that "NYC Public Libraries Are Mostly Public Tax Dollar Funded," and that when taxpayer money is diverted into huge subsidies for projects like the private Barclays arena and then the BPL is induced to use our publicly funded libraries to advertise that private arena, it's not charity, and our public tax dollars are being stolen to support private interests.

There is now available a brand new Project Censored Radio Show radio interview with CDL co-founder Michael D. D. White that provides, in one-half hour, a superb up-to-date comprehensive overview about what is going on with respect to the dismantlement of NYC libraries and issues related thereto.

(PS: To catch up with several other recent commentaries about the thereat to the public commons and democracy posed by "philanthropic" wealth that puts this event in a larger context see: A Flourish of Stories About So-Called Philanthropy Being Used As A Guise For Diminishing The Public Commons– That Includes Libraries.)

The (Ugh) Upshot After Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson Shacks Up With Bruce Ratner?: The BPL Will Hold Gala On May 22nd Honoring The Ratner Barclays Center And Nets!

Do we think, under the circumstances of a certain `coupling,' that the BPL's "Ball For Brooklyn" Gala site where the library honors Bruce Ratner's arena is just a little cartoonish in its absurdity?  We took a try at making it more so.

Ugh, Ugh and double-ugh!  It’s ugly indeed! . . .

No, you can’t make this stuff up!: It’s really just days, barely a few weeks since we reported about how Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson were shacking up (See: It Gets Personal, But This Gossip Is, In Fact, Real News About The Business of Selling Libraries- Two From That Constellation of Library-Selling Stars Hook Up As A Couple: Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Library President Linda Johnson– Guess Where?).

When we passed on the news from the real estate industry reporting website The Real Deal we noted that the shacking-up shack was the view-impairing Pierhouse development in Brooklyn Bridge Park at 130 Furman Street. . .  

And that then let us go on to explicate with an extensive eight (count ‘em, eight) bullet points connecting all sorts of dots with respect to how the nesting together of these two real estate minded adversaries of our libraries related in so many ways to the selling off of our libraries and the abuse of our library system and public assets. . .

. . . It’s a real estate story, a library selling story, and it’s an Atlantic Yards (Pacific Park) story, and . . .

. . .  OMG, it didn’t take long, but we’ll now have to lengthen our dot-connecting bullet point list item with another significant connection!  Consider for yourself if this one is just too embarrassing to be believed?. . .

At Tuesday’s February 26th Brooklyn Public Library Trustees meeting as BPL president Linda Johnson smiled at her board, NYPL trustee Michael Liburd* told his assembled fellows that on Wednesday, May 22nd the BPL would hold its annual fund-raising gala at the Bruce Ratner developed Barclays Center and that “one of the reasons” for locating the gala at the Barclays Center “is that we are honoring the Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets.”  Liburd’s mention of the gala being held at the Barclays Center was greeted with some outbursts of delighted laughter.   Then someone at the table jumped in to call attention to the cleverness of how this library fundraiser was named the “Ball for Brooklyn” with the emphasis on the “Ball.” . . . Yes, indeed that’s exactly how the gala is being promoted–  Top of the list before and mention of cocktails or dinner is “Honoring: Barclays Center & Brooklyn Nets.”

Isn't that a nice gift for BPL prez Linda Johnson to be giving her boyfriend Bruce?

(* Liburd has pushed real estate development as head of Community Board 9's Land Use Committee.)

Joining the club to attend the “Gala” is apt to cause nose bleeds: With “limited Availability” the BPL is posting some pricey positions for attendees to opt into: “Lead Sponsorship” at $100,000, “Principal Sponsorship” at $500,000, “Visionary Sponsorship” at $25,000, “Contributor Sponsorship” at $10,000.  Liburd said that working with the CEO of the Barclays Center there was motivation for the Ratner/Prokhorov Center to make the event “even more financially successful than previously.”  And do contributors get special consideration if afterwards they want to “bid” on libraries that go up for sale?

Liburd waived a page of names distributed to the trustees asking them to hit up a bunch of monied so-and-sos for gala contributions.  The list included thirteen designated individuals targeted from the “Blackstone Charitable Foundation.”  Of course when it comes to libraries and turning them into real estate deals the name of Stephen A. Schwarzman’s “Blackstone” is already exceedingly familiar.    
Conferring Awards to Rewrite History -or- Rewriting History to Confer Awards– How Taking Over Certain Organizations Factors In (And Affect The Course of Future Events)

This is not the first BPL “partnering” to promote the Forest City Ratner brand, including the Nets and Barclays.  Our previously provided bullet point list already mentioned the BPL veering into such promotions for Ratner–  it was, in fact, one of the first things thought of when the BPL and Linda Johnson were thinking about as examples of the kind of private “partnering” the BPL could do.  The library, as the BPL trustees are aware, has a strong brand that somewhat automatically enlists public approval.  With partnering some of that approval can be expected to `rub off’. . . in both senses of that phrase.

As for “awards” and “honoring,” this is also not the first time that what should be a public commons asset like the library has been commandeered to lend the Ratner organization a faux burnishing of its reputation that it does not deserve.

In April of 2008, a problematically comprised and compromised Brooklyn Museum board of trustees taking Ratner money led straight to, as reported in Norman Oder’s Atlantic Yards Report:

A protest organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn in response to the Brooklyn Museum's honoring of Bruce Ratner draws an angry (and creative) crowd, with chants of "Shame on you" and signs like "Dung Deal." Borough President Marty Markowitz's wife Jamie takes a few too many pieces of swag. Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris [who was also in change of the launch of the Bloomberg’s initiation of efforts to turn libraries into rel estate], a key advisor to Mayor Mike Bloomberg on charitable issues, is also present, a sign--as became clearer during the mayor's effort to override term limits--of the intertwining of charity and politics.

