Open Letter To New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan Regarding Non-disclosures By Ginia Bellafante and the New York Times In Connection With Article About Proposed Sale And Shrinkage of Brooklyn Heights Library

The following is an open letter I wrote to the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan concerning an article for which I was interviewed as co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries by that article's author Ginia Bellafante.

* * * *
To: Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor, New York Times
Public@nytimes.com

Dear Ms. Sullivan,

Subject: Non-disclosure of reporter's connection to significant aspect relevant to article about proposed sale and shrinkage of major Brooklyn Library, that private school will benefit very substantially behind the scenes.

I am writing to call to your attention to and ask for your evaluation as New York Times Public Editor of an article written by a New York Times reporter, Ginia Bellafante, with a slant that may not have been discernable to many New York Times readers, but should be very discernible to those who know the facts concerning the subject as well as I believe Ms. Bellafante did.  Ms. Bellafante's editor observes that the article reflects an "opinion" Ms. Bellafante's formed about a very important public issue, whether a major public asset should be sold for redevelopment, the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in downtown Brooklyn, proposed to be replaced by a luxury tower with a drastically shrunken library at its base.

The article is: Brooklyn Libraries, Development and Misdirected Fear, July 10, 2015

Ms. Bellafante left out of her article many facts, some might think oddly or preferentially, that would very likely have caused her readers to form an opinion, contrary to her own, and conclude that the proposed library sale and shrinkage is unwise.  Her omissions included leaving out the fact that, quite shocking to many, a private school, Saint Ann's, is benefitting to the tune of what is likely to be tens of millions of dollars if the library is sold and shrunk.  Behind the scenes the possibility of materializing this private benefit for the private school seems to be a significant factor in driving forward this public transaction with its attendant public losses.

More important, in terms of letting readers evaluate the objectivity with which Ms. Bellafante was presenting what she wrote, Ms. Bellafante neglected to disclose to them, something unknown to me when she was interviewing me for the article: that she is a parent with a child in that Saint Ann's school that stands to benefit from the transaction she was writing about.

In addition to Ms. Bellafante not disclosing this herself when she wrote the article, the New York Times thereafter chose not to publish a comment on her article (the article was one that was open for comment) that I wrote that would have filled in this omission.  My comment on the article, provided below, noted that Ms. Bellafante disclosed to me, as she was writing the article, that she already knew about how Saint Ann's, a private school, is getting a significant payday (in a currently undisclosed amount) if the proposed sale and shrinkage of the public's library proceeds. Plus my comment noted that Ms. Bellafante and I had discussed the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for the sale and shrinkage of the library in the background.  I also noted that  Ms. Bellafante did NOT tell me during those discussions that she is a Saint Ann's parent.

The Times decision not to publish my comment was apparently made after my ultimately-not-to-be-published comment was forwarded to Ms. Bellafante's editor who, apparently after consultation with Ms Bellafante, contacted me to say that it was not being published and to explain her view as editor that these things were not of concern.  I do not concur with Ms Bellafante’s editor in this assessment and I am providing our email exchange about this below.

Unfortunately, the publishing of Ms. Bellafante’s article was very well timed to influence an important political vote by Brooklyn Community Board 2 about whether the transaction should proceed and was used as propaganda by those attempting to push the transaction forward.

It would probably be worthwhile to consider chronologically the following concerning Ms. Bellafante’s writing of the article.

On July 6, 2015, the Monday after the 4th of July weekend Ms. Bellafante showed up at a hastily scheduled meeting of the Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee.   Because the meeting was atypically being set up ad hoc at the very last minute with notice not going out to the public until 8:55 PM, Thursday, June 30th (essentially for all practical purposes Friday morning of the 4th of July weekend) Citizens Defending Libraries of which I am a part and co-founder of, had a tough time notifying as many people as we could to get the word out that this meeting was to occur.

According to what Robert Perris, the District Manager for CB2 told CB2 members later (July 11, 2015) when distributing and touting Ms. Bellafante’s “observations,” Ms. Bellafante “apparently walked over from her Brooklyn Heights home to attend the community board's public hearing on the ULURP applications associated with the Brooklyn Public Library's plans for its Brooklyn Heights and Business and Career branches” to attend the meeting.

