Bklyn CB2 District Manager – Criminal Behavior on City of Yes

Criminal Behavior and Conflict of Interest by Employees of Department of City Planning and Bklyn Community Board 2

Conflicts of Interest of Bklyn Community Board 2 Chairs

As outrageous as COY rezoning proposals are and the disbelief that the City is even considering some of these changes, most people wonder how does a community board who represents the interests of its residents agree to such sweeping changes that will bring sorrow to so many.

Normally, it takes a few inquires then the light comes on and you see into the darkness, you see the disempowerment of an entire Community, and both criminal and corruption of a Community Board. Brooklyn Community Board 2 is a pure example of this.

Chairs Mr. Flounoy and Mr. Singletary Conflicts of Interest!

In the left image you see that the Brooklyn Community Board 2’s chairman, Mr. Lenny Singletary is a member of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership “BID”. Look at the third column, 7 people down.

In the right image, it states that the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership BID consists of the Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn BID. Chairman of the CB2’s Economic Committee, Mr. William Flounoy, is a Board of Director of that BID. https://downtownbrooklyn.com/about-dbp/bids/court-livingston…

Uncovering Corruption

Committee Choices

One of the most telling points regarding corruption is to denote what Committee has been chosen to review the City of Yes Text Amendments “COY”. If a Business instead of Landuse/Zoning committee is chosen that will tell you a lot! Why? Because despite the name being Economic Text Amendments, there are over a thousand pages of text changes to Zoning laws not Business laws.

If a Community Board does not give the power to the Zoning/Landuse Committee, and instead is relying upon their Business/Economic Committee there is higher probability that the committee will say yes to COY for two reasons.

1. These are deregulations of businesses which most businesses and BIDs would support.

2. The members won’t have any real clue or understanding about the zoning changes being proposed.

In the case of CB2, it was given to the Business Committee whose members continued to state all during the COY discussion that they did not understand what the text amendments were about. They didn’t understand the Zoning language nor did they have any clue as to what types of effects these proposals will have.

Even when there were attempts to explain these very complicated concepts that take years for a lay person to understand, the members of the Economic Committee still could not understand. However that didn’t stop the District Manager, Ms. Taya Mueller, nor the Chair Mr. Flounoy, from pushing the committee to say yes.

“We will advance the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP)’s City of Yes for Economic Opportunity text amendment…..That includes removing outdated limitations that put anachronistic constraints on where certain businesses can be located….“ Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. pg.58 &5.

As stated above the Chair of CB2, Mr. Lenue (Lenny) Singletary and the Chair of the Economic Committee Mr. Bill “William” Flounoy are part of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership BID. Now that in and of itself may not be a conflict of interest but when that BID was instrumental in creating, supporting and publicly declaring its intention to push and support the Economic Amendments, MTOPP alleges there is a conflict.

In 2022 a group of high profile BIDs (including the DownTown Brooklyn Partnership), real estate and Corporate America companies came up with the deregulation of business proposal via the Economic Text Amendments. The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership was listed as a panel member of this group. Pg. 5

In this document, called a “Making New York Work For Everyone”, it states:

“We will advance the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP)’s City of Yes for Economic Opportunity text amendment…That includes removing anachronistic contraints on where certain businesses can be located” pg. 58

This then sheds light on why Mr. Flounoy’s Economic/Business Committee may have been given the job (by Mr. Singletary?) to review the COY’s proposals. It also may explain why as the Chairman of the committee, Mr. Flounoy continued to violate the Robert Rules of Order and violated the Conflict of Interests law by remaining chair, persistently stating his positive position for most of the amendments and then voting upon them.

MTOPP alleges that Mr. Flounoy continued to sabotage the vote when it was clear that a negative vote was occurring on the motions. And it may also explain why he may have allowed an employee of the Department of City Planning to continue to vote on every motion. Which brings us to the most serious conflict of Interest:

Ms Kari Bailey, Senior Policy Advisor, Strategic Planning Division, NYC Department of City Planning.