The Brooklyn Museum board acted to “honor” Ratner just as essential city approvals hung in the balance for Ratner’s huge Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly project of which the Barclays Center was a conspicuous part.  No doubt it was hoped that the “honoring” would help push the mega-project through over community objection (and even get it more taxpayer subsidy) despite what was then the increasingly bad reputation of the mega-project.   

One for instance of how badly regarded the Ratner megadevelopment was as it lumbered toward its eventual first groundbreaking was Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Arts Society, calling the development “the poster child for what goes wrong when process is ignored. . . a poorly designed project that has polarized the community and that squanders both opportunity and public trust.”
But criticism like that can be naturalized if you commandeer the criticizer.

As Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White wrote in Noticing New York

The Municipal Art Society was once thought of as representing the public and standing up to developers in the face of abusive development.  . . .   Not so long ago, MAS had scores of forums about development in the city invoking the name and principles of Jane Jacobs in which, while the moderators kept civil order, the Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly was excoriated by expert panelists and attending public alike, for a zillion villainous transgressions against the public interest.
  
More recently, after an orchestrated reconstituting of the board, essentially, as it was disclosed to me, happening as something of a coup, MAS has reversed itself to the extent that many no longer regard it as representing the public.  This new version of MAS has given not one, but two, awards the to the Atlantic Yards mega-development, essentially praising Forest City Ratner for the kind of neighborhood destruction that was previously decried, an absurdity that’s siren for satire, essentially an award for “preserving a swath of Prospect Heights by tearing it down to build the Ratner Prokhorov Barclays arena while letting the rest of the destroyed neighborhood acreage lie fallow for a few decades.”   (See: Monday, June 16, 2014, Ratner, Gilmartin & the MAS Onassis Medal: selective memory, glitzy gala, and enduring dismay.)

(See: Is Forest City Ratner, As Victor, Writing Our History?- WNYC's Press Release on Appointing Forest City Ratner's MaryAnne Gilmartin to Its Board of Trustees, November 16, 2014,)

White, wrote there about how MAS events now reportedly can degenerate to “almost unbelievably depressing pro-development spectacle.”  Indeed, more recently, in another Noticing New York article, White wrote about MAS gathering unsuspecting listeners to hear Linda Johnson extol her vision of turning libraries into real estate deals in a supportive, noncritical environment.  See:  Municipal Art Society, Once Venerable, Becomes Platform For Disseminating Misinformation Promoting Development, In this Case Backing Library Sales and Shrinkage, June 15, 2015.
   
Norman Oder, who has written voluminously and extensively focusing on Atlantic Yards (renamed Pacific Park as a probable ruse to escape its history of criticism) has, after assiduous study, boiled things down to a synthesis that Atlantic Yards has always relied upon a “culture of cheating.”   One of the supreme cheats the cheater can employ is to rewrite history. 

At the 2008 demonstration outside the Brooklyn Museum when the Museum was “honoring” Bruce Ratner, protesters were sharing and Michael D. D. White was reading “quotes through the ages about `honor’” such as Thomas Jefferson’s “Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.”  Real “honor” certainly cannot be acquired that way, but the wind that blows against that quote are the many variations of quotes about how “history is written by the victors,” which means that the verisimilitude of honor can be acquired that way, or to use a quote often attributed to Napoleon, “history is a pack of lies agreed upon” that can confer such verisimilitude.
  
Winston Churchill (“Winnie” to a Brit we know who remembers him from living through the WWII era), albeit, definitely had his commendable achievements. However, Churchill said that “history will be kind to me because I intend to write it.”  Indeed, because he actually did write it (with very appreciable help from the British taxpayers), and in the process his ruthless past apparently got quite forgotten.

When White was writing about the about face of the Atlantic Yards critique that occurred when the MAS board was taken over partly for that purpose, he was also writing about how radio station WNYC issued a history-falsifying press release when appointing Forest City Ratner  Chief Executive Officer MaryAnne Gilmartin to its board of trustees.  It was an inappropriate thing for WNYC to do. WNYC is another public commons and public trust that should be serving the public.

The Brooklyn Museum, The Municipal Art Society, The WNYC Public Radio Station, The Brooklyn Public Library: These are all organizations that are supposed to be serving the public with the goal of being a conduit of information free of their own manufactured bias.  We think of our libraries of repositories where we safely entrust with all our history.  Whatever the reason, personal relationship between BPL president Linda Johnson and Bruce Ratner, or not, it is frightening when the library is an organization enlisted to rewrite history.  Furthermore, the BPL’s obsession with being in the thrall of huge private contributions from those with conflicts of interest is likewise scary in a compounding way.

The effect of rewriting history?  “Whoever controls the past controls the future,” wrote George Orwell in “1984.”  It’s similar to another quote that’s various attributed to ancient the ancient and wise: “Those who tell the stories also rule the society.”  Or, if we adapt the words of George Santayana: Those who are able to rewrite history so that we forget the past can condemn us to suffer the repetition of their misdeeds.

As for those who would like a crack at repeating their misdeeds, the urgency of seizing the pen to rewrite history is directly related to how unflattering a truthful telling of history is.  As the BPL seeks to confer its `honors,’ there is, another story, a very different narrative to be related.  The so-called `success’ of the Barclays Center is highly disputable as far the arena itself is concerned, and Atlantic Yards (aka “Pacific Park”) of which that arena is an integral part is also a continuing embarrassment in multiple ways.

