Annual Meeting of Brooklyn Heights Association- The BHA President Patrick Killackey Insists That BHA Will Continue To Betray Community By Supporting The Brooklyn Heights Library Sale & Shrinkage Notwithstanding Recent Scandals

Brooklyn Heights Association President Patrick Killackey tries to defend the library sale after the meeting.  When the the Brooklyn Heights Blog did a poll asking whom the public trusted, who the public backed, Citizens Defending Libraries trounced the BHA in terms of public support.

Thanks to all the Library Defenders who were at the Brooklyn Heights Association annual meeting the night of Wednesday, February 24, 2015.  This is now the fourth year running that the Brooklyn Heights Association has disgraced itself at its annual meeting by continuing to press for the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library despite finding out, each year running, that the proposed library sale and drastic shrinkage is much worse then was know the previous year.

At the meeting Citizens Defending Libraries suppled information containing information and points such as the following:

It’s time for the Brooklyn Heights Association to start opposing the proposed sale and drastic shrinkage (down to 42%) of the Brooklyn Heights Library.  It should do so before the still-pending required approvals for that sale.–   SEE: (online) Citizens Defending Libraries:  Open Letter To The Brooklyn Heights Association: Stop Supporting The Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library And Start Opposing It. (September 12, 2015).

Additional recently available reasons for the BHA to oppose the sale and shrinkage:

    •    The recent complaint filed with the NYS Attorney General’s office showing that the BPL fudged its budgetary figures to claim poverty as a reason to sell and shrink the library when that wasn’t the case.

    •    Sunday’s New York Post article revealing that the de Blasio administration doing a favor for a friend gave the library site to a developer whose bid was lower than at least two other bidders and 20% lower than the going rate Brooklyn Heights.  Plus the bid, topped by another bid 12% more was inferior in other respects. [Even this needs to be put in context: David Kramer (of the Hudson Companies) was the low bidder for a library that should not even be sold.  Kramer and the other developers were only bidding for the value of the library site as a vacant lot.  They were being asked by the BPL and its trustees to bid only for the "tear-down" value of the library.  These bids were in no way related to the value of the library to the public from the public's perspective, because de Blasio and the BPL trustees were selling off the library with no appraisal of the value of the library from the public's perspective.  And it is important to remember that what we are speaking of is a recently enlarged and fully upgraded library that would cost more than $120 million to replace.- A library the BHA once fought to enlarge!!!]

    •    We now know the library sale proposal is also raiding our district’s Department of Education funds in a significant unrevealed amount to sweeten the backroom deal for the developer paying the following for an unwanted  “STEM Lab” or “STEAM Lab” facility (really just a black box): 1.)  Acquisition of space, 2.) outfitting space, and 3.) running the off-site space.

The BHA’s refusal to oppose the proposed library sale is undermining other important goals essential to the community and what should be the BHA’s mission of protecting it.

    •    It undermined the fight against the sale of LICH (another public asset attacked by the real estate industry), which has now turned into the unfortunate Fortas proposal situation.

    •    It undermines dealing effectively with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation (the board of which has startling overlaps with the board of the Brooklyn Public Library), which means less effective opposition to:
        •        The Pierhouse overbuilding in Brooklyn Bridge Park
        •        The Pier 6 overbuilding in Brooklyn Bridge Park

    •    It undermined the opposition to the 75 Henry Street Pineapple Walk proposal, an almost nearly identical proposed luxury tower casting a long shadow on Cadman Plaza (this time on privately owned property, not selling a publicly-owned asset).

    •    The BHA, acting like an unpredictable wildcard, undermines our efforts to keep our elected officials accountable and honest with people at the office of Councilman Steve Levin, who betrayed the community on the library sale, sometimes fielding phone calls saying things like: `Yes, 95% of the community is opposed to the library sale, but the BHA favors it and they are very powerful.’

The BHA’s decision about the library should not have been subject to direction it received from those privately self-interested and involved with the Saint Ann’s private school benefitting from the library sale.  BHA president Patrick Killackey has said that it was proper for the Saint Ann’s contingent to be specially represented through the BHA in the way that it was. We have the opposite opinion about such a flagrant conflict of interest violating the community’s trust.  

Sign our petition on the web: Citizens Defending Libraries

Citizens Defending Libraries also came equipped with with this handout.

One was this, TOP TEN REASONS TO BELIEVE THAT COUNCILMAN STEVE LEVIN WAS REALLY ON THE DEVELOPER'S SIDE PROMOTING A SELL-OFF RATHER THAN PROTECTING THE PUBLIC AGAINST A BAD LIBRARY SALE - TOP TEN REASONS which we distributed in this physical form:

And another handout was a list of links plus an attachment of the letter Levin has failed for months to send demanding transparency from the BPL in connection wth its library sales:

The text of that flyer reads as follows:

Why isn’t Councilman Stephen Levin demanding transparency from the Brooklyn Public Library and sending the letter to do so (attached) that he long ago promised?

SEE: (From Citizens Defending Libraries) Open Letter To Councilman Steve Levin About His Letter To Brooklyn Public Library Demanding Transparency About Library Sales

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/01/open-letter-to-councilman-steve-levin.html

See how Levin’s failure to demand transparency just doesn’t square with his ostensible reasons for his “approving” the sale and drastic shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library:

Monday, December 28, 2015, "An Open Letter Regarding the Brooklyn Heights Library Project"- Obfuscation From Councilman Steve Levin Concerning His Betrayal of The Community By Approving The Sale and Shrinkage of Our Library

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2015/12/an-open-letter-regarding-brooklyn.html

SEE also:

Monday, December 28, 2015,  TOP TEN REASONS TO BELIEVE THAT COUNCILMAN STEVE LEVIN WAS REALLY ON THE DEVELOPER'S SIDE PROMOTING A SELL-OFF RATHER THAN PROTECTING THE PUBLIC AGAINST A BAD LIBRARY SALE - TOP TEN REASONS
       
http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2015/12/top-ten-reasons-to-believe-that.html

You can click on the first "Open Letter" link above to see the ext of the letter Levin has refused to send following through on his obligation and promise to demand transparency and which we distributed to the audience in the form below:

In other words, the library sale was very much present in the room in multiple ways.  Notwithstanding the the three new change of fact situations listed above, and notwithstanding all the ways that the supporting the library undermines the BHA's responsibility to protect the community BHA president Patrick Killackey said that the BHA was refusing to even consider a change in supporting the library.  Councilman Steve Levin was right there where he could have been told to change his vote.  When he arrived and was announced he was coldly received by those in the crowd who did not actually vociferously boo him.

