April 8, 2014 Open Letter from CDL To Brooklyn Public Library Trustees Delivered At Trustees Meeting- Plus Information About the Meeting

At a few minute before 6:00 PM, some of the protestors have now gone inside to the 5:30 PM BPL trustees meeting that, starting late, has yet to begin-  This is the view from the trustees board meeting room of those protestors still on the street before they disband for the day.  More pictures and video of the rally, a reading of the letter, available on this page.

The following letter was delivered by Citizens Defending Libraries to the Brooklyn Public Library trustees before their April 8, 2014 meeting.

* * * * 

April 8, 2014

Brooklyn Public Library Board of Trustees

Re:    Selling Libraries, Shrinking The Library System, Participating In An Excuse That Involves Deliberately Underfunding New York City’s Libraries

To The Trustees:

As we move forward, the new era we now enter with a new BPL Chairman, a new Mayor, a new Brooklyn Borough President cannot be one that carries over the misguided and anti-democratic agenda of the Bloomberg administration to sell, shrink and underfund libraries, eliminating books and librarians from their premises.  It isn’t fair to everyday Brooklynites.  It isn’t healthy for a free society.

In today’s world we see the effect of wealth and political inequality everywhere and it is of the utmost importance to where we are headed as a society.  The best example of how far things go awry with such inequality gaining the upper hand is the plundering of our publicly owned assets.  A prime example of the plundering of public assets that should be protected and held in respectful, dutiful trust is the sale, shrinkage and deliberate underfunding of our libraries with the elimination of books and librarians. Selling, shrinking libraries, putting their resources out of reach, leads to a vicious cycle of decreased democracy and opportunity, leading to more wealth and political inequality.

We need a Brooklyn for everybody, one Brooklyn where everyone’s interest is served, not a Brooklyn where when real estate values go up in Downtown Brooklyn or near the heavily subsidized Ratner/Prokhorov Barclay’s arena, we boot out the regular Brooklynites who use the highly accessible centrally located libraries there.  Neighborhoods don’t have boundaries, nor should one neighborhood or one group of Brooklynites be pitted against another, attempting to disenfranchise it.  For the same reason that real estate values are now going up in these central locations, everyday Brooklynites have always come to these libraries from all over Brooklyn, including from the neighboring projects.  When real estate values go up, our public assets cannot be treated as mere spoils to be devoured by developers building luxury towers.  Nor can a temporary and deliberate underfunding of libraries during the Bloomberg era be used as an excuse to sell and shrink critically valuable assets that, once sold, can never be recovered.

We have written to you before and say the same thing again. These are not grey moral areas.  Don’t participate in the pretense that they are.

Sincerely

Michael D. D. White
Citizens Defending Libraries

 * * * * 

The new BPL Chairman referred to in the letter is attorney Nicholas A. Gravante, Jr.  (According to his  Boies Schiller & Flexner law firm: "Mr. Gravante's trial victories included winning an acquittal for three leading New York City real estate companies indicted under the Martin Act.")  Chairman Gravante's name may sound similar to, but should not be confused with the name of Queens Library president Thomas Galante.

The new Mayor is Bill de Blasio.

The new Brooklyn Borough President is Eric Adams.

At the trustees meeting the trustees took steps to advance the Bloomberg agenda to sell off and shrink libraries as follows.

BPL trustess get underway with the business of selling libraries

In the meeting trustee Peter Aschkenasy talked about (this was tweeted during the meeting) how he had been working on Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to get him to go along with the real estate deals (hoping for the "first big boost" for the sell-off plans from Adams) and that he thought that by showing Adams (because Adams would essentially respond better to `pictures' than to a thousand words) how the libraries could be digital so the libraries could be sold.  He used the phrase that he thought Adams had "signed on to the theory" that libraries had to be sold and shrunk to "meet capital needs."