Intimately familiar with its myriad details, journalist Neil deMause has, with reasons he lays out, called the arena “an epic train wreck.”  The bonds issued to finance the Barclays Center (even after a refinancing to reduce financial stress) are not doing well becoming “nearly junk”: The rating agencies have been threatening to lower their ratings (“just barely within `investment grade’ and above junk, but with a negative outlook, indicating that the rating was unstable.)  The original overall project presentations touted a ten-year course to completion in 2003, but quite recently it’s been admitted that it may take till 2035 to complete it even while questions are being deflected about whether it will take even longer than that.  In 2009 and Marisa Lago, then head of the state’s ESDC agency overseeing the project indicated it could take “decades” or 40 years to complete.

Meanwhile, the mega-monopoly mega-project has suffered extremely embarrassing and delaying cost overruns getting it into litigation.  The promise of the so-called affordable units has turned out to be deceptive and those units will be extra long in coming.  Another of the highly touted reasons for giving the project to Ratner was to close the gash and knit the neighborhood streets back together by building over the open pit rail yards at that location– But addressing that goal, which should have been a priority, will now be postponed until the tail end to be done only when the project is finally reaching its finish line.  For this mess of pottage other recently developed buildings and what was more truly affordable existing housing (not over the rail yard) were torn down and developers competing with Ratner were chased away and shut out. 

Simultaneously At The NYPL “Billionaire Graffiti.”

While the BPL is lending its we-are-a-library halo to supply a good reputation to Linda Johnson’s boyfriend’s project, the NYPL is similarly willing to invert things and put its own we-are-a-library halo to work to improve the reputation of two of the main people, trustees on its board, Stephen A. Shwarzman and Marshall Rose, associated with the library-shrinking, library-selling, book-eliminating Central Library Plan.   The NYPL had to officially abandon the reviled plan, but the latest set of alterations at the 42nd Street Central Reference Library involve putting the name of Stephen A. Schwarzman, the piratical plutocrat on the library building in yet one more place.  This is the man who, aside from driving library plundering plans ahead has said the poor should pay more taxes and the loopholes that allow him to pay especially low taxes compared to the rest of us need to be protected.  Along with this, an outdoor plaza will suffer an ostentatious bedecking with the name of real estate mogul Marshall Rose.  People are calling it “Billionaire Graffiti.”

Entrusting Our History And Narratives To The Current Library Administration Officials And Boards

Other things happened at the BPL trustees meeting.  It was announced that rather than just be repository of books and content, the BPL is going into content production; it will start creating its own podcasts (“Borrowed”).   What stories will ultimately be told as the content is generated by administrators and trustees eager to “honor” Mr. Ratner?  At a recent NYPL meeting the NYPL trustees were told that they too would be going into content production by partnering with HBO.
               
Ms. Johnson made it a point to mention and promote to the trustees Eric Klinenberg’s recent book “Palaces for the People,” which according to the acknowledgments in Mr. Klinenberg was created by him after he was approached by the Revson Foundation which has funded all sorts of initiatives in connection with promoting the sale of libraries.  And the Revson Foundation works closely with those at the library like Ms. Johnson so one could think of this as another example of the BPL getting involved with content production. Ms. Johnson advised the trustees that the first chapter of Klinenberg’s book was about the New Lots Avenue Library (665 New Lots Ave. at Barbey St), which she advised them was being targeted for a `complete branch renovation’ because it is in the “worst shape” of any library in the system needing one.  We will have to be alert for what is in store for the library.

The BPL trustees are also, it turns out, working at their level on directing people about what they should read.  Coming back to our collection of connect-the-dots bullet points when we first found out that Linda Johnson and Bruce Ratner were shacking up together, BPL trustee Hank Gutman was at the meeting.  Gutman, like Johnson and Ratner also (under somewhat scandalous circumstances) also has an apartment in the view-impairing Pierhouse development in Brooklyn Bridge Park at 130 Furman Street.  Gutman is the head of the BPL’s new “Digital Strategy Committee.”  (It includes members besides the trustees.)  Gutman said that one of the things the committee was working on in terms of new digital technology was to refer library users to books “they should be reading” (including “books they are perhaps unaware of”), but he said it would be done in by “privacy respecting, non-intrusive means.”  Gutman said that almost the entirety of the committee’s last meeting was spent talking about “the nudge” project, which he said was directed to encouraging people in a more friendly way to return books to the library.

Do we want a man like Gutman working on digital technology that steers what gets read when people come into their libraries?  Part of the connect-the-dots the dots bullet points is that Gutman not only lives in the same Brooklyn Bridge Park building as Ratner and Johnson, but that he is also on the board of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and that there is a weird amount of overlap between the BPL board and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation board.  Thus Gutman winds up pushing development by selling off libraries by being on the BPL board as well as pushing development in Brooklyn Bridge Park by being on that board.

Tuesday morning, the day of trustees meeting, was also the day of a ribbon cutting for one of the housing developments in Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Before the meeting Gutman, with a certain amount of haughty disdain, carefully explained to one of the BPL employees why the community should not have been opposing development in the park.  He said that his Brooklyn Heights neighbors were opposing the development in Brooklyn Bridge Park because it involved “low income” units and that his neighbors didn’t want to live with such people of a different class.  It was probably true that, if you searched, you might have been able to find some upper class Brooklyn Heights residents who didn’t want to see lower income subsidized units in the neighborhood, but Gutman’s was hardly, we believe, an accurate overall representation of why more development in the park has been widely opposed by the community.  Gutman’s tended explanation is probably better thought of as another eager try at rewriting of history.  Should we trust Mr. Gutman to steer library users to the books they “should read”?