The follow-up we suggest given that the Borough Board vote is pending (possibly Tues. March 1st):

1.) Call/email the Brooklyn Heights Association (718.858.9193 - pbray@thebha.org and tell them it is absolutely unacceptable for them not to oppose the library sale before the vote especially given all the new revelations (Steve Levin is hiding behind their 'powerful organization' skirts as one reason he might vote yet again to approve the library sale and shrinkage at the Borough Board).
2.)  Call/email Steve Levin (718-875-5200- 212-788-7348 - slevin@council.nyc.gov) and tell him that he should vote against the sale and shrinkage of the library given all the new revelations plus the fact that he has not followed through on his councilmatic obligations to insist on transparency from the BPL.
3.)  Comment - on this article about last night's BHA annual meeting- about the failures of Levin and the BHA in representing the community: DA Ken Thompson talks guns, gangs and the wrongfully convicted at Brooklyn Heights Association Annual Meeting- Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson by Mary Frost, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 25, 2016.

At the meeting the the BHA repeated over and over how they much they need to recruit new members-  We can tell them why membership has fallen off and the obvious thing the could do to get more members.

Startling news: The BHA cancelled the annual house tour this year!  For the last three years we have handed out flyers to everyone on the tour about the BHA and the library sales and had about 80% of the people on the tours wearing our "Don't Sell Our Libraries" buttons.  The BHA said that about 30% of its annual revenues come from the house tour (that's about $60K out of $200K).  We don't know how much of the rest is from dues paid by the declining membership and how much is paid by people hoping for special favors.

In conversation at the cocktail reception afterward members of the BHA board of governors were suspiciously oblique last night in providing non-explanations of why the BHA won't change its promotion of the library sale, saying things like "the dominoes have fallen" as a reason they are not, even now, "able" to oppose the sale.  The Post article documents this is a corrupt deal.  Does "the  dominoes have fallen" translate to mean the BHA has made its own corrupt deal that ties the BHA's hands in the face of any revelations or change of circumstance of any kind no matter what?

It is incredible that the BHA has being saying for four year now  that they somehow aren't able to oppose the sale.

In response to a question Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White asked, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson spoke about corruption in the real estate industry and what he is doing to investigate, persecute and combat it.  We hope he take on some of the rigged deal corruption that is involved in the theft of our public libraries.

If you want to read more about past BHA annual meetings and the BHA's refusal to back away from its disregardful support for the sale and shrinkage of the library read (in reverse chronological order):

    •   Saturday, September 12, 2015, Open Letter To The Brooklyn Heights Association: Stop Supporting The Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library And Start Opposing It.

    •   Tuesday, February 24, 2015, Public Assets Under Attack- Prepared For Handout at February 24, 2015 Brooklyn Heights Association Annual Meeting

    •   Wednesday, March 5, 2014, Internet Guru Clay Shirky Speaking At Brooklyn Heights Association Annual Meeting Says We Need Libraries Because Of Holes In The Internet

    •   Thursday, February 27, 2014, February 27, 2014 Open Letter from Carolyn McIntyre To Brooklyn Heights Association Delivered At It's Annual Meeting That Day

    •   Wednesday, February 13, 2013, One-Stop Petition Shopping: Report On The Brooklyn Heights Association Annual Meeting, LICH and Libraries

Councilman Stephen T. Levin Comes To Speak About His Approving The Sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library at Independent Neighborhood Democrats Meeting- Doesn’t Answer Questions Asked, Including Whether & When He Will Insist on Transparency from the BPL

Thursday night, February 18th, Stephen T. Levin, Councilman for Brooklyn's 33rd district came to speak at the Independent Neighborhood Democrats annual meeting.  The principal purpose of his visit was for him to talk about and explain his approval and support for the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library.

Steve levin speaking at IND and not answering questions put to him about the library sale.

Although he spoke for over half and hour and questions were asked of him he failed and refused to answer the questions put to him.  In fact, he probably raised some additional ones: For example, Levin for the first time said that the mysterious "STEM Lab" facility that he and the de Blasio administration came up with and unveiled at the last minute as a sweetener to help push through the developer's deal might just as well be a "STEAM Lab" as a "STEM Lab."

Citizens Defending Libraries was at the meeting putting some of the questions to Levin that he refused to answer.  We also came equipped with handouts.

One was this, TOP TEN REASONS TO BELIEVE THAT COUNCILMAN STEVE LEVIN WAS REALLY ON THE DEVELOPER'S SIDE PROMOTING A SELL-OFF RATHER THAN PROTECTING THE PUBLIC AGAINST A BAD LIBRARY SALE - TOP TEN REASONS which we distributed in this physical form:

Another was a list of links plus an attachment of the letter Levin has failed for months to send demanding transparency from the BPL in connection wth its library sales:

The text of that flyer reads as follows:

Why isn’t Councilman Stephen Levin demanding transparency from the Brooklyn Public Library and sending the letter to do so (attached) that he long ago promised?

SEE: (From Citizens Defending Libraries) Open Letter To Councilman Steve Levin About His Letter To Brooklyn Public Library Demanding Transparency About Library Sales

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/01/open-letter-to-councilman-steve-levin.html

See how Levin’s failure to demand transparency just doesn’t square with his ostensible reasons for his “approving” the sale and drastic shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library:

Monday, December 28, 2015, "An Open Letter Regarding the Brooklyn Heights Library Project"- Obfuscation From Councilman Steve Levin Concerning His Betrayal of The Community By Approving The Sale and Shrinkage of Our Library

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2015/12/an-open-letter-regarding-brooklyn.html

SEE also:

Monday, December 28, 2015,  TOP TEN REASONS TO BELIEVE THAT COUNCILMAN STEVE LEVIN WAS REALLY ON THE DEVELOPER'S SIDE PROMOTING A SELL-OFF RATHER THAN PROTECTING THE PUBLIC AGAINST A BAD LIBRARY SALE - TOP TEN REASONS
       
http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2015/12/top-ten-reasons-to-believe-that.html

You can click on the first "Open Letter" link above to see the ext of the letter Levin has refused to send following through on his obligation and promise to demand transparency and which we distributed to the audience in the form below:

Questions that Levin didn't answer included:

    •    If and when he would demand transparency from the Brooklyn Public Library about its proposed library sales including sending the letter to make such demand that he long ago promised.  We pointed out that had he sent the letter there was enough in it to blow out of the water almost every part of the explanation he has offered for his approving the sale of the library.

    •    With respect to the raid on Department of Education funds being raided to by Levin, de blasio and Alicia Glen, de Blasio’s Deputy Mayor for development, Levin would not state what the cost of it was of the amount being raided.  It is comprised of three sets of costs: 1.) the rent to buy cost, 2.) The outfitting of the space cost, and 3.) the cost of running the space.  Levin refused to give any of them.  And we understand that DOE has problems with and actually doesn't want such a facility at this location.

    •    Levin would similarly not state what funds were being intrecepted to put in he teeny library being put into DUMBO as part of the backfroom deal pushing things through.

    •    Levin would also not state what funds were being intercepted for the Greenpointe Library, also in his district as part of the backroom deal pushing the deal through.

Exactly why an insistence on transparency by our elected officials, particularly Levin, and exactly why Levin may want to avoid it became all the more clear hours after Levin spoke.  . . .