The "Information Commons" at the Grand Army Plaza library.  Borough President Eric Adams' first transitional meeting was held here and Mr. Aschkenasy said that by showing Adams what you see above Adams was convinced about the digital future of the libraries.  The BPL president said that the library was busy reaching out to the newly officials and that one thing it was doing was making its space available to them for use mentioning doing this twice for mayor de Blasio and recently for a March 24th Eric Schneiderman Attorney General's Office forum (attended by Citizens Defending Libraries)     Unstated, perhaps left for the BPL trustees in the know to implicitly understand is that Mr. Aschkenasy was co-chair on Mr. Adams transition team, an opportunity for an extra head start in convincing Adams to sell libraries.  More of  a head start?: BPL president Linda Johnson was also on the transition team.even though during Adam's campaign for his office he opposed the BPL's library sales.

Mr. Aschkenasy is a prominently successful high-end restauranteur who has for many years has been on the fringes of politics and real estate development being appointed to more than one post by the Bloomberg administration including Mayor Bloomberg's Midtown Committee and the Brooklyn Bridge Park development corporation.  He is a founding member of the Association for a Better New York which, February 1, 2013, held a special event where NYPL president Anthony Marx and real estate tycoon Bill Rudin joined together to promote the NYPL's Central Library Plan that sells off and shrinks Manhattan libraries while demolishing the research stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library that hold three million reference books.  Mr. Aschkenasy has also been put on the Community Advisory Committee that was formed to bless and provide the appearance of community input and process while advancing the sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library.

Then trustee Jordan Barowitz of the Durst organization, former Bloomberg election campaign spokesperson, spoke with respect to nominating new trustees.  It is interesting that Stephen Schwarzman head of the Blackstone Group (with the world's largest real estate investment firm and multiple other real estate business tie-ins) is the NYPL trustee heading the nominating committee function for the NYPL and, here at the BPL, Barowitz of the Durst real estate organization was performing similar functions.  (We are informed that Mr. Barowitz once had an exchange with another attendee at a library event, someonehe knew from way back.  He asked why the other person was there.  She said she was there because she loved libraries and was there to support them.  She reported that Barowitz in turn explained his own presence saying he was a real estate developer.)

Barowitz proposed two new trustees.   One was a woman, Kim-Thu Posnett, a managing director of Goldman Sachs (the too-big-to-fail Vampire Squid investment bank that issued the bonds for the Ratner/Prokhorov arena). As part of Goldman's Media and Technology Group she has techie credentials to promote going digital.  An appointment of someone from Goldman is perhaps consistent with BPL president Linda Johnson's statement that her ideal trustee would be Goldman CEO Llyod Blankfein a proponent of the notion that the public needs to lower its expectations about entitlements that he is firm“they're not going to get.”

The other trustee Barowitz presented was lawyer Hank Gutman (Henry B. Gutman) of the real estate and banking law firm of Simpson Thachter & Bartlett.  Gutman , whom Jordan noted he personally knows, is a big player amongst the Brooklyn Heights power elite (a former Brooklyn Heights Association board member) and has been a big pusher for development in Brooklyn Bridge Park.  This appointment to the BPL board at a time when the selling off of the Brooklyn Heights Library is a front and center priority may prove to be a sort of coming out of the shadows for Mr. Gutman.  One of Simpson Thachter & Bartlett's most prominent clients is Mr. Schwarzman's Blackstone Group, for which the law firm has provided representation since its inception.  See:  Wall Street Journal-  The Blackstone-Simpson Thacher Connection, by Peter Lattman, march 16, 2007.

Would you like to see the Mr. Gutman's name alongside Mr. Aschkenasy's and that of David Offensend?  Why David Offensend?  Because Offensend as Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL, coming from Evercore a spin-off of Blackstone, began the sales and shrinakes of libraries with the sudden secretive sale of the Donnell Library for a pittance.  Messrs. Gutman, Aschkenasy and Offensend were all appointed to serve together on the board of  the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation.