Gutman favored the sale of the BPL’s Business, Career and Education Library, a central destination and federal depository library in Brooklyn’s downtown center that was the BPL’s second biggest library, newly renovated, expanded and completely upgraded.  It was a shrink-and-sink deal, jettisoning books and eliminating most of the library’s previous functions.  The luxury tower at the site replacing the library is now taller than all the neighboring buildings.  (It’s tall enough to be seen now from the Grand Army Plaza central library where the trustees were meeting.) Linda Johnson told her board of the trustees that they were still working on* the design for the much smaller, more underground, much more bookless library that is to be in the luxury tower.  She said that as they did so they also wanted to please those who had an “old time version” of what a library should be.

 A new, very big investment for the BPL, a $650,000 media buy to “change the way that people think about BPL.” _picture we took of the presentation at the meeting,

More about how people should think of libraries?–  also big news from the meeting: In a new initiative, the BPL will be launching a $650,000 high profile media buy to sell the BPL brand with the number one purpose to “change the way that people think about BPL.”

(* The question has always been how much of an afterthought to the developer’s plans the “replacement” library will be.  The library space is already configured as an awkward horseshoe shape around space the developer is preemptively devoting to the luxury tower’s use. Another library space in a luxury tower that is turning out to be very much an afterthought about what is supposed to go into a luxury tower is the library space along with “arts space” that is supposed to go into the Walentas, Two Trees development Ashland Place tower “Southside project” near the Brooklyn Academy of Music where the space is not being delivered because the city– and the library– don’t know what the deal is that they cut with the building’s developer when it acquired the land and the developer got special exemptions and approvals to build bigger based on providing library and cultural space within the building.  The whole thing was already a scandal because the developer when “bidding” was actually supposed to be getting from the Bloomberg administration the ability to build a parking garage, not a luxury tower.  That changed and then, further along the way a deal was altered again for a bigger building with more luxury apartments if 15,000 square feet was provided for libraries. More recently, BPL spokesperson David Walloch said there was only going to be 1,500 square feet of library space.  What is not stalled?: The Whole Foods and the Apple Store have already opened in the building.

At the trustees meeting the problems with the non-delivery of space were mentioned and the trustees were told that the BPL would “just wait around till that gets resolved.”  BPL trustee Jordan Barowitz from the Durst Development organization who heads the capital projects committee in charge of the BPL’s real estate development said the project was “on hold” while the city and the developer “resolved their differences.”  He said he didn’t know “exactly what the differences were,” but “it was not surprising” there was a difference between the city and developer.  Any guesses whether the Walentases will come to the May 22nd the "Brooklyn Ball" gala honoring the Ratner arena?)

(Addendum: What to know what the previous BPL Trustees meeting in December was like?– It too taunted ironic response in a spectacular way.  See: Atop Empty Bookshelves of The Flatbush Library, Brooklyn Public Library Trustees Meet Displaying Holiday Spirit As They Fuss Over Expensively Tiny Library Space.)

It Gets Personal, But This Gossip Is, In Fact, Real News About The Business of Selling Libraries- Two From That Constellation of Library-Selling Stars Hook Up As A Couple: Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Library President Linda Johnson– Guess Where?

The photo of Bruce and Linda that creeps in here is from a recent BPL gala

Sometimes to report truly relevant news, even about the real estate deal sales that plunder our libraries, you have to sound a little bit like a gossip column. . . .

Guess who’s dating whom on the sly?  Guess who just got divorced?  What two darlings spotlighted in the annals of library sell-off deals are shacking up in a love nest the location of which you might find startling and hard to fathom?

A couple of days ago reporting by the Real Deal highlighted three “memorable” residential sales that just “popped up in records.”  The number one deal highlighted was a couple’s purchase of one of the luxury condo apartments in the much litigated over and promenade-view-impairing Pierhouse development in Brooklyn Bridge Park at 130 Furman Street. . .

And who was the “couple”?: it was Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson.

To wit, here is what the Real Deal reported:

    1.) Forest City Ratner co-founder Bruce Ratner along with Linda Johnson snapped up a condominium along the Brooklyn waterfront. The couple paid $4.7 million for the two-bedroom pad at 130 Furman Street. Ratner split from Dr. Pamela Lipkin, a plastic surgeon, who at one point during the couple’s divorce had alleged Ratner was trying to evict her from her clinic at 128 East 62nd Street.

See:  These are some of the most notable NYC resi sales of the week- Lots of Brooklyn Nets connections, by Mary Diduch, January 28, 2019

We generally like to be well wishers when couples unite, but what a confluence of the unsavory this is.  Where do we start in making the connections; there are so many connectable dots in play:

    •    Bruce Ratner is, after all, the Bruce Ratner “developer” of Forest City Ratner, who, as in the case of the Atlantic Yards Project (now going by the alias “Pacific Park”- Park?), has specialized in subsidy collection and preferential no-bid handouts from government.  When BPL president Linda Johnson first announced the sale of Brooklyn public libraries, saying that the BPL wanted to sell the most valuable libraries first, the two libraries at the top of her list for sale first were both adjacent to Forest City Ratner property.  See:  What Could We Expect Forest City Ratner Would Do With Two Library Sites On Sale For The Sake Of Creating Real Estate Deals? and A Ratner in the Stacks: Library To Sell Forest City-Adjacent Branches, by Stephen Jacob Smith, February 5, 2013.