. . . . The New York Post has just come out with an eviscerating story about the sweetheart details of de Blasio's giveaway of the Brooklyn Heights library.  The developer to whom the de Blasio administration and the BPL trustees gave away the library wasn’t the highest bidder; His bid was 20% lower than the going rate in Brooklyn Heights.  The bid was topped by two other bids that surpassed it, one 12% more, and was an inferior bid in other respects as well.  See:  New York Post: Developer with ties to de Blasio scores job, despite being outbid, By Aaron Short, February 21, 2016

Even this needs to be put in context: David Kramer (of the Hudson Companies) was the low bidder for a library that should not even be sold.  Kramer and the other developers were only bidding for the value of the library site as a vacant lot.  They were being asked by the BPL and its trustees to bid only for the “tear-down” value of the library.  These bids were in no way related to the value of the library to the public from the public’s perspective, because de Blasio and the BPL trustees were selling off the library with no appraisal of the value of the library from the public’s perspective.  And it is important to remember that what we are speaking of is a recently enlarged and fully upgraded library that would cost more than $120 million to replace.

The New York Post article really ups the ante because Levin will have to cast a vote again on the library at the Brooklyn Borough Board in the face of these changed circumstances and revelations, plus the revelations contained in the charges Love Brooklyn Libraries filed with the NYS Attorney General.  As if he didn't have his pants down already!

When NY1 took calls from an annoyed public about the City Council giving itself a huge pat arise they ran footage of Citizens Defending Libraris in teh bacaolcy of City Hall during the Brooklyn Heights Library sale vote and of Steve Levin being yelled at in the City Hall rotund for betraying the community

Thursday night was the same night was embarrassingly speaking at the CUNY Center about income inequality in a conversation with Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman.

Citizens Defending Libraries was there at that event too:  INSIDE the CUNY Graduate Center Mayor Bill de Blasio & Paul Krugman Have a Conversation about Inequality in New York City: INSIDE We Say Don't Sell Our Libraries Because That IS Inequality.

INSIDE the CUNY Graduate Center Mayor Bill de Blasio & Paul Krugman Have a Conversation about Inequality in New York City: INSIDE We Say Don’t Sell Our Libraries Because That IS Inequality

Right: Citizens Defending Libraries was outside the Paul Krugman, Mayor de Blasio income inequity conversation

Thursday, February 18, 2016 Mayor Bill de Blasio & Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist  Paul Krugman met in the CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium to have “A Conversation about Inequality in New York City and Beyond.”

Citizens Defending Libraries was outside pointing out an irony: Mayor Bill de Blasio is selling off NYC libraries for a pittance and that, particularly in a time of plenty, is the quintessence of promoting greater inequality in New York.

Here is the flyer we distributed:

Citizens Defending Libraries flyer for the Paul Krugman, Mayor de Blasio income inequity discussion - Click to enlarge

The text of our flyer is as follows:

A PERFECT PATH TO INCOME INEQUALITY!:
Turn our libraries into real estate deals, sold and shrunk with hand-offs to the private sector!

SIBL- go take a look!- the state-of-the-art, recently built, 34th Street and Madison Avenue Science, Industry and Business Library is just one of New York City’s libraries proposed to be sold (with a consequent shrinkage of the Mid-Manhattan Library) in deals that benefit a politically connected 1%, not the public.  These deals are bing pushed by people like NYPL library trustee Stephen A. Schwarzman, head of the Blackstone Group, among other things the world’s largest real estate investment firm.

Meanwhile, our “progressive” mayor isn’t restoring money and making up for the Bloomberg cuts cited as a reason we now `have to’ sell and shrink libraries?

That’s the same mayor who says that “income inequality . .growing, rampant income inequality” is the “crisis of our times” because we have “an economy that is basically supporting the 1%.”

Libraries, less than 1% of the city’s budget, cost little to fund. . . Yet de Blasio’s continued underfunding persists even as the New York Times opines that NYC’s “utterly essential libraries” need money and the Bloomberg cuts restored, noting that in de Blasio’s New York, while libraries were starved, money flowed copiously to the “seldom neglected . . . corporate and entertainment infrastructure.”

Bear in mind: Cuts in funding to the libraries commenced when schemes were originated to cite such underfunding as a rationale to sell and shrink libraries throughout New York. The gutted funds are now cited as a reasons to sell off and shrink libraries like the Tillary Clinton Library in Brooklyn Heights, the 34th Street Science, Industry and Business Library, the Red Hook Library, the Pacific Branch and others.  Remember Donnell!

And as Mr. de Blasio said when he was running for mayor (July 12, 2013):
 “It’s public land and public facilities and public value under threat. . . and once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain, real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties”







Sign our petition on the web: Citizens Defending Libraries

The conversation about inequality will be broadcast on CUNY TV, digital Ch. 25.3 and cable channels 75 (Time Warner and Optimum Brooklyn), 77 (RCN) and 30 (Verizon); www.cuny.tv

Broadcast Schedule
Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 5pm, 10pm
Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 3am
Thursday, Feb. 25 at 9am

Archived video of this event will also be available via the internet on or about Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016.

Goals de Blasio is pursuing are somewhat checkered: Does he care about income inequality as he might tell economist Paul Krugman?  Not when he sells libraries off cheaply to politically connected friends.  

Just a few days after the conversation it turns out the amount of explaining Mayor de Blasio had to do about selling libraries increased dramatically.  Ostensibly. de Blasio is selling libraries like the Brooklyn Heights Library in a time of plenty (we have a $4.5 billion surplus) to raise money for libraries, but the New York Post reported that de Blasio is selling the Brooklyn Heights. . . .

BUT- The New York Post has just come out with an eviscerating story about the sweetheart details of de Blasio's giveaway of the Brooklyn Heights library.  The developer to whom the de Blasio administration and the BPL trustees gave away the library wasn’t the highest bidder; His bid was 20% lower than the going rate in Brooklyn Heights.  The bid was topped by two other bids that surpassed it, one 12% more, and was an inferior bid in other respects as well.  See:  New York Post: Developer with ties to de Blasio scores job, despite being outbid, By Aaron Short, February 21, 2016

Even this needs to be put in context: David Kramer (of the Hudson Companies) was the low bidder for a library that should not even be sold.  Kramer and the other developers were only bidding for the value of the library site as a vacant lot.  They were being asked by the BPL and its trustees to bid only for the “tear-down” value of the library.  These bids were in no way related to the value of the library to the public from the public’s perspective, because de Blasio and the BPL trustees were selling off the library with no appraisal of the value of the library from the public’s perspective.  And it is important to remember that what we are speaking of is a recently enlarged and fully upgraded library that would cost more than $120 million to replace.

Outside the CUNY entrance one of the posters we had made up spoke about library-selling trustee Stephen A. Schwarzman, head of the Blackstone Group, among other things the world's largest real estate investment company.   Income inequality?: Schwarzman had the highest salary of anyone on Wall Street (or anywhere else?).  The poster used a Schwarzman quote that Krugman has used in more than one of his New York Times columns about income inequality.