MTOPP alleges that Ms. Bailey was aware that the Department of City planning representative was present at the meeting attempting to support COY’s text amendments and she may have even known the presenter. However Ms. Bailey, failed to recuse herself, failed to disclose her conflict of interest to the committee and members of the public and voted on every item. Which made a tremendous impact upon the final results.

Ms. Bailey came in late and made quorum for the committee which totaled 7 members being present. If Ms. Bailey had not voted many of the motions would have ended up in a tie, 3 vs. 3. Due to Ms. Bailey’s vote, motions did not have a majority of the vote in order to pass, either in the negative or the positive.

If Ms. Bailey had recused herself at the beginning of the meeting as the law requires, not only would she have not been allowed to vote, as New York City Charter Law Section 2604(a)(1)(a) and (b)(1)(b) demands, her vote would not have been able to influence the outcome of motions.

Point of Information:

There are three possible votes a member of a committee may take, Yes, No, or Abstention. In order for a motion to past at least 51% of the vote must be affirmative either in the negative or the positive. Abstentions lean towards the negative, as they are not affirmative and can not be used as a positive towards a vote. They can also be very powerful in preventing a motion from being able to be decided upon.

Criminal Behavior Displayed by Taya Mueller District Manager of Community Board 2

District Manager, Taya Mueller’s Criminal Acts

MTOPP alleges that Brooklyn Community Board 2’s District Manager, *Ms. Taya Mueller has displayed criminal behavior by intentionally altering and fabricating an official document of a public agency. MTOPP also alleges that Ms. Mueller also changed the official voting record of the Committee, by omitting all of Ms. Bailey’s votes! Another criminal act!

In the draft minutes of the Bklyn Community Board 2 “CB2”, Ms. Mueller reported that Ms. Keri Bailey “recused” herself. This is an absolute lie and there were more than 20 witnesses who would verify that Ms. Bailey not only did not recuse herself, but voted on the items of the Economic Text Amendments proposal. This is not the act of recusal. And by stating it as such, in the offical draft minutes of a public agency shows the criminal intent to violate the law.

Then in another alleged criminal act, most boards would not attempt, Ms. Mueller changed the votes of the motions and intentionally removed Ms. Bailey’s votes!

Talk about criminal behavior of a person who is employed by the New York City! Right in the open, on the record, in front of at least 20 witnesses during a public meeting. The question that is being proposed is what is Ms. Mueller getting from these Text Amendments proposals that would encourage her alleged criminal behavior!

If you know any of the people present, (see image above) do ask them if they witnessed Ms. Bailey constantly voting on motions during the meeting.

*At the beginning of the meeting the District Manager, Ms. Mueller stated that she would be taking the minutes and recording the votes of the committee. After each successful vote, she stated the votes and recorded them. Each motion contained 7 votes. Now the draft minutes records 6 votes instead of 7.

Please note: These are draft minutes, which must be approved by the committee at the next meeting. It is possible that the criminal acts being witnesses via this draft may be changed. However, if these results are presented to the Community Board at the general board meeting on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, as the official record of the Economic Committee, then one can surmise that these minutes and the voting record are being reported as accurate, especially since the board will take its vote based upon this committee’s recommendation.

The Law

It is quite common for Chair of boards and committees to violate the law by continuing to chair a committee and/or vote on issues where there is a conflict of interest.

A lot of chairs will make claims that a Community Boards’ legal counsel, Corporation Counsel, actually told them that they could remain as chair or even vote. However, they always fail to produce this “advice” in writing.

New York City Conflict of Interest Board

Conflict of Interest Board itself writes opinion pages to Community Boards, especially since so many boards can have a whole host of conflicts of interests. This has gotten a multitude of opinions and we have provided a few of them, which points to the laws.

Chairs Must Step Down

“Advisory Opinion No. 96-8 The Conflicts of Interest Board (the “Board”)

For the reasons discussed in the following opinion, the Board has determined that the chair of a community board may have interests in firms or organizations which regularly have matters before the community board, provided that the chair steps down at meetings which involve discussions or votes on matters involving such private interests, and, further, that the chair refrains from making any decisions or taking any other official actions on matters involving his or her private interests.” (Emphasis added)

In Advisory Opinion No. 93

“The Board reasoned that the same concerns which are raised by a community board member’s voting on a matter involving his or her private interest may also be present when a member chairs a committee which considers matters related to that interest because a committee chair can “greatly influence a committee by controlling the agenda recognizing speakers and making rulings.”‘ (Emphasis added)

By being a member of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership BID, Mr. Flounoy the chair of the Economic Committee should have stepped down during the discussion of the these text amendments, should have disclosed both himself and Ms. Bailey’s conflict of interest to the public and board members, and should have requested that Ms. Bailey and himself not vote on any of the items. This would have left a 5 person vote, instead of seven person vote.