    •    The BPL’s plan that prioritized for first sale of the two Ratner adjacent was part of a strategic real estate plan that applied to all Johnson’s BPL libraries, and we found out that the consultant who put that plan to together was Karen Backus of Karen Backus & Associates. Karen Backus was Vice President at Forest City Ratner until 1997 when she left to start this firm.  See: Mostly In Plain Sight (A Few Conscious Removals Notwithstanding) Minutes Of Brooklyn Public Library Tell Shocking Details Of Strategies To Sell Brooklyn’s Public Libraries.

    •    BPL’ spokesperson Josh Nachowitz said that the BPL would not rule out the possibility that it would sell to Ratner one of those BPL libraries prioritized for first sale, the second biggest library in Brooklyn, the central destination Business, Career and Education Brooklyn Heights federal depository library in downtown Brooklyn.  Ultimately, under the circumstances, doing so would have been very bad optics.  The Heights library was not, in fact sold to Ratner.  Nevertheless, the deal was structured in such a way that Ratner became the gatekeeper controlling whether the transaction could proceed.  See: Forest City Ratner As The Development Gatekeeper (And Profit taker) Getting The Benefit As Brooklyn Heights Public Library Is Sold.

    •    BPL president Johnson and Ratner will settle into the Pierhouse amongst company they know well and have significant connections to.  In September 2015 it was considered a scandal when it was discovered that Hank Gutman (Henry B. Gutman) and David Offensend had both purchased condo apartments in the Brooklyn Bridge Park Pierhouse condominium.  Both Gutman and Offensend were board members of the board of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation (BBPC) that had to approve the Pierhouse development, something that then required the Conflicts of Interest Board to rule on whether this was a conflict (a ruling that it is not, is only a ruling by a politically connected COIB).  The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation has pushed for development in Brooklyn Bridge Park.  It has a lot of probably not so coincidental overlap with the board of the BPL where the trustees have pushed to turn libraries into real estate development.  Two of those overlaps are Mr. Gutman and Mr. Offensend themselves. Mr. Gutman who is also on the BPL board has been one of those pushing for library sales.  Mr. Offensend’s wife, Janet Offensend, was also on the BPL board for a critical period of time where she spearheaded adoption of the BPL strategic real estate plan to sell BPL libraries. That included hiring consultant Karen Backus from Forest City Ratner and overseeing the creation and submission of the Backus recommendations).  Janet Offensend’s work as a trustee closely mirrors the work that David Offensend, her husband, was concurrently doing as he set NYC public libraries up for sale when he was Chief Operating Officer of the New York Public Library (NYPL).  Thus, two of the first library sales by the NYPL and BPL respectively, the shrink-and-sink deal of the Donnell Library and the shrink-and-sink deal of the Brooklyn Heights Library (with Ratner as gatekeeper) mirrored each other closely   

    •    With David Offensend being involved in the approval of both transactions, Starwood Development wound up being involved both as a developer of the challenged Pierhouse development in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the luxury development that replaced the Donnell Library sold by the NYPL.

    •    The reason that the Pierhouse development was legally challenged, that community residents were so angry with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and its board, and with Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation board members Gutman and Offensend getting condo apartments from the developer (even if the COIB declared there was no conflict of interest) was because of the shenanigans involved when the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation (pushing for more development all the time anyway) allowed the Pierhouse development to violate representations and promises made to the community: The Pierhouse development surprised the community by being built extra tall, and obliterated views from the Brooklyn Heights promenade that were supposed to have been protected.  The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation tried shuffling off some of the blame to the Pierhouse development architects and including the way that those architects had done their numbers while interpreting some obscure rules the architects chose to apply in making the Pierhouse taller.

    •    Johnson and Ratner’s familiarity with Marvel Architects, the architects of their new digs also relates to libraries.  Marvel Architects, headed by Jonathan Marvel, in addition with being accused of running funny numbers to make Pierhouse taller is also the architect for the luxury tower replacing the Brooklyn Heights Business, Career and Education Library, plus is acting as advisor to Ms. Johnson and the BPL on design issues related to selling that library.  Marvel, as advisor to the BPL and Ms. Johnson came up with some very suspicious numbers respecting book counts and bookshelf capacity as the BPL tried to mount and press arguments to ensure that the library was sold for development.  See: It’s Marvelous To Have Books!- Indeed, But Architect Jonathan Marvel Designs a Library Seemingly Oblivious To The Tradition of Finding Books In The Library.

•         At this point, would it be superfluous to add that one of the first so-called “public/private partnerhsips” that BPL president has recommended for the BPL to be pursuing manifested itself in the form of the BPL partnering to promote to local school children Ratner’s Nets at his Atlantic Yards “Barclays” arena?

Back to gossip our column Hedda Hopper voice: We have a page up with more about the BPL trustees and the BPL’s senior officers including well worth reviewing bio of Linda Johnson,  Ms. Johnson started at the BPL in July 2010.  At her first meeting with the BPL board Ms. Johnson told the board how the BPL's real estate plans were her priority and not long thereafter reminded the BPL to remember that their goal was to lock the next mayor (whoever was successor to Bloomberg) into the real estate plans that were secretly underway.

Prior relationship: Linda Johnson with billionaire Leonard Lauder.