The CUNY center where the conversation was held is co-located with SIBL, the 34th Street and Madison Avenue Science, Industry and Business Library in the old Altman's Department store.  SIBL is just one of New York City’s libraries proposed to be sold.The CUNY Center has its own library and the CUNY library was supposed to operate synergistically with SIBL when it was built in 1996.  The loss of SIBL is thus also a loss to CUNY.  There is much to explain and delve into about why this has not been more widely acknowledged.  We'll have to take that up later.

Amusingly, Krugman tweeted news of his conversation with a picture from Lord of the Rings of Gandolf and Frodo face to face.  In life, Mayor de Blasio is the incredibly tall one, but wouldn't Krugman be wise like the wizard Gandolf?  It's a puzzle!

More photos of us outside that night:

The same evening that Citizens Defending Libraries was at the Krugman de Blasio event we were also at the Independent Neighborhood Democrats event confronting Councilman Stephen T. Levin about his failure to demand Transparency from the BPL. . .

SEE:  Thursday, February 18, 2016, Councilman Stephen T. Levin Comes To Speak About His Approving The Sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library at Independent Neighborhood Democrats Meeting- Doesn’t Answer Questions Asked, Including Whether & When He Will Insist on Transparency from the BPL

PRESS RELEASE: Brooklyn Public Library Trustees Looking To Put Writers Out Of Work Create Story That Writes Itself- Their Bios

PRESS RELEASE: Brooklyn Public Library Trustees Looking To Put Writers Out Of Work Create Story That Writes Itself- Their Bios

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York City

WHAT: Readers find the simple collection of biographies of Brooklyn Public Library trustees more engrossing than very best detective and suspense fiction.
WHEN: Now
WHAT ELSE?:  Citizens Defending Libraries is available to provide facts about the conduct of the Brooklyn Public Library trustees and their sale and shrinkage of libraries, elimination of books and librarians.

What do the Brooklyn Public Library trustees have against those who put pen to paper to earn a living?  Having shown an increasing hostility to books the trustees now seem to be looking to put writers out of work by setting up the story that writes itself; their collected biographies together with those of library administration officials they are hiring to run the libraries, including Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson . . .

. . .  Just a few weeks back, Citizens Defending Libraries posted a page with the collected biographies of the Brooklyn Public Library trustees . . . apparently people are finding it ulta-ultra fascinating reading:

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

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/01/brooklyn-public-library-trustees.html

It’s just a set of bios, but it’s the best reading in town, and not because of the passing reference or cameos here and there to associates of fame like Jay-Z or Beyoncé; it’s because over and over it raises the fascinating question: Why are these people running a library?

“Some of the reviews of the new Bernie Madoff mini-series have commented that the series is `underwritten,’ but the life of Bernie Madoff is so sensational it writes itself.  It’s the same thing with these library trustees; you just wouldn’t believe where they are coming from,” says Michael D. D. White co-founder of Citizens Defending libraries, the group formed three years ago to fight the sale and shrinkage of city libraries, the underfunding of libraries with the elimination of books and librarians to create real estate deals that benefit developers, not the public.

Since the biographies has been posted, Citizens Defending Libraries has been crowd sourcing information and contributed leads for additions and has been updating the page accordingly.

People are waking up to the fact that people from Wall Street, the real estate industry, and other profit oriented and monopolistic organizations can be extremely ill-suited to running organizations that are supposed to be charitable, public spirited, education and democracy oriented.  Citizens Defending Libraries has set up a companion page with links to some of the previously written articles raising concerns in this regard and reviewing how these concerns apply in particular to who we chose to be in charge of libraries.

Why Nonprofit Boards May Stray From Their Core Missions And Obligations To the Public- Considered Generally And Particularly With Respect To Libraries

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/01/why-nonprofit-boards-may-stray-from.html

“The biographies of the trustees might just be scintillating reading, irrelevant to anything of consequence in the long run if it weren’t for the outrageous behavior of the trustees seeking to disenfranchise the rest of us with the inexcusable sale of libraries at a fraction of their value,” says Carolyn E. McIntyre, another co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries, and spouse of Mr. White.  “They are acting just as you would expect them to act if you predicted it based on their bios, which raises the question: What were people thinking when these people were appointed to run the library?” says Ms. McIntyre.

The appointment of these trustees go back to when Bloomberg was mayor and plans were being formulated to sell and shrink libraries and think of them as raw meat for real estate developers, but there are also a number of new trustees appointed by Mayor de Blasio (although unannounced) who, while campaigning, opposed the plans of the Bloomberg era.

Presently, the BPL trustees have been pressing hard for the sale of the central destination Downtown Brooklyn Heights Library.  The library, Brooklyn's second largest, would be sold by the trustees for a fraction of its value, less than they would get for a vacant lot.  At a time of escalating library use, the recently expanded and fully upgraded library would cost over $120 million to replace, but the BPL trustees would sell it to net probably less than $25 million at best and would replace it with a shrunken library of less than 42% the current size with much of the public space moved underground.

The sale of the library was supposed to be considered by the Brooklyn Borough Board on February 2nd (Groundhog’s Day), but, breaking news on this front, that consideration was postponed when a newly formed group, Love Brooklyn Libraries, filed a complaint with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that the Brooklyn Public Library has deceitfully understated its capital funds in order to promote and rationalize the trustees’ sale of the library.

For more on this see:

Love Brooklyn Libraries Files Complaint With Attorney General Eric Schneiderman That Brooklyn Public Library Understates Capital Funds In Order to Sell Heights Library
    
http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/01/love-brooklyn-libraries-files-complaint.html

The page linked to above also covers how NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer has already provided a letter observing how the BPL financing scheme the trustees are implementing made no sense.

How questionably the trustees have conducted themselves has been hiding in plain sight in the BPL’s own minutes, notwithstanding that the BPL and its trustees have been stonewalling investigation.

CONTACT:
Carolyn E. McIntyre, Michael D. D. White
Michael White, 718-834-6184, mddwhite [at] aol.com
Carolyn McIntyre, 917-757-6542 cemac62 [at] aol.com

Follow us on Twitter: @defendinglibraries

For photos and videos of prior Citizens Defending Libraries rallies opposing the sale, shrinkage, underfunding of New York City libraries, and elimination of books and librarians in the two and a half+ years since its founding, see:

PHOTO GALLERIES- PAST EVENTS

                                                                  #   #   #

Citizens Defending Libraries
(718) 797-5207
http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com
@DefendLibraries on twitter
backpack362 [at] aol.com

Love Brooklyn Libraries Files Complaint With Attorney General Eric Schneiderman That Brooklyn Public Library Understates Capital Funds In Order to Sell Heights Library

There is significant breaking news as January turns into February: A newly formed group, Love Brooklyn Libraries has filed a complaint with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that the Brooklyn Public Library has understated its capital funds in order to promote and rationalize the sale of the central destination Downtown Brooklyn Heights Library.  Approval of the proposed library sale was planned to go before Brooklyn's Borough Board February 2nd, but the board's consideration was postponed after the information concerning the complaint was outlined for the Brooklyn Borough President’s office.

