April meeting superstar Raul Rubio dazzles his audience with PowerPoint. — Photos by Aaron Short

Tune in every month for Aaron Short’s report from CB4, the Bushwick Community Board’s monthly meeting. Check out last month’s minutes.

It’s that time of the month again in Bushwick. In honor of Passover, I put a brisket in the oven at 5:30 PM and walked over to the Hope Gardens Community Center to determine whether the meeting would be Brisket Worthy. By the time I come back home, will my brisket be fork tender? There’s only one way to find out… and that’s through another running diary of the Community Board Four meeting!

	Maritza Davila styin’ at the CB. Click for more.

6:31 PM: We have the usual crowd of CB4 regulars, staff members from local elected offices, and Bushwick rabble-rousers. Three officers from the 83rd Precinct position themselves in a table off to the side of the room. The new commanding officer Deputy Inspector Steve Capasso is not here tonight, but should be at next Tuesday’s Precinct Council meeting (480 Knickerbocker Avenue, 6:30 PM). I ask one officer about the alleged police assault that has been all over the news this week. He doesn’t even have to say "no comment." I’m absorbing it telepathically.

Arts in Bushwick‘s Laura Braslow stops in briefly and chats with Chez Bushwick‘s Jane Gabriels before heading to another event. It’s been a hectic week for Braslow. AIB just launched its online registration for its annual Bushwick Open Studios and there’s an "anti-meeting" this Friday at English Kills to sign up and share ideas. Get some sleep, Laura. And don’t forget to do your taxes!

Maritza Davila, Diana Reyna’s main challenger for the 34th District City Council seat, has a prime seat in the center of the room. She has been regularly attending community board meetings since she announced her candidacy earlier this year. Sitting next to her is Alison Frost, a liaison with Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who is backing Davila in the race. Frost is still a bit frigid with me because of a recent article about her boss, and there’s not much I can say tonight to make her feel better. This is depressing. Let’s move on.

6:40 PM: Chairwoman Julie Dent calls the meeting to order and promptly yields the floor to Raul Rubio, a community organizer with Family Services Network who led a number of workshops for Spanish-speaking foster care parents in Wyckoff Hospital last year. I have a soft spot for Rubio. He was the first person to let me know that the Bushwick Courier was shutting down. Long story.

Rubio is here to give a presentation about developing contaminated brownfield sites in Bushwick. There are currently two Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) projects in Bushwick. The Family Services Network, along with the Municipal Arts Society and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, is administering one of the projects, located primarily in southeastern Bushwick (the Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council is handling the other one). They’re in Phase 1 of the plan right now, which is identifying possible sites for remediation. One of them is the former Paradise Mattress factory on DeKalb between Bushwick and Evergreen, which burned to the ground in a six-alarm fire in 2004. Around 1500 mattresses along with the chemicals used to manufacture them were incinerated, and neighborhood kids were developing respiratory problems from the dust that was kicked up from the site.

Rubio wants to start monthly steering committee meetings open to the public to identify brownfield sites and discuss their future use. The first one is on May 6th at the Bushwick Multi Service Center (1420 Bushwick Avenue) at 6 PM in Room 230. Davila asks who will be included in the process and what could be the future use of these spaces.

"Banks, green grocers, we need more park space, more affordable housing," says Rubio. I want that to genuinely come from us."

7:07 PM Odolph Wright takes the mike and delivers a refresher course on parliamentary procedure. I take the opportunity to ask CB4 super staffer Willie Morales what the Parks Committee is up to. This is the time of year when the Parks Department takes requests from local youth baseball leagues for field permits. In past years, the permits meetings have been tense and confrontational, with allegations of improper field usage, illegal sale of permits, and whispers of corruption.

Wille tells me there have been major changes this year, as the biggest league in Bushwick, Quebradillas, went out of business. Quebradillas President Carlos Feliciano informed the Community Board in February that the league ran out of funds as he could not secure enough co-sponsorships. Many of Feliciano’s old managers formed a new organization, The United Baseball League, which has already submitted their field requests, and the Brooklyn Queens Sports Center is also expected to apply for permits. Several board members believe Feliciano will be back stronger than ever with his old league next year, but I’m not so sure.

"Things happen," says Willie, before showing me a scar on his elbow from microfracture surgery.

7:21 PM: District Manager Nadine Whitted reads the first roll call. I spot Bushwick Impact‘s Cynthia Velez in the corner of the room. Velez has had a busy year running the Bushwick Early Education Coalition (next meeting on April 29 at 10 AM at Cathedral of Joy, 43 George Street), as well as read-a-longs for parents of pre-K children on Monday and Friday mornings.

"We’ve actually been able to fill up most of the day care slots through the community initiative," says Velez, referring to recent changes in city funding criteria for day care centers. "We’ve had three parent advocates who work with Raul and the CPI who work closely with day care agencies in Bushwick."

Stagg Street Day Care Center’s Larry Provette may get more attention for his lobbying at City Hall, but Velez is Bushwick’s leading parent advocate and organizer. When her kids get a little older, she should seriously consider running for city council. Yes, I just went there.