Often noted is that until December 2013 Johnson was dating another very wealthy man from a big company, Leonard Lauder, with plans to marry that were broken off just before the scheduled ceremony.  The New York Post states that they had been dating since 2012.  The Times says they were engaged in 2013.  (The relationship reportedly began after Lauder’s first wife Evelyn died in 2011.)  Leonard Lauder's very politically active brother Ron Lauder, also a famously wealthy billionaire was involved in clearing the prohibitions that allowed Bloomberg to get his third term.

The Pierhouse development offers extraordinary views of the New York’s harbor and the lower Manhattan skyline.  What allows it to manage it to do so involves, to an extent, the interposition by which the Pierhouse is grabbing views that were previously available from the Brooklyn Heights promenade and no longer are.  That raises an overall question about who gets the benefit when public assets are usurped for private benefit . . 

Above: Luxury NY Harbor and Manhattan skyline views offered, respectively by Pierhouse where Bruce and Linda bought a condo and by the luxury tower replacing Brooklyn's second biggest library that they were involved in selling off.

The luxury tower now replacing the downtown Heights Business, Career and Education Library that will now dominate the sky of historic Brooklyn Heights is, similarly to the Pierhouse, advertising stunning views.   Those views likewise include sweeping views of the harbor and the downtown Manhattan skyline.  And, as that luxury tower looks down on the much shorter federal courthouse across that way (that, with some success, was challenged for being too tall) it is worthwhile to remember that the spectacular views offered to residents of that tower are based on what the public sacrificed.  We mean by that not only the surrender of the skies of over historic Brooklyn Heights, but the sacrifice of a major library that was recently thoroughly renovated and upgraded to be state-of-the-art and one of the best in the BPL system.

If you are benefitting from the views in either of these developments you are unlikely to have second thoughts about any diminishment of the public realm by which those views may have been achieved.  However, like Bruce and Linda, you may have to keep buying new apartments, whatever has just been built, to stay ahead, and keep you back turned on the losses the public realm is suffering. . .   But the option of continually buying new apartments affording the latest edition of a good view may be something that only those who remain wealthy will be able to afford– That's true; Isn’t it? . .

. . . In that case, if you are benefitting from these newly marketed views, you might indeed actually have second thoughts about the diminishment of the public realm that made it all possible.  That’s because, like Bruce and Linda, your ongoing participation in that diminishment is vital your staying one step ahead on the treadmill.

(BTW: For those who may be confused seeing recent pictures of Mr. Ratner, he has recently shed a great deal of weight.)

Guess What? Emails Withheld By de Blasio Administration Show de Blasio Fundraiser Putting Library Developers On Wish List For Mayor- Evidence of Guilt?: “Can we take this off official thread please.”

 We Facebooked it and we Tweeted it. - And it is turning out to be fun.

We said. . . . .

DOES THIS SOUND FUN? Want to GUESS what can be found in the hundreds of pages of recently released emails between de Blasio and Berlin Rosen concerning: Deals about our libraries, David Kramer, Hudson Companies, Marvel Architects, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, the Fifth Avenue Committee, EDC, The Springer spouses, the BPL, Linda Johnson, the NYPL, the Queens Library, Steven Schwarzman, Marshall Rose, Booz Allen, Center For An Urban Future, Goldman, Rivington Nursing Home, Brad Lander, Steve Levin, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the City Planning Commission, holding back on audits?

It may take your sharp eye and some diligent searching, but whatever is available in this first batch of released emails is available here. Of course, it may be that they are tactically holding back and that there is nothing here in this initial release, but we won't know without searching through. . .

Let us know if you are looking and we'll share what we find.

Mayor's Office Releases Hundreds of Pages of Emails Between de Blasio and 'Agent of the City'
By Grace Rauh
Updated Thursday, November 24, 2016

Our Citizens Defending Library team members have been reviewing emails (you can pitch in- contact us) and finding things, like in an from a high-profile de Blasio fundraiser, Ross Offiinger to de Blasio’s chief of staff Emma Wolfe putting library developer names on a wish list.  Evidence that this was improper come when senior de Blasio advisor Peter Ragone emails back “Can we take this off official thread please.”
  
The de Blasio administration long resisted giving these emails in response to the freedom of information law, delivered what they has so far heavily blacked out with redactions, and still has not delivered more.  Expect that they will have to be forthcoming with many more. As it was, these emails were delivered using a classic age-old tactic: A massive document dump on Thanksgiving Eve, hoping that nobody would notice.

Fundraiser to de Blasio chief of staff: Developer wish list with the names of library developers David Kramer, Bruce Ratner, Jed Walentas- Click to enlarge

The emails show two developers on the wish list, Bruce Ratner and David Kramer, that are both connected to the shrink-and-sink Brooklyn Heights Library sale now under scrutiny and federal criminal investigation for a pay-to-play situation where the real estate, already being sold for a minuscule fraction of its value to the public, is being given to an inferior bidder, David Kramer, sending contributions de Blasio’s way.

“Can we take this off official thread please.” - Apparently a demand, not a question from senior de Blasio advisor Peter Ragone.

As things currently stand, David Kramer is expecting to be the principal developer of the site if the library is torn down.   Bruce Ratner, already owning part of the overall development parcel (transferred to him by the city in 1986) is a gatekeeper of the transaction involved in the transfer of development rights being used.

Footnote on Ratner: Breaking news on Ratner presents some losing-the-devil-we-know news- Ratner is being kicked off the board at his company and the Ratner family may be on the road to losing control.  See: Atlantic Yards Report: Forest City Realty Trust reverses itself, will drop family control; Bruce Ratner to leave board (Pacific Park loss a factor?), December 07, 2016.