More development in Brooklyn Heights: hank Gutman, Peter Aschkenasy and David Offensend all on the
the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation board

Mr. Gutman has been pushed for real estate development in Brooklyn Bridge Park both figuratively and literally.  Several people have described how Mr. Gutman apparently annoyed by people handing out flyers opposing development in the park, roughly pushed leafleters, knocking of his feet a man in his upper 80s as he did so. (The fellow reportedly had to be caught so as not fall to the floor.) As the trustees were asked to vote for Mr. Gutman he was described as "very wise person."

The trustees were told that appointing Mr. Gutman should be "helpful" because Gutman was "an very early and strong supporter of the mayor."  Would Mayor de Blasio truly be comfortable with this individual being one of the first three appointees to the board on his watch?  The third trustee appointed on de Blasio's watch was Anthony Crowell, former counsel to Mayor Bloomberg and the previous chair of the BPL trustees presiding over the library sales, appointed at the very last BPL trustees meeting in a slick little maneuver.  At the end of last year, he was honored in a BPL Gala event and then immediately afterwards, rather than have his Bloomberg appointment to the BPL board simply expire he has the BPL trustees reappoint him to the board on another line.  This slick little maneuver was carried out behind Borough President Eric Adams back without the courtesy of notifying or clearing it with him as would have been appropriate.  There is also more than a fair chance the move also unfolded behind de Blasio's back as well.

These two new trustees proposed by Mr. Barowitz were then approved in what was for all intents and purposes the first vote cast by the BPL board under its new chairman.

Oh, one last thing. . . .  Many people know that the lion's share of the funding for the library systems comes from the City of New York and its taxpayers, and many people quite properly think of the libraries as being more or less like other essential municipal services.  But consider the following discussed at the meeting by the trustees about a plan to raise funds.  They will be inviting famous authors to read at the trustees homes for gatherings of contributors starting May 20th with American Book Award and U.S. National Book Award winner Alice McDermott.

The trustees were invited to think who their favorite authors are to invite to read.

More pictures and video on this page.

March 25, 2014 Letter From Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer to NYPL President Anthony Marx About NYPL’s Proposed Central Library Plan

This page may be updated to refine and add additional points.

Provided here in image form, is a March 25, 2014 letter copies of which Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has apparently sent this letter (on April 3rd) to nearly everyone who has contacted her recently about the libraries. (There are many of us who have.) The letter is to NYPL President Anthony W. Marx and addresses conversations Ms. Brewer has had with him about the NYPL’s Proposed Central Library Plan, a proposed consolidating shrinkage of library space that plans for a sell off the Mid-Manhattan Library and Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) and also get rid of books and librarians while destroying the research stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library.  Those research stacks are designed to hold three million books for quick delivery to the reading room directly above them which the stack also physically support with 1,300 separate points of structural support.

The best news is that Ms. Brewer is opposing the sale of the Mid-Manhattan Library.  The pretty much kills the Central Library Plan as a practical matter, eliminating the reason for it and its financial viability unless a lot more (many tens or hundreds of millions more) new taxpayer money is infused.

Just as Borough President Brewer is opposing the sale of Mid-Manhattan, Citizens Defending Libraries believes that Borough President Brewer should also be explicitly opposing selling SIBL.  Further, there should have been some hearkening back by MBP Brewer to state the unacceptability of the sale-for-shrinkage of the Donnell Library as well.  Similarly we think Ms. Brewer should be looking askance at the lack of a public process when part of SIBL was already sold.  SIBL, recently completed, was paid for with taxpayer dollars.  Although a substantial portion of SIBL was just recently sold for suspiciously little, there was virtually no public information, review or involvement concerning that sale before it was quietly effected.

More good news is that Ms. Brewer is restating for the record representations that Mr. Marx and the NYPL have made to her in these discussions.  We believe that the NYPL makes misrepresentations, like the way the NYPL refers to its consolidating shrinkage of library space as an “expansion,” so this documenting by Ms. Brewer will help us correct the record working with others such as the Committee to Save The New York Public Library.  We will be doing this soon and updating this page accordingly.

We can also identify additional information Ms. Brewer should be demanding.

We'll try to provide a list of all the things people will want to get back to Ms. Brewer about.  You should also feel free to contact her more than once.  Our current list of points important to raise with Ms. Brewer appears in bullet form following the text of her letter and email below.

