When the Community Shows Up We Win!!!

We Want to Thank everyone who showed up to Higher Court and filled the Courthouse on Tuesday, July 2, to ensure Justice was done!

Thank You!

In a three-day ordeal, justice was finally done when our Temporary Restraining Order was granted against the City, Project Renewal and the Ramada Hotel, not to open the Ramada Shelter located at 169 Empire Blvd.

Details

Day 1

Friday, May 29, 2026, a Judge Capell (speaking through her clerk because we never went in front of her), made the claim that she could not possibly review the volume of legal papers (this is a new case being filed) that had been submitted requesting an Emergency Temporary Restraining Order “TRO” via the Ex-parte department at the Brooklyn Supreme Court. And that the City should have been served with the papers and given the opportunity to respond in writing.

Judge Capell claimed in her decision not to sign the TRO, that we had violated UCR 202.8-c  (*Notice of Motion), stating that we failed to serve the other side with papers.  She then directed us to re-do the “notice” in accordance with 202.7(f), which states only “Notice” should be given to the opposite side not service of papers!

Day 2

On Monday, June, 1, 2026, the day in which we believed the shelter would be open, we returned without serving the papers, which would have been a grave injustice and violation of procedural laws. We arrived at 9:30 am where Judge Lisa Lewis, a Black woman who has been at the Brooklyn Supreme Court for a few years was to hear our case.  After sitting for six hours we went to the Administrative Judge’s Chamber, Judge Genine D. Edwards another Black Woman who has just been assigned in 2025, to see what was happening with our request, because it was highly unusual for us to have to sit all day for a TRO.  Her staff refused to see us and insisted that we “fill out a complaint form”.

At 5:05 pm, Judge Lisa Lewis sent her decision to the Ex-Parte department where we were sitting all day.  Judge Lewis denied our TRO, with no hearing, no appearance in front of her and no opportunity to be heard.  However, the City in an attempt to take advantage of Judge Capell’s order, demanded that they be served with the papers and the other parties, requested a briefing schedule and for us to agree to an E-File case.

Day 3

Tuesday, June 2, 2026, members of the community came out and went to the higher court  “2nd Department” and waited patiently for us to be seen by the Judges’ Deputy Clerk to hear our case.

While the parties sat at the table, the City and us, the community stood around the table to ensure that they could hear our arguments and the City’s.  We made a point, that it would be a grave injustice for the East Village TRO to be granted and not ours since both have the same claims, regarding the same actions of Mayor Mamdani and his administration.  There was only two differences:

1. The East Village is an upper middle class white community, and we are a Black moderate-income community.

2.  They are fighting about the conversion of an existing shelter and we fighting about a new shelter, under what is now being known as the “Hotel to Shelter Scam.”

Later on that day, we got an email from the 2nd Department overturning Judge Lisa Lewis’ decision.  The order stated:

“Order that the application is GRANTED and pending the hearing and determination of the motion, the respondents, as well as their agents, officers, employees, and/or licenses, and all persons acting in concert with same, or under their direction and control are enjoined, restrained and precluded, both directly and indirectly, from opening or operating the Ramada by Wyndham, located at 169 Empire Blvd. in Brooklyn, into a homeless shelter.”

Signed by Associated Justice, Appellate Division, Second Department Hon. Lisa S. Ottley (for the court)

*A Notice of Motion is performed after a case has been filed and the parties have already been served previously, whereas an Order to Show Cause with a request for a TRO, via the filing of a lawsuit, (our papers) is not considered a Notice of Motion!