There is another developer on the email wish list involved who is involved with library deals, Jed Walentas.  His tower across from BAM, BAM South, has been involved in shifting plans respecting the libraries.  Originally, he was being assisted in getting a variance for his building (which he originally bid to get form the city as a parking lot) based on the idea that it would include a library paid for by selling the Pacific Street Library across the street from Ratner’s Atlantic Yards, thus freeing up the land next to the Ratner’s mega-monopoly for redevelopment.  Last time other developers and real estate owners were competing near his turf in the area Ratner used the city government to kick them off their land.

We have more we expect to publish here.  Our team is has a lot to look at.

Letters To New York City Planning Commissioners Requesting Recusals With Respect To Vote on Proposed Sale and Shrinkage of Brooklyn Heights Library

Below is a letter from Citizens Defending Libraries that was delivered today to the New York City planning commissioners that have calendared a vote for this coming Monday, November 2nd on whether to approve the sale and drastic shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn.

The letter requesting that a number of the planning commissioners recuse themselves, based on conflicts of interest, from the precedent setting vote on whether to sell off this important and valuable public asset, was delivered with another open letter specifically to Commissioner Cheryl Cohen Effron about her vote and influences that exist to affect it.  See: Friday, October 30, 2015, Open Letter To NYC Planning Commissioner Cheryl Cohen Effron Respecting Her Vote About Selling & Shrinking the Brooklyn Heights Library, Other Libraries The Revson Foundation, Center for an Urban Future, And More.

Also delivered to the commissioners today was another letter similarly requesting recusal of commissioners: See the letter below it from Laurie Frey on which Citizens Defending Libraries was copied.

The commissioners took oral testimony about the proposed sale on September 22nd and have since further discussed the proposal a number of times and received additional testimony about the proposal.  See: Report on Tuesday, September 22nd City Planning Commission Hearing On Proposed Sale and Shrinkage of Plus Testimony of Citizens Defending Libraries (it includes links to video).

Note: As the commissioners receive physical copies of their correspondence (submission of fifteen copies is required) the letters they received di not include hyper-links.  Links have been add below for the web reader's convenience.

Letter New York City Planning Commissioners Requesting Recusals (from Citizens Defending Libraries)

October 30, 2015

City Planning Commission
22 Reade Street
New York, NY 10007
Attn: Yvette V. Gruel
- (212) 720-3370 -

Re: Submission of supplemental testimony against the proposed sale and drastic shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn’s central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn. (ULURP C15039 PPK - Oral testimony taken by Commissioners on September 22, 2015)

Dear City Planning Commission:

Selling a very important and valuable public asset like the Brooklyn’s downtown central destination library at 280 Cadman Plaza, setting an extraordinary precedent in the process, should not be done by City Planning Commissioners who are not free from conflicts of interests that will affect the careful balancing of the judgments they must make.  Accordingly, we ask again that all New York City Planning Commissioners who have conflicts of interest recuse themselves.

Two commissioners have already recused themselves (we think very properly):  Michelle de la Uz and Joseph Douek.

We think there is ample evidence however that the commissioners have heretofore given insufficient examination to the need of other commissioners to also recuse themselves.  We further question the downplaying of matters involved in connection with the decisions that would otherwise appropriately highlight the need for commissioners to recuse themselves.

For instance, why in a transaction where the transfer of development rights must involve negotiation, modification and signing of agreements with Forest City Ratner does it appear that all such therefore appropriate references to Forest City Ratner have been scrupulous expunged from the applicant’s package and the materials being presented and certified?

Likewise, why would all the approvals authorizing city officials to take the significant actions with respect to Forest City Ratner by changing the terms of the special permit for the zoning and development rights be turned into a consent item on the commissioners’ agenda, side-stepping a direct affirmative vote and discussion with the substitution of an unaccountable, presumed and automatic vote?

This chosen procedural evasion wounds the public even more because it means that the commissioners will similarly side-step and not vote forthrightly and out in the open about whether public space and parkland at the north end of the library should be eliminated.  That parkland and open space is protected by the terms of the same special permit  Because of the inscription to be found there we call that park in question (funded by charitable donations specifically raised for it) “Truth Park.”  That means the irony is that via this procedural maneuver the elimination of “Truth Park” will take place secretly in the shadows.  Could anything be more symbolically fitting?

We believe that with appropriate consideration, which we hereby request, the following commissioners likely have conflicts of interest requiring them to also recuse themselves:

    1.    Commission Chair Carl Weisbrod: For the reasons stated in our prior testimony concerning the involvement of the Episcopal Diocese of New York in real estate matters relating to the sale of New York City Libraries and also because he is a former president of one of the co-applicants, specifically the NYCEDC, and because we understand, that during his tenure at EDC as president the high profile deal with Forest City Ratner modification of which is now before the board for approval, was put into place.
    2.    Kenneth J. Knuckles, Esq: Because of business relationships with Forest City Ratner.
    3.    Irwin G. Cantor, P.E: Because of business relationships with Forest City Ratner and because of the Tishman Speyer relationship to the contemporaneously planned selling of the Donnell Library using the same model as this proposed Brooklyn Heights transaction now before the commissioner with an overlap of people involved behind the scenes.
    4.    Cheryl Cohen Effron: Because of her relationships with those selling and promoting the sale of libraries, including the Offensends, Sharon Greenberger, the library heads, including BPL president Linda Johnson (president of one of the co-applicants) and the Center for an Urban Future and Commissioner Effron’s simultaneous active involvement with libraries and library policy together with her board membership on the Revson Foundation which has been funding the efforts of various different entities that promote library sales.
    5.    Richard W. Eaddy: Because of business relationships with Forest City Ratner.
    6.    Orlando Marín: Because of professional relationships with the Bluestone Organization (at whose office he sometimes answers the phone): Bluestone is a partner with The Hudson Companies, a co-applicant, in the Gowanus Green project.
    7.    Larisa Ortiz: Because one of the co-applicants, the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), is her client.