Claiming poverty while the city is flush with surplus cash, the BPL is proposing to sell the valuable library, Brooklyn second largest, for a fraction of its value, less than they would get for a vacant lot.  At a time of escalating library use, the recently expanded and fully ungraded library would cost over $120 million to replace, but the BPL would sell it to net probably less than $25 million at best and would replace it with a shrunken library of less than 42% with much of the public space moved underground.

The complaint filed by Love Brooklyn Libraries breaks important new ground and builds upon what has previously been pointed out to public officials about how the secretive BPL is playing games to to promote and find excuses for the sale of the library that amounts to a profound public loss while greatly benefitting a developer making political contributions to Mayor di Blasio and others.

The complaint filed with the Attorney General should also be viewed against the background of the letter from NYC comptroller Scott Stringer noting that, “of particular concern” with respect to the BPL’s proposal is the “lack of a comprehensive public plan to address the capital needs of the library system” and that the Brooklyn Public Library:

“BPL has not provided the public with a comprehensive capital plan that explains how the one-time revenue from the sale of BHL will fix those needs. Indeed, the projected revenue from the BHL plan will cover less than one-fifth of the stated need and will not increase revenue to the library over the long-term.”

The comptroller has recently observed that the city is in a time of plenty with no out-year budget gaps in the future.  Selling off libraries, the de Blasio is acting like these are lean years and the Comptroller noted that: “It is simply unsustainable for the City to rely solely on the disposition of property to cover capital needs without fixing the systematic causes for the capital gap.”

Here is the reporting about the compliant and the postponement of the Brooklyn Borough Board vote.

    •    Brooklyn Daily Eagle:  Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Community group claims Brooklyn Public Library understates capital funds, by Rob Abruzzese, January 26, 2016.

The Brooklyn Public Library has more money than it’s letting on, according to a new organization called Love Brooklyn Libraries (LBL).

LBL was created in an effort to keep the Brooklyn Heights Library from being sold and developed. Aiming to prove its allegations, the group has filed a complaint with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, accusing the library of misrepresenting its capital funds for a real estate grab.

“The Brooklyn Public Library is hiding the money so that they can do the real estate deal," said LBL President Marsha Rimler. [USE THE LINK TO READ MORE]

    •    Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Brooklyn Borough Board to delay Heights Library vote, Borough Hall `needs additional time to review', By Mary Frost

Brooklyn's Borough Board will not be voting as planned on Tuesday on the contentious issue of the sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library site to a developer.

According to the group Love Brooklyn Libraries (LBL), Borough Hall removed the item from the Board's agenda after a meeting between Andrew Gournardes, counsel to Borough President Eric Adams, and LBL officers last Thursday.

A spokesperson for the borough president told the Brooklyn Eagle on Friday that "Borough Hall needed additional time to review the proposal."

LBL filed a complaint letter with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Jan. 15 which contends that Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) has been misrepresenting its capital funds in order to facilitate a real estate grab.

The library has claimed to have received a total of $84 million from Fiscal Year 2008 through Fiscal Year 2013, but LBL says that its own research shows a budget of $145 million over the same time span.

LBL's vice president Laurie Frey told the Eagle last Thursday, "Brooklyn Public Library is Pinocchio sitting on a pile of money. Their nose keeps getting longer and longer every time they say 'We don't have enough. We need more.' Love Brooklyn Libraries is calling for the truth."

* * * *

Love Brooklyn Libraries claims that BPL is "gaming" the system by spreading its capital funds among 145 - 150 line-item projects in 48 branch libraries.

"In other words, it appears that BPL is gaming the system to manufacture a work slowdown or "deferred maintenance crisis," LBL says.

"When the false premise of capital `underfunding' is dispelled, there is no longer a reason for going forward and irreversibly harming Brooklyn's public trust for public land," LBL adds.  [USE THE LINK TO READ MORE]

Here is a comment from Citizens Defending Libraries to the first article that for an unsolved technical reason has been repeatedly deleted from the Brooklyn Eagle site, but is available on Facebook:

This is a welcome addition to the critical fight we are waging against the plundering sale of our libraries. The filing of a complaint with the Attorney General should help force Eric Schneiderman's office to cross reference the information LBL supplied with the information we at Citizens Defending Libraries previously supplied to that office about irregularities concerning the proposed library sale and motivate him to get moving seriously on a long overdue investigation. (Also look at the BPL board of trustees: Brooklyn Public Library Trustees- Identified + Biographical and Other Information Supplied)

With the work that has been done there is much more than an obvious trail of bread crumbs to be followed by those who should be investigating what is going on at the BPL with this sale, a precursor to others (itself a recreation of what the NYPL did with Donnell). Those investigating should include, among others, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer's office whose new "Research and Investigation Unit" Comptroller Stringer says he formed because it "will enable us to dig even deeper into the agencies we audit as we fulfill our mandate to root out fraud and save City taxpayers' hard-earned money."

The BPL is proposing to sell the library to net a minuscule fraction of its value (maybe less than $25 million) without ever having considered the value of this asset to the public from the public's perspective, an asset that would cost $120+ million to replace. That is certainly something that those with investigative power such as Stringer and his "Research and Investigation Unit" should be looking into especial since Stringer indicated he formed the unit "not content to merely audit" . . Frankly, this should not even pass a basic standard audit.

We don't know exactly what LBL is presenting about what it has found, but, from consulting with Latinos For Libraries (another group opposing this sale), it sounds consistent with what we know to be significant matters with respect to the BPL's budget that need to be looked at and that were brought to the attention of Councilman Levin who seemed mostly interested in burying the issue and getting Councilman Landers' assistance to bury it. (Lander was a major and key promoter of this and other library sales.)

Big picture, there is absolutely no question there is a shell game going on with library financial matters. Library use is way up, de Blasio has a $4.5 billion budget surplus, libraries cost a relative pittance to fund, and this library sale is blamed on lack of funds?

As for the library spokesperson (Madeline Kaye of BerlinRosen?) saying that the sale "was approved after a transparent and rigorous public review process," that's utter hogwash. The library sale was planned in 2007, not disclosed until 2013, and the public was never given a chance to weigh in on whether this plan benefitting developers, not the pubic, made any sense at all or what alternative should have been pursued. And then there was Steve Levin's last minute unveiling of a backroom deal with City Hall and Development Mayor Alicia Glen raiding department of Education Funds to push this through- Something else to be investigated.

Also relevant to the Brooklyn Borough Board vote is the following with respect to a long overdue letter demanding transparency that City Councilman has promised he will send to the Brooklyn Public Library.

    •     Citizens Defending Libraries: Open Letter To Councilman Steve Levin About His Letter To Brooklyn Public Library Demanding Transparency About Library Sale, Sunday, January 31, 2016.

Below are two tables documenting some of the figures that Love Brooklyn Libraries has brought to light.