Here is a transcription of the text of the Manhattan Borough President's letter:

March 25, 2014

Dr. Anthony Marx
President and CEO
New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street
New York, NY 10018

Dear Dr. Marx:

    Thank you so much for the informative meeting recently in your office. I am especially pleased that your team continues to take the time to get this project right, both in terms of making the best substantive decision, as well as having extensive community dialogue and an exploration of all viable alternatives. As I stated in our meeting, every alternative must be considered prior to any decision to sell library assets or reduce services.

    In recognition of the many challenges and issues we discussed, I wanted to re-cap our conversation to make sure I have an accurate summary of your plans that I can relay to my constituents:

BRANCHES

- Eighty-eight NYPL branches are currently operating, including the newly renovated branch in Washington Heights. This is a new high watermark for the number of branches in the NYPL system.
- approximately 20,000 young people are currently using branches every day after school.
- 15 afterschool programs are now up and running, with 8 of them in Manhattan. The programming includes homework help, literacy (done in collaboration with TASC - high school students tutoring elementary school students), innovative zones (robotics and other science initiatives), and a new program for 8th graders to begin doing college prep early (at 5 locations). Goal is for 20,000 youth to participate in afterschool programming.
- ESOL programming has tripled but your goal is to expanded 10-fold.
- Computer training has doubled but your goal is to expanded 4-fold.
- Space is potentially available in some branches during school hours for the new Pre-K initiative.

MID-MANHATTAN BRANCH

- The branch is currently physically failing and in need of extensive renovation. I am pleased that you are considering a number of alternatives to the sale of the Mid-Manhattan branch. I again reiterate my belief that the sale of that branch would be an unacceptable solution.

ISSUES/STRATEGIES

 - The three million books that were stored in the central stacks at 42nd Street, underneath the Rose Main Reading Room were at risk because the storage environment lacked adequate of temperature and humidity controls. My understanding is that you raised private funds in order to prepare space under Bryant Park for a vast majority of these books and you are exploring how all of the books from the central stacks can be stored underneath Bryant Park. I also understand that all books currently on site are available at 42nd Street with an approximate wait time of 30 minutes for book retrieval. While some citizens are opposed to the destruction of the stacks at the 42nd Street Library, I understand that the solution you have proposed will create more staff, space, and books for research purposes, at significantly less cost them restoration of the stacks. Furthermore, I understand the book and other retrieval services for researchers will improve under this plan.
- Underutilization at 42nd Street: I understand that you have moved many staff members off-site to increase space for public use. What most stuck out were two sets of statistics you shared. That today only 30 percent of the building is open to the public and you aim to raise this to roughly 70 percent. Second that visitorship to this “people's palace” is today half what it was In the prior decades when the building have a circulating library on site. Other ideas you mentioned: bring the photography and picture collections together, bring business and research library materials back together, create an education corridor for youth, display the many major artifacts in your collection in one central location, create a Treasures Exhibition and promote as destination for school field trips.

    I hope this accurately reflects our discussion and your plans.  As you know, there are some community members firmly opposed to the renovation of the 42nd Street Library and the potential sale of the Mid-Manhattan branch. It is important that all members of the community who rely on the libraries be heard as you plan for the future of one of our greatest civic assets. I trust that prior to any final decisions, you will join and/or sponsor public discussion to provide in full detail your plans for the branches as well as the 42nd Street Library.

    Please keep me informed as you continue to address these issues and plan for the future of this great institution.

Sincerely,

Gale A. Brewer

* * * *
Here is the text of the email Borough President Brewer sent people who had contacted her opposing the consolidating shrinkage of the NYPL Central Library Plan:

Sent: Thursday, April 3, 2014 12:16 PM
Subject: New York Public Library Message from Borough President Gale A. Brewer

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the New York Public Library's planned renovation of the 42nd Street Library and the potential sale of the Mid-Manhattan branch.