We thank the commissioners in advance for the attention we feel this deserves and pray they will do the right thing.

                            Sincerely,

                            Michael D. D. White
                            Citizens Defending Libraries

* * *  *

Letter New York City Planning Commissioners Requesting Recusals (from Laurie Frey)

Click to enlarge

October 30, 2015

Via Hand Delivery

The City Planning Commission of
The City of New York
22 Reade Street
New York, New York 10007

Re:   ULURP Application M860392AZSK, 150399PPK, I50400PQK Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn Borough, Block 239, Lot 16

Dear Commissioners,

I write with regard to the above-referenced land review application. Based on a review of the public record, the Commissioners need to ensure they will avoid the appearance of impropriety with regard to potential conflicts of interest. Commissioners De La Uz and Douek have already recused themselves, yet others also appear to have a reason for recusal. Commissioners who have, have had or potentially will have (again) a business or client relationship with any party or entity interested in the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library should tender a recusal.

The Commissioners of course know they are obligated to avoid the appearance that their public action will benefit their private interests. In this instance, however, it may not be obvious which corporate entities will potentially benefit from approval of the application. For example, documents filed with the NYC Department of Finance but not included in the application reveal that the property interest attaching to the adjacent Lot 1 (which constitutes a merged zoning lot with the subject parcel, Lot 16) accrues to the Forest City Ratner Companies, the long-term ground leaseholder. As a party financially interested in the existing zoning lot merger and potentially in the anticipated new merger agreement which will be executed if the library parcel is sold, Forest City Ratner will potentially realize a benefit if the application is approved and the project goes forward.

Commissioners are Obliged to Avoid the Appearance of Impropriety

Commissioners Knuckles, Cantor and Eaddy and/or partners in their various firms have a previously established business relationship with Forest City Ratner. Commissioner Knuckles's development corporation, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, has been involved with Forest City Ratner in Harlem real estate development, and Commissioner Cantor's firm was involved with Forest City Ratner in the 8 Spruce Street project in Manhattan. Commissioner Eaddy's firm, Savills Studley, has negotiated with Forest City Ratner on behalf of Savills Studley's client(s). The Commissioners involved with firms doing business with Forest City Ratner should, in good faith, recuse themselves.

Similarly, Commissioner Ortiz's private firm, Larissa Ortiz Associates, lists one of the co-applicants of the above-referenced application, the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), as a "Select Client." The NYCEDC also has a property interest in merged Lots 1 and 16 as a long-term leaseholder, like Forest City Ratner.

Commissioner Marin's professional association with the Bluestone Organization presents a potential conflict of interest. Bluestone is a partner with The Hudson Companies (in another Brooklyn project, Gowanus Green), and the NYCEDC has selected The Hudson Companies to develop the Brooklyn Heights Library parcel if the Commission approves the disposition. The Hudson Companies' subsidiary, Cadman Associates, LLC, is a co-applicant.

Additionally, Commissioner Effron is listed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Revson Foundation, a private foundation having a direct financial relationship through its grants program with another co-applicant, the Brooklyn Public Library.

To avoid an appearance of impropriety, the Commissioners associated with private firms doing business with any one of the co-applicants or any one of the parties interested in the subject property—including Forest City Ratner, The Hudson Companies, the NYCEDC, and the Brooklyn Public Library—should recuse themselves from taking action on the disposition of the Brooklyn Heights Library.

The Impartiality of the Chair Must be Preserved

This application also highlights the need to preserve the impartiality of the Chair. Chairman Weisbrod is the former NYCEDC President. During Chairman Weisbrod's tenure at the NYCEDC, the subject property was before the City Planning Commission with regard to a special permit applying to the merged Lots 1 and 16, and public officers are prohibited from taking action on projects they worked on during their previous employment.

More to the point, the Lot 16 deed will be conveyed to the NYCEDC (albeit via a shell corporation, the NYC Land Development Corporation) if the Commission approves the proposed disposition. Chairman Weisbrod will be put in the uncomfortable position of appearing to use his public office to convey a parcel of valuable public land, currently valued at $52 million, to his former employer.

The concerns in this letter are raised based on various online resources which may or may not be completely accurate. The Commissioners have a better knowledge regarding their own potential conflicting interests. As a concerned citizen, I urge the Commissioners to provide the above-indicated recusals to ensure the highest in public integrity. The Commission is obliged to—and must—only take action which is untainted by any appearances of impropriety, if the already fragile public trust in government action is to be upheld.

Sincerely,

Ms. Laurie Frey
xxx West xxth Street
New York, NY 10025

New York, New York
Dated: October 30, 2015

cc:     Hon. Bill de Blasio, Mayor
         Hon. Letitia James, Public Advocate
         Hon. Eric Adams, Brooklyn Borough President
         NYC Conflicts of Interest Board
         Brooklyn Borough Board
         Brooklyn Community Board 2
         Citizens Defending Libraries

Commissioners Knuckles alongside Forest City Ratner.'s representative at their groundbreaking for a Harlem real estate development

Forest City ratnre's building?  Yes.  And there is Commissioners Cantor's name.