Table A- Click to enlarge, printable if you wish

Table B

Addendum to the above: Marsha Rimler referenced as Love Brooklyn Libraries President in the press coverage above did not continue in that position per the letter dated February 6, 2016 below issued by LBL's officers and distributed to elected officials, press and others. 

Love Brooklyn Libraries letter to elected officials and distributed to press and others about status of officers- Click to enlarge or print

 

Open Letter To Councilman Steve Levin About His Letter To Brooklyn Public Library Demanding Transparency About Library Sales

Councilman Stephen T. Levin
District Office
410 Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11217

 Legislative Office
250 Broadway, 1820
New York, New York 10007

Re: Demanding transparency from the Brooklyn Public Library

Dear Councilman Levin,

You are still our city councilman for the 33rd.  You are the one we must work with to get done the basic things we depend on our City Council representative to do in this Brooklyn district.  That puts us in an awkward place to make requests that you do your job given our perception that you betrayed the community with respect to the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library.

That said, this letter is to request that you send a letter, expecting to take appropriate follow-up action, to the Brooklyn Public Library demanding transparency about the sale of the library and the BPL’s plans with respect to other Brooklyn libraries.

We do not ask you to do this because you, at the end of 2014, promised us that you would, at a minimum, insist on transparency, but we remind you that you did make that promise.

We do not ask you to do this because you were promising that you would send a letter to the BPL to demand such transparency in the spring and summer of 2015, but you did at that time assure us that you would follow through in this way.

We ask you to do this because insisting on basic transparency in these matters in a fundamental obligation of the elected office of City Councilman that you hold.

When I spoke to you yet again in follow-up as to this matter on January 6, 2016 after the community meeting to discuss the proposed sale for development of the Pineapple Walk property owned by the 75 Henry Street co-op, you, indeed, said that you would finally follow through in this obligation.*

(* We cannot escape noting, in passing, how indistinguishable in principle from the library sale is the passionately opposed sale of this property to build an another 40 story tower that will similarly shadow Cadman Plaza Park, except for the fact that the 75 Henry Street sale does not involve the shrinkage of a library down to 42% of its previous size or the sale of vluable public property for far less than what it would cost to replace the asset.)

In this regard, you then asked for a draft of the letter we would want you to send, but I reminded you (as you could hardly have forgotten), that you already had such a draft and had been sitting on it since spring 2015.

I am resupplying you below with what is essentially the draft letter that was previously provided to you.  Our previous unpublished communications about your finalizing and sending such a letter have obviously not been fruitful.  As such, I am furnishing this draft to you by open letter as we await your follow-though.  The background circumstances being such as they are, including the backroom deal arranged with multiple parties to the development unveiled at the last minute before the City Council votes, we no longer have any anticipation that as the letter you might send is refined, sharpened or otherwise modified, that you would keep it confidential from others such as the BPL or developer.  (You have noted, and we respect, that any letter you send demanding transparency will ultimately be your own composition.)

You never sent your promised letter, nor have you taken steps to insist on transparency, despite the fact that it has been an inordinately long time.  Accordingly, we have had to speculate on why, especially with consideration of the Brooklyn Heights Library pending, you never followed through to make these requests.  Our best reckoning is that you don't disagree with us that the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library would not have withstood the additional scrutiny that would have ensued from this transparency, or perhaps even the request for it.  That does not prevent you from sending the letter now, nor does it change the fact that it should be your inescapable obligation to do so immediately.

As a matter of history, we certainly do not think that you, the City Council or anyone else should have voted for the sale and shrinkage of the library with such a letter presented and unresponded to.  We also do not think that any such votes should have taken place without a letter such as this first being sent.  Lastly, we do not think that any more such votes should occur without a letter such as this being sent and responded to, and that includes the pending votes with respect to the library sale of the Brooklyn Borough Board and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Now so that you will be impelled to finally act, we now publicly resupply you the draft letter below.

Draft For Steve Levin Letter To Send To Brooklyn Public Library Demanding Transparency From BPL

June 15, 2015/January 31, 2016

Linda E. Johnson, President
Brooklyn Public Library
10 Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn, New York 11238

Re:  Request for transparency concerning the Brooklyn Heights Library

Dear Ms. Johnson:

I believe that we all agree that transparency is important, especially when it comes to something as important and significant to the public’s interest as selling our libraries and deciding whether to shrink them.  I also feel that as it relates to the proposed sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library (Brooklyn’s central destination library in downtown Brooklyn serving all of the borough and the rest of the city as well, including downtown Manhattan) that the Brooklyn Public Library needs to be considerably more transparent about the selling of all libraries than the BPL has been to date.  That greater transparency is also something I understand your spokespersons, and specifically Peter Aschkenasy, a trustee, have led the public (January 2015) to think they also believe is appropriate.

Information has been requested of the BPL and not been furnished in response.  Some of it may likely be required under the Freedom of Information Law.  Virtually all of it is appropriate to furnish under simple precepts essential to maintaining transparency when selling a public asset for conversion like a library for conversion into a luxury condominium tower.

Accordingly, I request that the BPL be more transparent about this proposed sale in all its aspects.  And specifically here are some of the things that I firmly believe you should be furnishing the public:

    •    Information about the true and complete costs to the public of selling and shrinking this library as proposed.  That includes:

    •        The current value, from the public’s perspective, of the recently expanded and fully upgraded library being given up (i.e. not from the perspective of the acquiring developer who sees its value as less than that of a vacant lot).
    •        What it would cost to replace the asset that is being given up (including land and development rights), in total apparently well over $120+ million.
    •        All the costs, including construction and design, associated with moving the Business, Career and Education functions of the library from Downtown Brooklyn and reestablishing them at the Grand Army Plaza Library.  Also please supply the date and details about when those Education functions were moved from Grand Army Plaza to the Brooklyn Heights Library because of, as I understand it, the shortage of space at Grand Army Plaza.
    •        It should also include all the costs of disruptions and what the public must forgo and bear to undergo this transaction.  That should include, among other things, the cost of moving books back and forth as well as storing them off-site.

    •    The “strategic real estate plan” that was formulated going back to 2007.  To date you have released no iterations of this plan, all of which would be valuably  informative in many ways including about similar plans for other libraries.  Similarly, you should release the requested “Revson Study.”

    •    The background communications between the BPL and the Department of Design and Construction based upon which representations about the acceptability and suitability of the air conditioning at the Brooklyn Heights Library were made to this council district’s office, back when David Yassky held my office, before any planned sale and shrinkage of the library.  Information has also been requested and not furnished to the public about the air conditioning repair firm, Performance Mechanical Corporation, that the BPL engaged in an extended multi–year contract for its entire system not all that long before problems with the Brooklyn Heights Library’s and a number of other air library’s air conditioning systems started receiving attention.  Early analysis in this regard about the Brooklyn Heights Library (2007/2008) by Karen Backus and communications regarding the air conditioning have also not been provided.