Attending the meeting Ms. Bellafante heard discussion by a CB2 Land use committee that was obviously flailing about helplessly with, for instance, a total lack of knowledge about how much they were actually shrinking the library.  The public was not allowed to speak before the Land Use Committee voted, but it would be hard to think that anyone attending would not have been greatly affected, taking expressed sentiments to heart, when, at the end of the meeting, a long line of community members got up and spoke absolutely unanimously and very eloquently (we should get all our video posted on this) inveighing against sale and shrinkage of the library. No member of the public attending the meeting spoke any words of approval for the scheme.

In news coverage of that night summarizing many of the comments I am quoted as follows:

"This is a very sad vote," said Michael D. D. White, co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries, which has been fighting the sale. "You've declared open season on selling off of libraries, you've declared open season on the selling off of public assets in general. And you've set the precedent for selling them off at an extraordinarily low price."

See:  the Brooklyn Eagle:  CB2 committee approves sale of Brooklyn Heights Library, with caveats, By Mary Frost, July 7, 2015.  I said much the same thing on News 12 coverage which, with a few short minutes and few words managed to cover other essential points Ms. Bellafante neglected in her article.

Apparently, however, Ms. Bellafante's point of view was not, and perhaps could not be, swayed by the public sentiments expressed that night.  Ms. Bellafante’s editor email to me stated that Ms. Bellfante’s “opinion” that “the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights branch should go forward had already been formed” and, in fact, was formed before she learned that the Saint Ann’s school her child attends was benefitting.  We don’t know when Ms. Bellafante decided she would write her article, but it has come to our attention that Ms. Bellafante was informed that Saint Ann’s was benefitting at least by the evening of Monday, June 29, 2015. . .  which means that her “opinion” was already formed by that Monday.

Tuesday, July 7th, the day after the Land Use Committee meeting Ms. Bellafante attended, Ms Bellafante reached out to me leaving a message on Facebook at 3:42 PM.  See below:

Michael: I am a Brooklyn Heights resident and columnist at the NYT and I'm writing this week about some of the changes facing Brooklyn libraries (both at Cadman and Sunset Plaza).

I was at the Community Board meeting last night and noticed some folks holding up signs and assumed they were affiliated with Citizens Defending Libraries. I'd love to talk to you (and/or you and your wife, who I understand is also very involved in this issue) about some of your concerns. I live right on Willow so could meet for coffee in the AM if you have time or we could talk on the phone if that's easier.

Let me know. My email is  giniab[at]nytimes.com

Many thanks,
Ginia

Ms Bellafante finally reached me the following afternoon (Wednesday July 8th) when she called my cell phone wanting a call back “before 6:30 PM” because she was “on a deadline.”

I called her back and we talked extensively starting about 4:30 PM.  In multiple respects I was surprised by how much she told me she already knew about the library sales.  Although she was contacting me with a stated deadline that was imminent, Ms. Bellafnate’s preparation for her article with its pro-development message the article did not appear to have been be rushed into production. 

Her article, published in the Metropolitan Section, was posted on line Friday afternoon.

In collecting more information from me, Ms. Bellafante let me know that she was already very familiar with many facts she later left out of the article, including how Saint Ann's private school is benefitting behind the scenes if the public's library is sold and shrunk.  She was also aware of the linkage between the sale of the Donnell Library for an inexcusably low price and the virtual carbon-copy replication of that model with the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library: She said she knew that when David Offensend was at the NYPL overseeing the much criticized Donnell sale, his wife, Janet Offensend, went to the BPL where she was key in evolving the "real estate strategy" and concurrent decision to sell and shrink the Heights Library.

Nevertheless, there were a fair number of things I told her that she didn't know that I noted didn't show up in her article even when I think they were of significance.  For instance, that Bill de Blasio had stood on the steps of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library in July of 2013 calling for a halt to the sale and shrinkage of libraries, including this particular Brooklyn Heights Library,* but then not long after, while developer applications were pending was taking money from the development team his administration ultimately selected as he let the sale proceed through to the next steps preceding the public approval process that Ms. Bellafante was writing about.  At Ms. Bellfante's request I directed her to a video available on the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube channel of de Blasio's July 2013 statements appearing beside us to opposing the library sales.

(* Mr. de Blasio (7/12/2013): "It's public land and public facilities and public value under threat. . . and once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain, real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties")

Instead of mentioning anything about de Blasio in connection with the above, Ms. Bellafante downplayed the likely legitimacy of suspicions about our top elected officials and the sacrifice public assets for real estate development by suggesting to her readers that such suspicions were a sort of reflexive hangover, an "aftermath of the Bloomberg era" (therefore safely past tense and dissociated from the de Blasio era?).