I firmly believe that every alternative must be considered prior to any reduction of services or the sale of library assets. It is important that all members of our community who rely on the Libraries be heard during this process and that the issues and concerns of my constituents are addressed.

I recently met with the President and CEO of the New York Public Library, Dr. Anthony Marx, regarding the potential plans for these branches and called upon his office to provide an extensive community dialogue and public discussion to address the future of one of New York's great institutions. Please find attached a copy of a letter providing a detailed summary of the Library's plans, as well as my ongoing concerns. I am confident that the NYPL is seriously considering all alternatives to any sale of library assets, but I will continue to advocate with them that the sale of any branch is not a viable option.
  
I will make every attempt to keep you informed during this process and provide additional information as it becomes available. Again, I thank you for your advocacy on behalf of our public libraries.

Sincerely,


Gale A. Brewer
Manhattan Borough President
  
* * * *
Here are in bullet form are points worth making to Ms. Brewer and others about Ms. Brewer's expression of her stance:

•    Ms. Brewer is to be heartily thanked for appropriately opposing the sale of the Mid-Manhattan library.  (As noted, it can be expected that this should, as a practical matter, pretty much kill the Central Library Plan, eliminating the reason for it and its financial viability.)

•    Ms. Brewer should also oppose the sale of the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) in the former Altman building at 34th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues.  Unfortunately, a lot of SIBL was recently secretively sold. (Can that secretive transaction be reversed?)  The rest of the library, still open and functioning should not be sold as it would be if the NYPL’s envisioned Central Library Plan preceded.

•    Ms. Brewer should be thanked for her emailed statement (above) to constituents and library advocates that “I will continue to advocate with them that the sale of any branch is not a viable option.”   However, it should be pointed out that Ms. Brewer’s letter to Mr. Marx neglected to express this opposition.  (Although it did say does say, “I trust that prior to any final decisions, you will join and/or sponsor public discussion to provide in full detail your plans for the branches as well as the 42nd Street Library.”)

•    People should inform Ms. Brewer that they are aware that her email assurance that “I will continue to advocate with them that the sale of any branch is not a viable option” creates an ambiguity: While its sounds like Ms. Brewer is assuring that she will oppose the sale of SIBL (and most recipients of her email will likely interpret it this way), SIBL is viewed by some as a ‘regional library’ and not necessarily also a branch.  Therefore, it is important for Ms. Brewer to be very clear she is opposed to the sale of SIBL.

•    The penultimate paragraph of Ms. Brewer’s letter refers to “renovation of the 42nd Street Library.”   What is proposed is NOT a “renovation.”  Use of the word “renovation” is misleading NYPL public relations terminology.  The shrinkage and elimination of the research stacks is a conversion of the original structure that will vastly change its use, purpose and much more.

•    When Ms. Brewer’s letter documents NYPL characterization that the Mid-Manhattan branch “is currently physically failing and in need of extensive renovation” it is not documenting actual facts, only NYPL spin.  Mid-Manhattan is in much the same condition it has been in since it opened, notwithstanding that the NYPL would have it look as cosmetically dowdy as possible at the moment.

•    It is misleading in several ways for the NYPL to say that it has “raised private funds in order to prepare space under Bryant Park for a vast majority of these books [the three million books in the research stacks under the Rose reading room] and you are exploring how all of the books from the central stacks can be stored underneath Bryant Park.”

    •    According to figures release by the library in 1987 the space available and not yet in use under Bryant Park will hold only 1.4 million books and it was always intended that the space do so for the sake of adding to books to the available collection, not the shrinkage now planned.
    •    The space for books under Bryant Park for books was already prepared at vast public expense and inconvenience ($25 million and closing Bryant Park for an extended period twenty years ago).  It is unacceptable to characterize this book available space as being paid for by “private funds” just because some private funds will be contributed for some after-the-fact finishing work by the Milstein real estate development family.  (If you pay to hang curtains should you be credited with having paid to build the entire house in which they are hung?)