    •    Information about your communications with the city’s Landmarks Commission about which historic libraries might get designated as such, and which libraries the BPL has indicated it would, instead, prefer to push forward into real estate deals avoiding such likely appropriate designation.

    •    Further, it is my impression that in a time when the scarcity of available funds is cited as troubling, the BPL is spending a considerable amount of money on consultants and lobbyists in connection with its promotion of its real estate plans for libraries.  The requested information about this has not been furnished.  It is a matter about which the BPL needs to be forthcoming.  That includes monies paid to Booz & Co., BerlinRosen, WSP Flack & Kurtz, K&K Property Solutions, Ed Tettemer and Mo (Maureen) Craig for branding and PR advice.

    •    Information about book counts: what they have been, what they are now and what they are intended to be in the future.  For instance, the BPL and the architect representing it, and the developer in this regard have not been able to state what the book shelf capacity of the entire Brooklyn Heights Library (we are not talking about supposed branch sub-component) has historically been, or what it is intended to be in the future.  Information respecting the entire system would be relevant.

    •    All communications with Saint Ann's School respecting development rights and the Brooklyn Heights Library. As you know (to provide perspective on this), what Saint Ann's School will net in income, motivating it to push for this transaction is proportionately more in the scheme of things given that half the city’s development rights were already transferred to Forest City Ratner in 1986. Saint Ann’s, with all its extra development rights still intact, doesn’t have to tear down its own building or incur a loss to cash in. By contrast, the library’s potential sale of its air rights is not such a painless transaction or opportunity.

Without the provision of what is requested above consideration of a sale and shrinkage of this or other libraries would seem premature on anyone’s part.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,


Stephen T. Levin 

CC:   Peter Aschkenasy, Trustee BPL
    NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer
    NYC Public Advocate Tish James
    NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli
    NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
    Robert J. Freeman, Executive Director, NYS Committee on Open Government

* END OF DRAFT*

The above constituted (as of last spring and summer) and still constitutes a good starter list of what you should have insisted on as the essentials for basic transparency.

We note that since we drafted this letter other groups have raised with you additional questions about oddities with respect to the Brooklyn Public Library’ budget and bookkeeping that impinge upon the BPL’s professed motivation of selling the Brooklyn Heights Library to net a small amount of funds (a net perhaps of just $25 million or less).  You may want to add to this letter to address those issues or, to save time and assure that this letter goes out immediately, you may want to refer to your anticipation of sending a supplemental letter specifically in this regard.

We trust this draft will facilitate swift completion of your letter insisting on transparency from the BPL that you committed to send BPL some time ago.

Thank you.

Sincerely,


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

* * *
Below (click to enlarge images) the draft Levin letter to BPL in printable jpg form.

Why Nonprofit Boards May Stray From Their Core Missions And Obligations To the Public- Considered Generally And Particularly With Respect To Libraries

Perhaps you have read some of what has been written about the way that non-profit boards can get off course from their mission to serve the public in the ways that were intended.  Some of which we have previously provided in this vein has been written specifically about the straying conduct of the boards of trustees that are supposed to be stewards of our New York City libraries.

We have some our own additional thinking to offer about the reasons such nonprofit boards may be pulled to veer off course, but first here is a taste of some of what has been written already:

    •    The Wall Street Journal: Clueless at the Corcoran- What the museum's latest bad decision says about nonprofit governance, by Eric Gibson, February, 24, 2014.

    . . .  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.

    . . . 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.

    •    City Limits: New Scrutiny of City's Library Trustees, by Suzanne Travers, June 18, 2014.

Over the last year, library trustees have seen more of the spotlight than usual because of moves that put boards at odds with public opinion: NYPL’s now-abandoned plan to insert a circulating library in place of the stacks at its iconic building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn Public Library’s still-active effort to sell its Brooklyn Heights branch to private developers, and the Queen’s Public Library board’s split vote on whether to require library chief Thomas Galante to take a leave of absence given city and federal investigations into library construction projects and contracts.

These disputes have exposed weak points in the public-private hybrid structure of the libraries, where the non-profit status of boards limits outside oversight and access to information even as the libraries press for more public funding after years of cuts. At a time of growing income inequality, the role of trustees who can give or raise private money to support the libraries also prompts more fundamental questions: How representative of the city are the library boards? Whose interests do they represent?

    •    Noticing New York: Where Are They Now?: Sharon Greenberger, Evercore and the Revson Foundation- Selling And Shrinking NYC Libraries, by Michael D. D. White, June 6, 2015.

Takeover of Charitable Boards By Wall Street Financiers With Not So Charitable Values

There is new study on the increasing dominance of Wall Street financiers on charitable boards. . . by Garry W. Jenkins at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. .

From the report:

As financiers come to dominate the boards of leading nonprofits, it is not surprising that their approaches and priorities have made their way, very explicitly and fundamentally, into the governance of the nonprofit sector.

* * * *

A May 30, 2015 New York Times Sunday Review Op-Ed, "Who Will Watch the Charities?," by David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, is far more caustic and cynical.  "(W)e should end the charade that all philanthropy is somehow charitable," says Mr. Callahan. . .   He warns a big problem with modern philanthropy: "how inextricably entwined it has become with politics and ideology."  He says:

    it's alarming how in an era of high inequality, private funders have a growing say over central areas of civic life like education and public parks, and how this influence is often wielded against a backdrop of secrecy.

    •    Melville House: Patience and Fortitude- Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library- Scott Sherman (Reviews).

Sherman's most shocking revelation is how little the trustees understood the mission of the institution they claimed to be saving."
-Architectural Record

    •   NPR: 'Patience And Fortitude' And The Fight To Save NYC's Storied Public Library, by Maureen Corrigan, June 24, 2015.

Scott Sherman details how “bottom-line business logic very nearly gutted one of the world's greatest public research libraries.”

 . . . the crisis of The New York Public Library stems from the fact that it's a weird entity. It's not a state or city agency; instead, the library was founded as a private, nonprofit institution. It has always been governed by a board of trustees typically drawn from Manhattan's 1 percent.

    •    Reader Supported News (RSN): Wall Street Taking Over Nonprofit Sector, By Dan Wright, (author of Shadowproof), January 5, 2016.

. . .  a new study from the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) reveals a growing Wall Street takeover of nonprofit boards of directors.

Using data from what are referred to in the study as major private research universities, elite small liberal arts colleges, and prominent New York City cultural and health institutions, SSIR calculates that “[T]he percentage of people from finance on the boards virtually doubled at all three types of nonprofits between 1989 and 2014.”

. . . .  the banksters are not content to just donate to the nonprofit organizations, financial service industry executives are taking positions of influence and control. As one might expect, the vision Wall Street players have of and for the world often clashes with the preexisting culture within those organizations. . . .:

    . . .  it is not surprising that their approaches and priorities have made their way, very explicitly and fundamentally, into the governance of the nonprofit sector … finance practices from board members and donors whose native habitat is the financial services world. . . .  principles upon which donors base their giving …

    Numerous critics have written thoughtfully about the ways in which market-based thinking and approaches applied to the nonprofit sector provide false promise, with the potential to dilute charitable values, undermine long-term mission focus . . .

