Activity # 5-Tamon Charles

Community Board 3 Meeting

Community Board 3 has a population of 143,387, up from 138,696 in 1990 and 133,377 in 1980.
As of the year 2000-- 2,056 (1.4%) are White non-Hispanic, 110,431 (76.8%) are African-American, 1,457 (1.0%) Asian or Pacific Islander, 432(0.3%) American Indian or Native Alaskan, 473 (0.3%) of some other race, 2,998 (2.1%) of two or more race, 26,020 (18.1%) of Hispanic origins. 44.9% of the population benefit from public assistance as of 2004, up from 32.7% in 2000. The land area is 1,894.4 acres, or 3.0 square miles (7.7 km²) respectively.

The board’s current Chairperson is Henry L. Butler and its District Manager is Charlene Phillips.

Community Board No.3 comprises of the following neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Stuyvesant Heights, and Ocean Hill in the borough of Brooklyn. It is delimited by Classon Avenue on the West, Flushing Avenue and Broadway on the North and Atlantic Avenue on the South and Saratoga Avenue on the East.

The most recently held meeting I attended was held on May 3rd 2010 at the Von King Cultural Center at 670 Lafayette Avenue at approximately 7:20pm. The meeting began with a warm welcome from the Chairperson who introduced the first presenter Ms. Melissa Lee from the Coalition of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Ms. Lee’s primary concern involved advising members on the importance of completing and returning their Census 2010 forms as the borough of Brooklyn lags behind in funding at a percentage of 50% as of the April 30th deadline.
The next presenter Ms. Sandra Cowello spoke about a grant that the Community Board received concerning the Von King Cultural Center programming for seniors. She embarked that the membership fee was ten dollars per year and that all has to be over the age of fifty-five for approval of membership and be a resident of any of the five boroughs.

The remarks for the Elected Officials portion of the agenda began with representation from the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn by Officer Brown and Captain William Bizcotti who announced the precinct’s new commanding officer-Inspector Peter Bartocuette PSA 7. To the Board’s surprise, they were not informed or aware of that sooner.

Following this was Ms. Tadia Arduso from the District Attorney’s Office publicizing that on Saturday May 8th would be another “pick up cash of guns” event in conjunction with the police department at a neighborhood center. She carefully stated that no questions will be asked nor will anyone will be arrested and that two hundred dollars will be collected per gun as an ongoing process to remove them off the streets.

One of the major discussions on the agenda was a public hearing spearheaded by C. Doris Pinn who is the current 1st Vice Chairperson of Community Board 3. She presented two Attorneys at Law who gave detailed information on the construction of a new department store at 912 Broadway. The hearing described that the 20,000 square fronts on Broadway and Stockton Avenues which encompassed 20% on residential district, proposed that the entire lot be used for commercial use. The application informed that the business owner as a successful entrepreneur and is the current President of the Business Improvement District and who also already runs two other department stores in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. The difficulty was that although the property was already owned for twenty years, the application was not received by the Zoning Board and that approval thus far was consent of 19 persons from the Broadway Merchants Association. Some of the concerns of the Community Board members include:- failure to utilize the lot for two decades and now—new plans for development, the demographics of the persons to be hired whether they were in-store employees or contractors, the affect on the environment for residents pertaining to the regulations as well as how the construction at the site will disturb residents as well as how the hiring process will be conducted. Towards the end of the meeting the board had actually voted in favor of this new development at Broadway with some stipulations such better employment benefits, state of the art lighting at the site, no rolled down gates and that the owner should be engaged in community give backs to organizations as well as schools and so on –just to name a few of the conditions.

I was very moved by two of the informational presentations. The first was Ian Jack, Forestry, Department of Parks who was excited about the planting season for the Fall 2009/Spring 2010 period. He raised the issues in such a charismatic manner bringing the attention of the focus by the City of New York. This was to plant a new palate of trees which would allow scattering of species in the event of a blight and that these trees are grown with the ambition to live for over 150 years. He discussed the specificity of the trees that were cloned in an attempt to produce low pollen production as well and also answered questions in relation to fixing broken trees in conjunction with the Department of Transportation. The second informational presenter was Yonette Fleming, Founder of the Hattie Carthan Community Farmers Market. Ms. Fleming was very passionate about being a farmer that led to her forming her organization since 1991 as she tries to put into words what it took for her to develop this project from the ground up. She notified the board on the health equity affecting the Bedford-Stuyvesant area and the importance of implementation of new technologies for success and continual growth of the Farmers Market. She explained that up to this date, her involvement in educating the community by instructing 200 elementary school children on a weekly basis on the production of food as well as her 7 employed high school kids who she taught how to harvest food and versatility and the fertility of a compose heap. She also invited everyone for their support and gave the dates of the proposed open market days.
Another item on the agenda that endeavored to positively influence the youths of the neighborhood by putting on a spring kickoff starting May 25th. Representation was be done by young actor Ephraim Benton who was featured in newest films such as “Inside A Chance” as well as “Precious”. There will be screening “Inside A Chance” for the benefit of Haiti’s victims.

In all, the meeting was very well attended and many issues were raised by residents who obviously love and respect their environment. There is a wide array of events that are ongoing as well as in the works for the betterment of this community—for instance; all of the items discussed will be inclusive in a newsletter for the June Community Board meeting. There were 34 present board members and 14 absent members apart from regular community members who were about fifty plus in attendance and the meeting was adjourned at 9:38pm.