Community Board Four selects its new officers. — Photos by Aaron Short
It was so beautiful out on Wednesday that I nearly forgot it’s Bushwick’s time of the month, yes, another Community Board Four meeting. Don’t fret, BushwickBK is here, reporting from Hope Gardens MultiService Center. I walked in at 6:32 PM, just as District Manager Nadine Whitted was taking roll call.
On my left, I glance at a small office where Anna Gonzalez, Hope Gardens Director and one-time CB4 Chair, works out of, before taking my seat. Usually Gonzalez, her family, and her staff are hanging out in the office while the meeting occurs, finishing up the day’s business. Tonight, the room is locked and the lights darkened.
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6:39 PM: Chairwoman Julie Dent announces that Anna Gonzalez is extremely ill. She was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital yesterday and requests the board to take a moment and pray for Gonzalez and her family.
Dent notes a public hearing sponsored by the state legislature on the impending closure of city day care centers, held on Thursday, May 28 at 10 AM, at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She is the Executive Director of the Audrey Johnson Day Care Center, and the childcare problem is naturally pet issue of hers, but she is encouraging everyone to attend.
Also, the Community Board is facing significant budget cuts and Borough President Marty Markowitz will be discussing strategies for staving them off. Marty didn’t comment when I asked him about a recent incident where Gerry Esposito, Nadine’s counterpart in Williamsburg, was escorted by the NYPD out of the Mayor’s volunteer service event. Nadine didn’t say much either.
6:47 PM: Councilmember Erik Dilan slips in unnoticed and takes a seat next to the Academy of Urban Planning’s Adam Schwartz. At least, I didn’t notice him until he took the microphone and addressed the board, speaking mostly about the proposed closure of Engine 271.
“This community has prevented the closure of firehouses in the past,” said Dilan. “Now, the Bloomberg administration has put us to the test. We must work on a strategy to address that and work on childcare in this area.”
6:49 PM: Nadine begins her District Manager report with a mournful note about Gonzalez before announcing that the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council has started taking applications for the Rheingold Heights Apartments (pick them up at 217 Wyckoff Avenue!), which will be chosen through a lottery system. 1-BR apartments are available at $612 for families with incomes between $20,000 and $30,000, while 2-BR units range from $700 to $854 for families earning between $25,000 and $44,000. These are the buildings behind the large senior center on Bushwick Avenue with the words “Thank you Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez” in copper lettering emblazoned above the entrance.
6:54 PM: I pull aside Arts in Bushwick’s Laura Braslow for a quick update on Bushwick Open Studios. This year, the festival is breaking all previous records with 250 registered individual artists, group shows and events in Bushwick, Williamsburg and Ridgewood, and more than 500 participating artists with every kind of art imaginable. Plus, there’s an art benefit tomorrow at Lumenhouse from 7:30 to 10 PM! The brochure itself is 26-pages long and Braslow promises it’s much easier to read than last year’s.
I’ll use this opportunity to plug two BOS panels I am moderating, one on housing and zoning strategies for artists and industry in Bushwick on Saturday (3 PM Bushwick Public Library) featuring Councilwoman Diana Reyna, El Puente’s Luis Garden Acosta, Make the Road New York’s Oona Chatterjee, Braslow, and NYIRN’s Michael Freedman Schnapp. On Sunday at 2 PM, Ad Hoc Art is hosting a panel featuring mural artists Lady Pink, Chris Cardinale, Chris Stain, and El Puente’s Joe Matunis to discuss the confluence of street art and community mural projects. Everyone likes murals, right?
7:00 PM: Councilwoman Diana Reyna walks into the meeting as Erik Dilan takes the mic for a second time to talk about Department of Buildings regulations concerning when new building plans can come online. Diana takes a seat next to Erik while Maritza Dávila (Reyna’s opponent) and her campaign manager quietly get up and leave the meeting. This is just like high school.
