{"id":1694,"date":"2023-10-23T21:59:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T01:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/?p=1694"},"modified":"2023-10-23T21:59:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T01:59:16","slug":"community-board-9-gets-served","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/2023\/10\/23\/community-board-9-gets-served\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Board 9 Gets Served!"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past year \u201cCB9\u201d has been engaging in Conflicts of Interest, as well as Violations of the Open Meeting Law, New York City Charter and its own Bylaws <\/strong>by engaging in secret meetings<\/strong>, refusing to address conflicts of interest<\/strong> of Board members and refusing to allow residents who reside within the Vital Brooklyn project area to be represented on CB9\u2019s Land Use Committee.<\/p>\n

Residents of CB9<\/strong> are concerned that these issues have not been resolved and that only the Court\u2019s intervention will ensure that CB9 conducts itself lawfully and not set precedent for unlawful conduct<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

History<\/strong><\/p>\n

During CB9\u2019s Election Process, the Chair of the Election Committee, Primo Lasana<\/strong>, was allowed to run for Vice-Chair of CB9<\/strong>, in violation of the Conflict of Interest laws, which state that a chair of a committee cannot chair if they will gain a benefit<\/strong>. In this case Primo was seeking the position of Vice-Chair of CB9, which would bestow a personal and political benefit to him<\/strong>.\u00a0 Instead of Primo, being removed as the Chair of the Election Committee, he was allowed to conduct a \u201csecret meeting\u201d, in violation of the \u201cOML<\/strong>\u201d, where his conflict of interest was discussed and \u201cresolved<\/u><\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0 Part of Primo\u2019s duties was to reach out to all board members<\/strong> to get them to run for the same<\/u><\/em> office<\/strong> he was running for and he was allowed to receive and review all resumes of all the candidates<\/strong> running against him before<\/u><\/em> he submitted his own<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another Conflict of Interest that has been ignored by CB9, is John Woelfling, a new member of CB9, who has been placed on CB9\u2019s Land Use Committee<\/strong>, despite his known vested interest<\/strong> in the very controversial Vital Brooklyn Projec<\/strong>t.\u00a0 Despite the public stating his conflict and he himself admitting to it, he failed to recuse himself<\/strong> on votes addressing the Vital Brooklyn Project<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At the same time Chairman Fred Baptiste has refused<\/strong> to place anyone on CB9\u2019s Land Use Committee who represents the area in which the Vital Brooklyn Project<\/strong> exists, leaving this portion of the community unrepresented<\/strong>.\u00a0 As a result, for two years this project has not been addressed<\/strong> at the CB9\u2019s Land Use Committee, or CB9 general board, denying the public the right to weigh in on these projects<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Petitioners are demanding that the election of Mr. Lasana be null and voided<\/strong>, that the members of the public or CB9 board members that reside within the five-block radius of the 11 proposed buildings<\/strong> of the Vital Brooklyn Project be placed on CB9\u2019s Land Use Committee<\/strong> and that a Permanent Injunction<\/strong> be instituted against CB9 to abide by all applicable laws<\/strong> governing NYC Community Boards, including the Open meetings Laws and the Conflict of Interest Laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past year \u201cCB9\u201d has been engaging in Conflicts of Interest, as well as Violations of the Open Meeting Law, New York City Charter and its own Bylaws by engaging in secret meetings, refusing to address conflicts of interest of Board members and refusing to allow residents who reside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eyes-on-cb9","category-legal-actions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1695,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}