Bryant Park excavated to add library shelves for more books

•    The NYPL’s representation that “book and other retrieval services for researchers will improve under this plan” is misleading.  Books stored under Bryant Park will be further away.  They will be on rolling shelves, only a few of which can therefore be accessed at a time, a system not well designed to for multiple frequently accessed books.

•    The NYPL’s representation that the plan “will create more staff, space, and books for research purposes” is inaccurate and is based on deliberately obfuscating concepts the NYPL is advancing that certain library space (like library space with books and librarians) should not be deemed library space.  Their arguments about space are deliberately deceptive and play with what they want to call, and not call. by their own recently artfully created term “public space.”

•    The NYPL’s representation that, after more than 100 years, books in “the Rose Main Reading Room were at risk because the storage environment lacked adequate of temperature and humidity controls” is misleading.  There have been improvements in the temperature and humidity controls over the years.  If more improvements are desirable, it would be far less costly to upgrade and make these changes than to demolish the stacks and convert the library to other uses.

•     While Ms. Brewer's letter to Mr. Marx says prospectively that “I trust that prior to any final decisions, you will join and/or sponsor public discussion to provide in full detail your plans for the branches,” it should be taken into account that this was absolutely not the case with Donnell before it was sold.  The sudden, secretive sale of Donnell and the pittance for which it was sold should be thoroughly investigated and explained to the public in order that any and all future plans can be evaluated in context and the full light of day.

 •    The $350++ million of library money that would go to the Central Library Plan (including all the $150 million in new taxpayer appropriation money asked for this budget year) should be redirected to other New York City library branches.  That $150 million should not be in the New City budget for this year given that there is no current Central Library Plan on the table that the NYPL, by its own admission, can say is worth proceeding with, let alone one that is viable are arguable sane.

PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: March 29, 2014, 10:00 AM Saturday March for Women and Education Outside The 42nd Street Central Reference Library

This page is being updated.

On a rainy Saturday morning, March 29th, Lynn's Kids International Organization, a non-profit organization for the advancement of underprivileged children, and Citizens Defending Libraries, a group fighting to protect New York City libraries, met at 100:00 AM outside of the 42nd Street Library for a short walk, March for Women and Education, asking our elected officials to protect library branches throughout the city - our public treasures.

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

Videos. . . .

Facebook Video- March 29, 2014, 10:00 AM Saturday March for Women and Education Outside The 42nd Street Central Reference Library- The Raging Grannies Sing and speeches are given, including about fair elections. 18 minutes in total.

Facebook Video- March 29, 2014, 10:00 AM Saturday March for Women and Education Outside The 42nd Street Central Reference Library- A few seconds of "Save Our Libraries" chant.

Facebook Video- March 29, 2014, 10:00 AM Saturday March for Women and Education Outside The 42nd Street Central Reference Library- One minute with Lynn Rosen's "Whahoo!, "Singing In The Ran" and Raging Grannies singing "Library Maids"

Author, artist and roving bookseller of his own book about the plundering of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library: "The Library of Libraries."  More about that books and other books about attacks on the libraries and the banishment of books for children of all ages, see: Wednesday, March 19, 2014, Not THAT Michael White - “Return of the Library Dragon” And Other Books Meant To Save Books and Libraries!

x

Monday, March 24, 2014, New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman’s Brooklyn Community Forum at Brooklyn Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

Citizens Defending Libraries attended when New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman held his March 24th Brooklyn Community forum.  Very much of interest is Mr. Schneiderman's responsibility for  oversight of nonprofits, including the nonprofits that run our New York City libraries.  There is a new law about this taking effect July 1st.  That oversight function made it more interesting The forum was held in the BPL's Grand Army library.

Here are the flyers CDL distributed during the evening.

This flyer, text repeated below, addressed itself specifically to the AG's oversight of nonprofits and the new law taking effect.

This is a flyer about sell-offs of NYC libraries generally

Here is the text of the flyer concerning Attorney General oversight that was specifically for the evening.

The New York State Attorney General’s Office (its Charities Bureau) oversees the proper conduct of nonprofits in New York State. . . 