I was also able to inform Ms. Bellafante, because she did not know, that Scott Sherman, who had written a series of articles about proposed NYC library sales and shrinkages for The Nation, had a new book book just out, "Patience and Fortitude- Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library," that included in it new revelations about just how extremely little the NYPL netted from the sale and shrinkage of the Donnell Library: Less than $33 million.  From that amount must still be subtracted annual rent for a temporary replacement Donnell that started at $850,000 after Donnell, still not reopened in any form, closed in spring of 2008 and also must be subtracted millions of dollars paid to high-priced professionals associated with making that transaction materialize.  That very low net price was for a 97,000 square foot library shrunk down to a largely underground and largely bookless library of just just 28,000 square feet, while the penthouse apartment in the 50-story luxury tower replacing this public building is on the market for $60 million and other apartments in the building are selling for prices in the neighborhood of what the NYPL netted.

Ms. Bellafante did not tell me that she had already formulated an opinion that the Heights Library should similarly be sold and shrunk, but a few odd things indicated she might already have some leanings about certain things . . .  

Ms. Bellafante dismissed with disinterest the inconsistencies of the Brooklyn Heights Association respecting its position on selling and shrinking the library because of the gap in time between when it advocated the library be enlarged and its switch to now advocate that it be shrunk.

The fact that the library was significantly enlarged and completely upgraded with appreciable public expense in 1993, making the building essentially 5 years newer than the adjacent Forest City Ratner One Pierrepont Plaza, Morgan Stanley building, was irrelevant to her.  That Morgan Stanley building is where Hillary Clinton has chosen to locate her National Campaign Headquarters.  “After all,” that (1993) was “twenty years” back at the time the BPL announced it wanted to sell the library Ms. Bellafante reasoned aloud sharing her thoughts.

The Friday afternoon Ms. Bellafante's article went up, I immediately started posting comments to the article to add to it facts and perspective that I felt the article lacked.  Processing of comments was slow with some taking five hours to appear.

Publication of Ms. Bellafante’s article this particular weekend was very well-timed to have an influence on a CB2 vote scheduled for the following Wednesday, July 15, 2015, as to whether the library should be sold and shrunk and Saturday, the afternoon following the article’s publication it was sent around to all the CB2 members as propaganda by the CB2 District Manager suggesting the relevance of Ms. Bellfante’s “observations” to the upcoming vote.  See below:

July 11, 2015 at 3:20:21 PM EDT.

"Ginia Bellafante, who writes the "Big City" column in the Metropolitan section of the New York Times, apparently walked over from her Brooklyn Heights home to attend the community board's public hearing on the ULURP applications associated with the Brooklyn Public Library's plans for its Brooklyn Heights and Business and Career branches.  The applications are on the agenda for this Wednesday's general meeting, to be held at 6:00 pm at St. Francis College.  I thought the members of Community Board 2 and its Land Use Committee might be interested in Ms. Bellafante's observations."- District Manager Robert Perris.

(For what it’s worth, almost as soon as Ms. Bellfante’s article was posted on Friday, 3:04 PM, Ashley Cotton, Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff of Forest City Ratner, another of the real estate parities involved in the proposed library sale and shrinkage tweeted Ms. Bellafante’s article embedding a “thank you.”)

On Sunday, July 12th when I learned in the afternoon that Ms. Bellafante was a Saint Ann’s parent I submitted the following comment to the Times article (I was still awaiting publication of a previous comment about digital books).  This is the comment the Times would not publish:

When I spoke with Ms. Bellafante there was a great deal of information she impressed me by telling me that she already knew,, most of which doesn't appear here.  For instance, the background connections explaining how this proposed sale is modeled on the Donnell sale debacle, conceived at the same time.

Ms. Bellafante also explained that she knew all about how Saint Ann's, a private school, is getting a significant payday from the sale and shrinkage of the public's library in a currently undisclosed amount.  We discussed the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for the sale in the background.

What Ms. Bellafante did NOT tell me and I now understand to be true is that Ms. Bellafante is a Saint Ann's parent, something not disclosed in this article.