 . . . . . Wall Street is helping bring dubious management practices to the sector that was setup, in part, to deal with the failures of an economic system run by said dubious management practices. . . .  

It is apparently lost on many donors to the nonprofit sector that if nonprofit work could have been achieved through a business approach it would already have been. For Wall Street, the problem with the nonprofit sector appears to be that it’s nonprofit.

    •    The Leonard Lopate Show: Why Affordable Public Universities Are Vital to Our Democracy, March 2, 2016.

Pulitzer Prize-winning, and National Humanities Medal recipient author Marilynne Robinson:

It’s amazing, the people into whose clutches our civilization seems to have fallen are people who, if they had to basically define their response to the arts and education would say, `I don’t get it.’ It’s sort of like turning over our whole aesthetic sense to people who are color blind. . .

. . .  All these people talk as if the mere fact of being magnates of one sort or another meant that they understood the world better than other people do, you know that it should convey some authority.  And what have they done? . . .  It's a great display of something very different than shrewdness, very different from insight.  But nevertheless they're extremely confident and they are extremely ready to be active to remake the world into something that they think it should be.

    •    New York Times Op-ed via Citizens Defending Libraries: Privatized National Parks as Realms For Advertising? Tim Wu, Author of “The Attention Merchants” Writes About This And The Similar Invasion of Schools and Libraries In NT Times Op-ed,  December 6, 2016

Advertising in our public parks? . .  Tim Wu, writes about this and the privatizing takeover “spaces long thought inviolate” for the assault of commercial advertising, places such as schools, churches, our homes and libraries.

Writes Wu (emphasis supplied):

Over the next decade, prepare for a new wave of efforts to reach some of the last remaining bastions of peace, quiet and individual focus - like schools, libraries, churches and even our homes.

        * * *
  . . .  the leaders of schools, libraries and even the more principled technology firms should understand that there is always a hidden cost to the proposition offered by advertising.

        * * *
History and logic suggest that, once advertisers become a major funding source, they create their own priorities, and unless carefully controlled they will warp the underlying space to serve their interests.

Here, in list form for your consideration, are reasons that nonprofit boards may stray from and fail in properly fulfilling their missions, particularly when those boards are comprised of people who are likely wrong candidates for those boards, people who don’t care about or understand the core mission of the charity whose board they are on or who may have interests that don’t coincide with or are actually at odds with the mission of the entity whose course they are setting:

    1.    The board members may be incompetent and this can easily be due to their lack of understanding or their lack of any true interest in the nonprofit’s mission and better informing themselves about it.
    2.    The board members may have an undue focus on understanding the mission of the nonprofit purely in terms of numbers, when, in fact, the mission involves something that instead involves values and culture, a mission that in it more ephemeral way is not subject to expression in numbers.
    3.    Similarly, the board members may focus and think of things in terms of money.  This problem is likely accentuated when, more and more, the justification for selecting certain people for board appointment is that those people are wealthy enough to donate to the charity, whether they do so or not.  Perhaps this is embodied in the exchange at the beginning of Dickens' “A Christmas Carol” between Scrooge and his nephew when Scrooge is asked to make a donation to charity: - Nephew: “Oh I think there are many things from which I've derived some good, by which I have not profited financially, I dare say. There is more in life than money, Uncle." -     Scrooge: "Humbug to that!  More in life than money!  Humbug!"
    4.    The board members may be more focused on themselves than anyone else.  Perhaps a symptom of this, like at the Brooklyn Public Library, is of a grand and opulent fund raising gala that the board members attend that actually loses, rather than makes money.
    5.    The board members, coming from a different economic and cultural segment of society, may have a different world view about what would be good for everyone else in the world.  One example of this is a belief that the world should be managed with top-down decision making, something that assumes that those who have attained and hold wealth know better than the rest of us.  In the case of libraries, this can translate into top-down decision making about which books and we should all be reading.
    6.    There may be board members who are on the board for ulterior motives than involve self interest or conflict of interest.  That can extend to viewing the assets and resources of the charity not from the standpoint of how the charity’s mission can be best served, but instead how those assets and resources can be diverted or used differently with the interests of others, not the public, in mind.

There are a number of converging interests adverse to continuing the tradition of public libraries, especially in New York.  You can decide for yourself the influence of each and how big the respective arrows for each should be. 

Here is a list of  interests that can affect board members making decisions about libraries that can be contrary to the traditional and core mission of libraries as being places that provide books and facilitate research and archive human knowledge:

    1.    Trustees may have interests in library real estate, unlocking and putting into play the real estate that libraries sit on.  This can explain the proposals to sell and drastically shrink important central destination libraries like the Donnell Library and the Brooklyn Heights Library, in each case the sales netting the most minuscule fraction of what it would cost to replace these libraries, a likely net from the sale of each of those libraries of around $25 million, selling recently renovated libraries for far less than the value of a vacant lot. The NYPL Central Library Plan had similar aspirations.  With the shrinkage comes an exile and enormous loss of books, because books take up space and you can’t sell library real estate without getting rid of the books.
    2.    Trustees may wish to use the provision of libraries (and/or other basic civic services like schools) as bait to induce upzonings and other increases to development.  For maximum effect, this tactic actually begins with withholding the services/resources that will then be dangled as a carrot in front of the public.
    3.    Trustees may have an interest in promoting digital books (which are more expensive for libraries than physical books and frequently leased by libraries temporarily rather than bought and available for the future) because they have ties to the digital industry.
    4.    Trustees may have ties to the increasingly monopolistic content industry, that seeks for the public’s attention to be diverted to advertising and/or the content for which they have operative copyright controls. This includes, for instance, Amazon which, when you have to wait for books not at the library, is the place you can go to get books faster, and perhaps more cheaply when you factor in your transportation costs.
    5.    Trustees may have ties with the cable and internet content delivery services.
     6.    Trustees may have an interest in their being a top-down influence or control with respect to what people are reading or thinking about.  Top on the list for exercising influence is probably what people think in terms of politics, elections and things like altering the economic system or distribution of wealth.  It could affect, for instance, what is available to read about climate change. (“Whoever controls the past controls the future.”- George Orwell.)
    7.    Are there trustees with any interest in aiding or complying with the surveillance state by making it so that books and most knowledge can only be accessed in a digital fashion that is possible to monitor?  (Why was the most important private U.S, spy agency hired to overhaul, dismantle NYC's most important libraries?) See this Citizens Defending Libraries resource page for links it article and information about this issue:  Articles About Library Privacy and Surveillance In Libraries.
  8.    Although it is something that few would likely now admit, there may be trustees that would like there to be censorship.

Now that you have been primed with these thoughts maybe you would like to review the composition of the Brooklyn Public Library board of trustees available here: Brooklyn Public Library Trustees- Identified + Biographical and Other Information Supplied.