We tend to avoid wading into the swamp surrounding the little Brooklyn venture known as Atlantic Yards, but when words like "purge" are used in the same sentence as "Community Board," it's worth having a look. Yesterday, nine members were ousted from Community Board Six, which last year had voted 35-4 to disapprove the project. It's a move with other fallout because the community board is in thick of a bunch of Brooklyn development and zoning fights, especially the ongoing one in Gowanus. Here's some of the purge coverage & reaction:
1) “It’s a shame to punish people for having independent judgment,” said Jeff Strabone, a board member whose term is not up until next year. “On the one hand, in order to have fresh blood on the board there has to be change, but losing this much leadership at once is a bloodletting.” [NYT]
2) "Many of the people losing their seats were longtime board members, and one source called it 'sad' that about 150 combined years of community service was lost strictly over politics." [NYP]
3) The purge "can't turn the board from its criticism of the project. The board voted overwhelmingly not to support Atlantic Yards as currently planned...citing unmitigable impacts like traffic, poor process that didn't accommodate local input, and a host of requested specific changes, including a reduction in scale." [AYR]
4) What is interesting about the CB6 purge isn't that it happened--that's hardball politics in the big city--but that it again shines a spotlight on the awful Atlantic Yards process...few public officials even cared about creating an appearance of bona fide public participation. [GL]
5) "What an embarassment." [Brownstoner]