Here is what Ms. Bellafante's editor wrote back to me at the end of the next day confirming that Ms. Bellfante was a Saint Ann's parent together with reasoning about my comment that was not being published:

From: Virshup, Amy  
To: mddwhite  
Sent: Mon, Jul 13, 2015 4:39 pm
Subject: Your comment on Ginia Bellafante's column

Dear Mr. White,

I am Ginia Bellafante's editor at the Sunday Metropolitan section of the Times and your comment about Ms. Bellafante's recent column on proposed library redevelopments in Brooklyn was forwarded along to me. The comment was not posted on the site, as I'm sure you know.  But I didn't want to let the moment pass without getting back to you.

I spoke to Ms. Bellafante about any possible conflict of interest. She began following the library issue before she knew that any possible sale of air rights by St. Ann's could be part of the project. She had not heard that anyone in the school was lobbying for the redevelopment to go forward, until you and other opponents claimed to her this was the case. Her opinion of whether the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights branch should go forward had already been formed and was not influenced by this news, or by the fact that she has a child at St. Ann's.

As citizens of New York, we here at the Times often end up writing and editing about things that intersect with our own lives. There are cases in which we feel that a reporter or columnist is simply too close to an issue to write fairly about it. We don't think this is one of those cases.

Sincerely,
Amy Virshup

Here is what I wrote back:

Monday, July 20, 2015 9:21 pm

Dear Ms. Virshup,

Yes, thank you, I am aware that the Times did not publish my comment.

When I talked with Ginia she told me that she knew all about the Saint Ann's payday.  I was surprised by how much she knew about this and other things like the linkage between Donnnell and other library sales with the Offensends (from our shared Brooklyn Heights neighborhood*) in the background and somewhat surprised by how much she chose to leave out as too unimportant to specifically mention, and too unimportant apparently to weigh in the balance of her conclusions.

        * We also similarly talked about Mr. Gutman.

Talking about Saint Ann's, we talked about the PowerPoint presentation that Saint Ann's did for its faculty about the library sale.  We also discussed at length the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for its private benefit behind the scenes to drive forward this transaction where the public incurs significant loss.  I don't know when Ms. Bellafante first became well informed about the Saint Ann's payday before talking to me, nor do I know when she formulated her opinions, but I firmly feel it was, as a matter of good journalistic practice, a matter for her to disclose to her readers.  Ostensibly, at least she was formulating her thoughts when seeking information from me, and perhaps she should still have been.  On the other hand you are suggesting she already had a fixed idea of the conclusions she intended to promulgate before contacting me.

Failing disclosure in her article, I think it would have been fairest to the public and Ms. Bellafante's readers to at least learn that Ms. Bellafante was a Saint Ann's parent via my comment when I offered it rather than blocking it. This would have been especially valuable to have done on a timely basis, because Ms. Bellafante's article was used as a propaganda piece sent out officially by the CB2 office for CB2 board member consideration in connection with their vote before the CB2 members voted.  It was very well timed and well written for that purpose.

I could quibble about other matters in the article that look like they reflected an agenda on Ms. Bellafante's part, but I suppose I will only add that Ms. Bellafante did not mention to me that she was was going to depict Citizens Defending Libraries as having a sort of a feud with Urban Librarians Unite.  I don't believe she mentioned Urban Librarians Unite at all, and she certainly didn't mention her intent to have them comment on Citizens Defending Libraries or offer any opportunities of balance in that regard.

As for the question of when a columnist is too close to an issue to write fairly about it there will be different opinions. I, myself, personally, believe it is often necessary to write about things intersecting closely with our own lives. .  although maybe this is less often the case at the Times where the staff is large.  The lack of disclosure is what is troubling.

As to whether these or other relationships affected Ms. Bellafante's judgement in these matters, some of her logic troubled me like quickly dismissing the oddness of so drastically shrinking a library we so recently expanded (effectively the library is five years newer than the adjacent Ratner building, One Pierrepont Plaza, where Hillary Clinton has located her national headquarters).  Right now I'll leave the question of whether Ms. Bellafante's judgement was affected to others to consider without stating my own conclusion.  It's something I believe you and the Times should still be thinking about.   As for the public, it  won't be able to evaluate the question for itself without disclosure.

MICHAEL D. D. WHITE
Citizens Defending Libraries 
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite [at]aol.com

I did not get a response back.

One additional afterthought I’ve had is that, even if Ms. Bellafante formulated her apparently irrevocable opinion that the library should she sold before she formally knew that Saint Ann’s was getting a great deal of financial benefit in the background, she still formulated her opinion with that Saint Ann's sale being part of the milieu, the background and social environment of people around her, against which she formulated her thoughts.  Without being very careful it is not so easy to say that there was no consequent influence.