7:02 PM: Reyna gives her condolences to Anna Gonzalez and her family, and the meeting takes an elegiac turn. Some board members are confused and believe that Reyna may have made the announcement prematurely, but sadly this is not the case. Apparently Gonzalez was resuscitated twice in the hospital before passing away earlier this afternoon. She had been sick with cancer for a long time.
“There is no greater pleasure than being in Anna’s house, this place was her icon,” said Reyna. “We did everything we could to intervene but it was God’s will… Who ever thought we would have named a building after a living woman, a year ago. She will always be in our hearts and be known in our community.”
7:14 PM: We cut to nominations and elections, the other major business of the evening, run by take-no-prisoners Nominations Chair Barbara Smith. Of the 42 board members who responded, only 24 ballots came back and there were no real surprises. Here is the new CB4 2009-2010 board.
Chair: Julie Dent
1st Vice Chair: Martha Brown
2nd Vice Chair: Austen Martinez
Recording Secretary: Brenda Lee Tramble
Corresponding Secretary: Virgie Jones
Financial Secretary: Victoria Fernandez
Treasurer: Avellar Hansley
Parliamentarian: Odolph Wright
7:43 PM: Time for public session. Paul van-Linden-Tol from the Brooklyn Public Library leads us off with difficult news. Although the public has been using library services more, the Mayor has proposed cuts to the library system of 15 percent. This could lead to reduced hours, 5 days of service instead of 6, and young librarians getting laid off. I saw a similar presentation at a CB2 meeting. These guys are getting around.
Kathy Crawford, a social worker who used to work at Make the Road announces a Back to School Block Party on Saturday August 22nd in Maria Hernandez Park from 11 AM to 6 PM. She’s asking people to get involved in the planning and you can email her for more info.
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7:57 PM: Nadine runs through second roll call. I spot Adam Schwartz to ask him about the Harbor School’s plans (they’re not leaving for Governor’s Island this year, but maybe next year), but all he wants to talk about is one of his seniors named Husly Rivera. Turns out homeboy hasn’t missed a day of school. Ever. If Husly graduates without a recorded absence in a couple of weeks, he will be the second student in the modern Board of Education era with perfect attendance from grades K through 12.
On a final note, when I started working in Bushwick, I visited Hope Gardens occasionally and interviewed Anna several times for stories about local events, seniors, and gang violence. She was very warm and caring and she always made time to talk with me. My condolences to the Gonzalez family. I know she will be missed.
mopar May 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
Thank you for the excellent report.
chillinoncentral May 24th, 2009 at 5:38 am
ditto on Mopar’s comment… excellent, thank you.
Dresden May 24th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Sweet minutes Aaron Short. Good to see Laura Braslow repping the BOS and totally up on local politics. Thanks!
John Dereszewski June 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Thanks Aaron, for your usual excellent piece. Since I just returned from a vacation in England, it was good to catch up on the local events.
Anna Gonzalez made many valuable contributions to Bushwick over the years, and she will definately be missed. Deepest sympathy for her family.
Dee June 24th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Ms. Gonzalez was a wonderful asset to the community. She appeared to care very deeply about her community and the individuals served at Hope Gardens Community Center, more specifically, the children of the afterschool and summer program. It’s so sad that the moral at the center appears to have gone way down, and not because of her death (though everyone should righfully be in mourning), but because the young dedicated staff there and the children who particiapte in the program fear the near future loss of these services.
Dee June 24th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
oops, I meant morale.
Alicia Alvarez June 26th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
It is hard to believe that a wonderful person like Anna Gonzalez is gone. Today was the last day for the afterschool program. I am saddened that enough was not done to keep the afterschool program as well the summer program opened. Ms. Gonzalez put her heart and soul to these programs so that the children of bushwick would have some kind of summer. Many of these children parents weren’t able to afford to go on vacation and every year looked forward to attending this program. I feel that if the funds were allocated in a timely manner maybe the brogram wouldn’t have to close. A disservice is being done to the children in our bushwick community. My daughter has been in this program for five years and for to close just like that its a shame.