Hello everyone,
Sunday we have our CDL meeting at 4:30 at 10 Clinton, Brooklyn Heights.
Monday the City Council met to decide whether the BAM South project with its "cultural condimimum library" would go forward. Approval of it (as a "replacement") potentially puts the Pacific Branch in peril. The meeting was not about the Brooklyn Heights Library, and nothing was done about this most well used and most accessible branch to public transportation. Council woman Letitia James spoke up to save Pacific Library.
We offered the following quote for the New York Times, “As you know Citizens Defending Libraries wants to see the Pacific Branch saved as a historic building and to continue as a library. It is our understanding Council Member Tish James has gotten a commitment from the administration to ensure Pacific stays open which we hope will be honored. So long as that happens we were not, per se, opposed to a new library in the BAM South building although we looked with disfavor upon the manipulations that turned that project, which started with an RFP for a "parking garage," into a very different, much larger project delivering too little public benefit.”
See more at Noticing New York June 15th article http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
We consider that no matter what happened on the city council vote on Monday we have an important fight ahead to save Pacific (and of course also Brooklyn Heights, Mid-Manhattan and SIBIL). We note the news media have been reporting very different things about what happened at the meeting. We attribute this to the fact that a great deal of brute political force was brought to bear and not all the assurances provided were in writing as we would have liked to have seen.
In the meantime people should continue to email Council Members Tish, Stephen Levin and start emailing Brad Lander who will inherent the Pacific library January 1 after redistricting takes effect. We met with Brad Lander on Monday and we are very discouraged by his support for selling off and shrinking libraries.
Letters, emails, and phone calls do matter
Letitia James indicated that the only reason Pacific dodged the bullet this time was because of all of our collective emails, phone calls, and letters. In response to our letter to Stephen Levin, we received the report about repair costs for the Brooklyn Heights Library and it still omits the cost of fixing the air conditioner which we all know is inflated.
We just began this effort to save these libraries in February and they have been working to sell them for years. The best weapon is to continue to canvass and make people aware, get more petition signers, and speak with more political representatives. Canvass Brooklyn Heights Library before the 50% shut down which begins July 1. We have a window of opportunity this week and next to reach the library users before the hours are reduced to 8:00-1:00 M-F and 9:00-1:00 Sat. Once that happens, many library users will go away. Please canvass sometime this week and next. Contact Eric Shtob, eshtob@gmail.com, 718-594-7046 he can deliver flyers to you.
On Thursday, June 27 starting at 10:30 AM Assemblyman Mica Kellner is having hearings on the libraries and the public can testify. Here is a link to the hearing notice and reply form posted on the Assembly’s website. http://assembly.state.ny.us/comm/Library/20130610/index.php
It is easy to get discouraged by the unwillingness to protect our public assets from being sold off at cheap prices to benefit some while taking from others. Here is a message of hope from Sonia Collins, “I cannot tell you how many tiny events we had in the beginning of the anti Vietnam war actions or in the civil rights era before the big crowds developed. Main thing is to keep trying and to keep spirits up.”
News articles about the Monday City Council meeting, can you make sense of them? http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/06/17/city_council_greenlights_32story_bam_cultural_district_tower.php http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/06/17/city-council-to-approve-two-trees-bam-south-project/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trdnews+%28The+Real+Deal+-+New+York+Real+Estate+News%29 http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/32-story-%E2%80%98bam-south%E2%80%99-wins-nyc-council-approval-2013-06-17-215300 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/city-council-approves-bam-tower-article-1.1375207 http://fortgreene.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/bam-south-approved-by-city-council-reporthttp://mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2013/06/with-bam-south-deal-letitia-james-shows.htmlhttp://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130617/REAL_ESTATE/130619888#article_tab
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