. . . .  There is a perception that many of our nonprofits are now running amok.  In February the Wall Street Journal reported:

     . . .  the untold story of our time is the emerging crisis in nonprofit governance, where boards embark on policies that go against-and even imperil-the mission of the institution they are charged to oversee and protect.

It cited as a prime example how:

    . . . The New York Public Library wants to gut its magnificent Beaux Arts building on Fifth Avenue and change it from a research institution to, as Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in this newspaper, "a state-of-the-art, socially interactive, computer-centered" circulating library, with fewer books, a good number of them moved off-site. 

Similarly, the Brooklyn Public Library is making it a priority to sell and shrink libraries, getting rid of books and librarians with a focus on real estate deals that benefit developers, NOT the public.

The Nonprofit Revitalization Act has now been signed into law with most of its provisions taking effect July 1, 2014.

The good news is that, according to Attorney General’s Office:

Nonprofit boards will have to perform stricter oversight of insider deals, and the Attorney General will be better able to hold insiders accountable for abuse. The bill requires the adoption of more robust financial oversight requirements, conflict-of-interest policies, and whistleblower policies to protect nonprofit employees from retaliation when they identify wrongdoing.

It is supposed to strengthen the “Attorney General's power to police fraud and abuse” by, among other things, “granting clear power to bring judicial proceedings to unwind interested-party transactions.”

The Attorney General's office didn’t note in its press release for the new act that the law also creates a streamlined sort of safe harbor provision that can be used electively by nonprofits to have the attorney general approve certain sales of assets.

. . . But having the Attorney General’s Office bless questionable transaction early on doesn’t necessarily work to the public’s advantage.  Case in point: Long Island College Hospital’s divestiture of the Donald and Mildred Othmers’ funds.  The Othmers gave a truly spectacular amount of money to LICH.  When that money was being raided from the institution in a sophisticated scheme, the AG’s office (a prior administration) was first requested to bless the money being posted as security without understanding the full implications of doing so.  That early “blessing” has hampered the AG’s office’s ability to now criticize that transaction.

 sign our petition on the web: Citizens Defending Libraries

Here is the Attorney General's flyer for the evening:

The forum was introduced by BPL president Linda Johnson who has been a champion of the sales that are shrinking libraries in the city while getting rid of books and librarians.

Johnson convening the forum

President Johnson then introduced City Councilman Brad lander as her "friend" to say a few words.  Indeed, Lander has been supporting Johnson's proposed sales of libraries.  After Lander spoke, the two sat together.

Lander, introduced by Johnson speaks

At far end of first row, Johnson and Lander sit together.  As these pictures were being taken Josh Nachowitz, BPL spokesperson for the for the library sales removed himself to the back of the room

 Most of the evening was taken up by Schneiderman's AG staff describing their achievements to date.  For instance, work the office has done taking on  the threat of hydrofracking.  Only a little time was left for questions from the forum attendees.  None of the questions submitted with respect to the sale of libraries, public assets or the conduct of the nonprofits in charge of them were answered although some of these questions (see below) were tweeted as the forum was ongoing.  The Attorney General's office promised to follow up with respect to all questions.  (Contact information for those submitting them was on the back of each.)

While no questions were answered during the evening about the sale of public assets like libraries Mr. Schneiderman did respond to one question about the suddenly announced sale of the of Prospect Park Residence a community residence facility for seniors previously known as the Madonna Residences.  That's a privately owned property, although it has gone through serial changes in terms of ownership incarnations, at least some of which may have been intended to clear the way for an eventual unregulated sell off of that real estate.  Said Mr. Schneiderman, without clearly indicating that he thought he knew of a way to say that he thought the sell-off would be illegal:

It is very hard to argue that it is reasonable conduct to tell vulnerable seniors you have 90 days to get out of your homes

At the end of the meeting Councilman Lander who has spoken out critically against the sale of the senior community residences (though not against the sale of libraries) was surrounded by the families and residents who are getting together to fight that sale of the former Madonna Residences.

Tweeted during forum

Tweeted during forum