The purpose of this letter is not to point out where Ms. Bellafante and I may disagree in about conclusions that could be subjective, but pointing out some of these differences will help indicate instances where more wary and alerted readers might conclude that Ms. Bellafante's judgment was off.

Ms. Bellafante is entitled to a personal observation upon which she describes the library as "dilapidated," especially since she told me that she has visited the library with her son, but it is an assessment we don't share and I directed her to an extensively complete set of photographs including all the space not normally viewable by the public that I believe supports a different conclusion.  While it must be treated as Bellafante's own assessment it seems less accurate than an indication that she was looking to pass along promulgated talking points of the BPL.  Using sarcasm to belittle the idea that there is need for scrutiny because the BPL estimated costs of $9 million in necessary repairs for the library, $3.5 million for a partially out of commission air conditioning system (actually estimated by the BPL as higher than that) are likely inflated, Ms. Bellafante tossed off to her readers a disbelief that library administrators are interested in doing real estate deals, but the BPL's minutes show that when Linda Johnson arrived as BPL president she told her board that real estate deals were her top priority.

While Ms. Bellafante's quoting me about digital books is an accurate portion of our conversation about digital vs. phyical books it is a highly truncated one.  Yes, as recently covered by a WNYC "On The Media" segment and National Notice article, digital books and keeping physical books off site does mean libraries cease to have zones of privacy, but in saying that we are not against digital books I cited librarian John Palfrey's new "BiblioTech" book as calling for digital plus physical books (requiring more, not less, room), and I noted that people tend to prefer physical books (probably in part because they learn better with them- as covered in the Times) so that, despite the push of the BPL and NYPL toward digital books, circulation is way up with almost all of that circulation being physical books.  I also cited the just-out Washington Post article about how much more expensive digital books are and how with a push to digital rental models and increasingly consolidated content control digital books may mean that content winds up just vanishing from the libraries. . . .

. . . Instead, Ms. Bellefante's article uses was written to imply that the Brooklyn Heights Library is being shrunk based on "library science."

In conclusion, I believe that that there is substantial evidence that Ms. Bellafante approached her subject with bias and a fixed predetermination about what she would write that improperly fore-ran her collection and analysis of relevant facts and that, partly because that fixed predetermination persisted the way it did that Ms. Bellafante being a Saint Ann's parent, a school benefitting very significantly from this transaction, should have been disclosed in her article.  Similarly, I think the Times should have published rather than blocked my comment that would have provided an alternative, though less effective, disclosure of that relevant fact.  In fact, I see no reason why the Times did not publish my comment other than the original lack of disclosure might have been viewed as potentially embarrassing.

Had readers been informed by such disclosure there would have been cause to be more alert for the balance that I believe was missing from Ms.Bellafante's article.

Here, albeit with a few overlaps from what is cited above, are things Ms. Bellafante left out of her article:

    1.    The mistake of shrinking this library ( last enlarged with public expense and sacrifice Oct.1993) down to just  one-third size* can  never be corrected, nor can the “replacement” library, stuck in the bottom of a luxury residential tower, ever grow with the neighborhood, CBD, borough or city.  Though this shrinkage is to a preordained size, no replacement library has been designed and  no estimation at all has been done of how many books it should hold.

            (*  63,000 square feet to just 21,000 square feet.)

    2.    The BPL is selling a  sturdy,  readily adaptable library in good shape, together with its land and development rights worth over $100 million (probably $120 million or more) to the public in order to net next to nothing in a transaction that may even incur a  net cash loss.  Further, there is no assurance that the paltry sums, if any, gleaned from the sale,  all going to the city, would ever subsequently go to libraries.  Libraries, highly valued by the public, cost relatively little to fund, but this sale is apt to encourage further underfunding like this.

    3.    This sale would sacrifice one more public asset (an education-supporting one at that) to build yet another new, huge residential tower that would further burden the public infrastructure such as PS8, already at  140% capacity.

    4.    The gentrifying aspects of this project are unmistakable with a public asset democratically serving everyone equally being shut down, lower income patrons coming to the neighborhood  kicked out, and so-called “affordable” housing units built  “poor door” style at a far remove from Brooklyn’s burgeoning downtown and upper crust Brooklyn Heights.