7:25 PM: Chairwoman Julie Dent delivers her report and it begins on a sad note. Longtime Community Board member June Gunn passed away last month. Several community leaders have died recently, including board member Reverend Mariaelene Bailey, former Chair A. Chineda Carter, James Coxson and Ms. Copper. To pay tribute to these elders, the community board has dedicated this year’s 4th Annual Bushwick Parade to the community’s Fallen Heroes. The parade, held on Thursday June 4th, Brooklyn-Queens Day, will also kick off Bushwick Open Studios.

7:33 PM: District Manager Nadine Whitted gives her report as I take a seat next to Parks Committee Chair and CB4 mascot Austen Martinez. Whitted rattles off a list of events in Maria Hernandez Park including the return of the Greenmarket (April 25), Bushwick Grows Together (April 25), Learn to Ride (May 16), and a cultural food event that’s TBA. There’s some news for dog lovers and haters alike, as Bushwick Playground will be getting a new dog run but the Pooper Scooper Law fine is going up to $250! Will the NYPD actually enforce this?

7:43 PM: Elvena Davis gives the Civic and Religious Committee report, which is mostly more details about planning the Bushwick Parade. So far, Meeting MVP Raul Rubio has offered to man one of the five grills for the after-party barbecue, but Davis needs four more volunteers. Apparently Councilmembers Diana Reyna and Erik Dilan are paying for a DJ for the event. I would rather hear them emcee the event themselves. If they did, it would sound something like this.

7:52 PM: Land Use Chair Martha Brown thanks Rubio for his presentation, asks for CB members to vote for a letter of support to Family Services Network. It’s a unanimous voice vote! Rubio sits down with a big smile. This is the community board equivalent of a triple-double. He’s never going to have a night like this again.

7:58 PM: And we’re into announcements! Barbara Smith, President of the 83rd Precinct Community Council, quickly grabs the microphone and notifies everyone that the precinct is sponsoring a youth summer camp this year, but it will be at 383 Greene Street, not at 422 Central. I mostly came to tonight’s meeting to ask Barbara about the police incident. More on her later.

Dr. Eric Ploumis, local artist and CB4 member Deborah Brown‘s husband, a local dentist who founded Yo! Braces (322 Stockholm Street), reminds residents of the orthodontic care available and that his firm is looking to sponsor a youth sports team. This perks everyone up and people start shouting out their suggestions.

"One team! One team!" Ploumis says. "Eventually a whole league!"

Christopher St. John is looking to start a garden in north Bushwick on Central Avenue and he needs help from the community. He should team up with Community Board member Cyril Joseph. Joseph is the chief gardener of the Linden Street Garden, which, along with Sean Michael Fleming’s Woodbine Street Garden, are the crown jewels of community gardens in Bushwick. Joseph announces that New York Cares and Green Guerillas are coming to clean his gardens (Linden Street and Broadway) on April 25th to celebrate Earth Day.

"It’s from 10 AM until we finish," says Joseph. "After we finish there will be a barbecue." Will MVP Rubio man the grill there too? Did we mention that he’s wearing a silver ring with the batman symbol on it?

8:25 PM: Second roll call and we’re out of here. Those who stayed through the whole meeting line up to nosh on meatballs in marinara, sautéed vegetables, and chicken in light cream sauce, catered by the Community Board Four staff.

I visit Barbara Smith after she finishes her meal and ask her if she went to the demonstration that Make the Road New York led this week. She says no.

"We have to find out the outcome of it," Smith says. "It’s out of the precinct’s hands now. They’re doing an investigation."

Is she expecting a contentious meeting this Tuesday at the precinct?

"No, they already demonstrated."

Smith doesn’t know if the new Inspector will talk about the investigation at the meeting. The previous commanding officer, Deputy Inspector John Bambury, usually addressed criminal complaints, but there hasn’t been something this controversial in a while. I ask Smith if she’s worried the precinct council meeting will get out of hand.

"No," she says. "I never had a meeting get out of hand."

Maritza Davila and Frost talk with a few community board members before leaving around 9 PM. Davila stays through the whole meeting, just like a city council candidate should. She has more support in this part of Bushwick than most people realize.

Finally, we welcome a new community liaison in Councilwoman Diana Reyna’s office, Jasmine Gomez. She and her colleague, Francisco Mercado, are here to announce a foreclosure prevention workshop at DeKalb Library (790 Bushwick Avenue) on April 29th from 6:30 to 8 PM. This was Jasmine’s first day on the job. So far it’s been "awesome!" We’ll finish off tonight with a list of her favorite things:

Pets: A Yorkie, named Jordan

Movie: The Nativity

Restaurant: Mangimi on Stanton Street

Newspaper: AM New York and El Diario

New York Moment: San Gennaro Feast on Mulberry Street

Favorite Reyna saying: Francisco has to help her out on this one.

"We have the Reyna seven, that is, there are seven things to do on every event. If you do these seven things, the event will succeed. We’ll give you four of them: create a database, do outreach, create a file, and make phone calls.

"We can’t give away all our secrets!" says Jasmine.

Until next time!

P.S. For those of you at home wondering, yes, my brisket was fork tender. I took it out at 9:30 PM. It was smoky and delicious and not at all dry. I wrecked that recipe. It looks like the brisket gene in my family has been passed down successfully.