Will the Chair Step Down At General Board Meeting?

On Wednesday January 10, during the general board meeting Mr. Singletary should also step down when the discussion and the board’s vote on the COY Text Amendments, along with, Mr. Flounoy and Ms Bailey (if she is a board member). Additionally, they should not vote on any of the items pertaining to these Text Amendments.

The Million Dollar Question: Will They Abide by the law?

Our guess, having dealt with corrupt board before, is they all will ignore their conflicts of interests and vote. Nor will they address their District Manager’s alleged criminal behavior by writing up the draft minutes and stating that Ms. Bailey recused herself and Ms. Mueller changing the voting record of the committee.

Chair, and Members May Not Vote!

Board and Committee Members May Not Vote!

“In Advisory Opinion No. 93-2 the Board noted that while a community board member may have an interest in a firm which may be affected by an action on a matter before the community board, the member may not vote on any matter before the community board which may result in a personal and direct economic gain to the member or any person with whom the member is associated. See Charter Sections 2604(a)(1)(a) and (b)(1)(b).” (Emphasis added)

In this case Ms. Bailey should not have voted, as the opinion has stated along with Mr. Flounoy! Making this committee’s vote on the COY Economic Test Amendments unlawful and subject to serious review and questions.

Shocked!

What shocked us about CB2, was not the alleged criminal behavior of their District Manager, Ms. Mueller, or the Conflict of Interests of board members. We have seen this behavior before and it is always ignored or even encouraged. The shock was the fact that CB2 represents very wealthy so called powerful communities but it was clear the residents are even more disempowered than in MTOPP’s community board, despite it being a modest income community of color. There is at least some amount of community participation, influence and protection.

Yes, the Conflict of Interests still exists, the pressure to reduce community input as well as the removal of outspoken board members off the board, but still we are at least protecting our residents from these harmful proposed changes. Whereas, CB2 is railroading folks, their homes and communities into dangerous waters. That they may not be able to come back from, if these amendments go through!

Their District Manager, Taya Mueller seems to feels confident in her alleged criminal behavior along with her constant participation in the discussion, as she voiced a repetitive statement: “oh, it isn’t going to happen here”. As if she can stop what the law will now allow “as of right”.

You Can Still Act!

If you live in Community Board 2 which covers Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Fulton Ferry, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Fort Green, Clinton Hill and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, MTOPP would like to urge you to attend Bklyn CB2’s general board meeting. Demand that the public comment period occurs before the Board takes a vote on these Text Amendments!

Brooklyn CB2’s General Board Meeting – In Person

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 – 6pm

Location: St. Francis College, 179 Livingston Street, Brooklyn N.Y.

You may also want to reach out to the Borough President’s Reynoso’ office and speak with or email Ms. Church (she no longer takes MTOPP’s calls) to ensure that the Chair of CB2, Mr. Singletary, recuses himself when the issue of these amendments come up for discussion and a vote. And that the public be allowed to speak before the Board takes a vote. Especially since:

There have been no hearings on this issue;
The Economic Committee’s vote has been tainted;
Economic Committee’s vote is in fact unlawful since a DCP employee voted on the amendments;
The Chairs’ organization have in fact helped to create these amendments;
And have stated publicly that are supporting and advocating for them;
The District Manager, Ms. Taya Mueller is being accused of criminal behavior by intentionally changing the record of the votes and the participation of board member with a conflict of interest.
And it is the policy of this board to have the public comment period at the end of their meeting after the board has taken its votes!

Ms. Carol-Ann Church
Email: carol-ann.church@brooklynBP.nyc.gov
Tel: 718-802-4836