    5.    The developer has  refused to say how much of a payday the private Saint Ann’s School is getting from the public’s sale and shrinkage of the library, because that’s a “ private” transaction, even though  it’s driving this  public one.  Shouldn’t Saint Ann’s be paying the BPL?  (It may likely get more from this sale than the BPL is getting.)

    6.    This sale sets the unfortunate precedent for serially underfunding and selling off other libraries (per the BPL strategic real estate plan) and other public assets (like  public housing) setting a template for how public assets can be picked off one by one.  This developer is making hundreds of millions of dollars: The incentives for other such deals will always be there.   If we can’t stop them at libraries . . .where can we stop them?

    7.    It’s improper that while the developer’s application for this project was pending Bill de Blasio was taking money sent to him by its development team,  in his words:  “lurking right behind the curtain . .  very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties.”

Here are links I supplied Ms. Bellafante as research resources to supplement what I understood she had found:

    •    This Citizens Defending Libraries page with a handout we gave the CB2 Land Use Committee members (linking to other handouts including the memo about environmental issues).  It links backward to other valuable sources.  Monday, July 6, 2015,  Handout Number 1 For July 6, 2014 Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee Meeting- Let's Get the Record Straight! Concerns Re Proposed Library Sale+Shrinkage To be Voted On 

   •    This is the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube 12-minute interview with the 2-minute de Blasio clip right after the introduction.  BK Indie Media Interviews CDL On Library Selloff Schemes

    •    This is the product of the Citizens Defending Libraries forums we've had on the subject of selling off and privatizing public assets in general.  Our Public Assets Under Attack- A Calamity of the Commons Unfolding That We Must Act Collectively Against- How best To Express It? 

   •    This presentation of the tour photos showing the library to be in very good shape with lots of readily usable space.   In A Closed Library, A Tour of Much The Public Doesn't Get To See- Don't Let Them Close This Library, The Brooklyn Heights Library On Cadman Plaza West, Corner of Tillary & Clinton

    •    This is Citizens Defending Libraries statement of principles posted in connection with the Sunset Park library proposal.  Monday, November 3, 2014,  Proposed Statement of Principles Concerning Any Possible Redevelopment of Library-- Sunset Park Branch.

    •    Reference to recent Noticing New York articles I wrote about the libraries from July and June.

Sincerely,

MICHAEL D. D. WHITE
Citizens Defending Libraries 
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite [at]aol.com

Questions Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee And Other Members Are Raising About The Proposed Sale And Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Central Destination Downtown Library

Wednesday, June 17th, the FIRST EVER public hearing about the proposed sale and shrinkage of an important New York City library, was held before Brooklyn Community Board 2's Land Use Committee.

The proposed sale and shrinkage is of the Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn's central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza West at the corner of Tillary and Clinton.

In recent years New York City library administration officials proposed to sell, or actually sold, other libraries, but no public hearings were required, because unlike this present situation, even though those libraries were funded mostly and very heavily by the city, those libraries, the Donnell Library, the Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL (the Science, Industry and Business Library) were not owned by the city.  The latter of these two proposed sales were supposed to be part of the NYPL's Central Library Plan.  It would have also destroyed the stacks for the 42nd Street Central Reference Library's research books.

No hearings were required because, as noted, the city didn't own the land being sold, but it would have been far better if public hearings had been held when those other sales were proposed because the transactions, handing out juicy deals to the real estate industry, did not stand up to scrutiny.

The November 2007 sale and shrinkage of the 97,000 square foot Donnell Library on 53rd Street across from MoMA, one day supposed to be "replaced" by a 28,000 square foot, largely underground, largely bookless library is now universally recognized to have been a colossal mistake, even sheepishly by library administration officials.  The sale, a huge loss to the public and even shrinking the library down to less than one-third size, netted the NYPL considerably less than $30 million while the penthouse in the fifty-story building replacing it on what was documented to be the highest value block in Manhattan is being marketed for $60 million.  The NYPL would have been deeply in a financial hole, suffering a significant cash loss from the sale if it had endeavored to replace the Donnell Library with a full-scale equivalent of the library sold rather than shrinking it down to a fraction.

The de Blasio administration ultimately defunded the Central Library Plan involving the sale of Mid-Manhattan and SIBL in what was a similar drastic downsizing of publicly owned library space and assets, selling off over 400,000 square feet of library space to cram it into just 80,000 square feet.   Only after the Central Library Plan was derailed was it revealed that this shrinkage and divestiture of assets was going to cost the public over one-half billion dollars.  Exactly how much more we still don't know but that half billion figure is hundreds of millions more than what the NYPL was previously publicizing to be the plan's cost.

Why the discrepancy?  Why were these deals so bad for the public, so almost inconceivably worse for the public than could be imagined in ways that were not openly represented by library administration officials to be the case?

The best answer is that they were really being done as favors for the real estate industry for whom the deals were very beneficial.

Now CB2 finds itself with another such library deal, the proposed Brooklyn deal, that's closely modeled to replicate the Donnell sale, another luxury tower squashing down an important library to just one-third size.

CB2's Land Use Committee members raised important questions about the proposed transaction on the 17th after hearing public testimony that spotlighted multitudinous concerns.  Three of the committee's top concerns:

1.)   Brooklyn Public Library administration officials are supposedly proposing this hand-off to a developer in order to bring in funds for libraries.  The problem with tha is that this pretense doesn't bear scrutiny because, as CB2 committee members noted, there is absolutely no assurance any funds from a sale and shrinkage would go to the libraries. . .  for two reasons, actually: a.) because any funds would go to the city that now displays a tendency to withhold funds from the libraries and there'd never be a way to trace the funds or assure they had actually come back, and b.) when you do the math and pierce through the BPL's lack of transparency on the subject, the amount of cash netted with the BPL incurring this huge public loss, like Donnell, is a paltry sum and perhaps less than zero.

2.)  The committee, taking note of the imbalance of what is now fast-paced development in the area with the provision and maintenance of public infrastructure, previously voted that it should not approve any huge new developments while severe overcrowding at PS8 continues unaddressed.  PS8 is currently at 140% and soon faces worse.  Approving the sale of the library for more development would amount to overturning the committee's previous vote.

3.)  In order to obtain a bonus and build a bigger building while also trying to generate public support for the selling off the library's assets, the developer is proposing to build so-called "affordable" housing units at two other sites. Committee members noted that with a sort of quintessential "poor-door," in-your-face bravado the developer is choosing to put these units in a far less desirable location than increasingly fashionable Brooklyn Heights, where the units in the luxury tower replacing the library would be marketed.  The result would be various forms of gentrification:  Those wanting to curtail the many visitors coming to the vicinity of Brooklyn Heights when they use the downtown neighborhood would achieve their aim, plus a high-end luxury building would be built on the Brooklyn Heights border . . .   any lower income residents would get settled at a far remove.

Facing these and other concerns the Land Use committee deadlocked, refuse to recommend the BPL's proposed sale and shrinkage. 

"Poor Door": One location where a few "affordable" units would be built resulting in. . .

Another location where a few "affordable" units would be built

Click to enlarge if you dare- The Library-squashing tower that would benefit Saint Ann's private school and a developer if built, but not the public.

Other things are also on the minds of CB2 members.  Ultimately the entire CB2 board will be asked to vote on the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library the BPL officials are recommending.

At a meeting where the BPL presented the proposed sale and shrinkage to the CB2 Youth and Education Committee one member asked why so much of the proposed "replacement" library had to be underground.  The answer?:  Money.  Unless the library is shrunk way down and as much as is currently proposed to be underground, is put underground, the nominal amount of  money (if any?) the library is netting when it sells off this significant asset would be so little as to be laughingly imperceptible when presented as the supposed justification for the sale.

Also on the mind of one of that committee's members:  Sometimes when you visit the library you find people who are observable as probably homeless and, for some people, that's depressing.  From canvassing and talking with users outside the library (I am a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries) we know that there are also a fair number of users of the library, people impeccably dressed and groomed as they look for jobs, that you would never suspect to be homeless, but, in Will Smith-"The Pursuit of Happyness" fashion, they are.  Yes, and there are also people with low incomes who's could be in danger of becoming homeless without support they get from the library.  Frankly, a full range of people use the library, myself included.

As for the conundrum of how best to treat the perceptibly homeless:  That's a management question.  Swapping the existing library for a smaller one or one that has new surfaces and furniture has nothing to do with what decisions are made when that kind of management challenge is grappled with.

Another CB2 member suggested that our Citizens Defending Libraries opposition to the sale and shrinkage of the library should focus more on the value of the existing library to the public (it has a dollar value to the public of well over $100 million) and how little the BPL is proposing to sell the library for, perhaps netting less than zero.   Conversely, this CB2 member suggested that it is not important or relevant that Saint Ann's, a private school, will be getting a huge payday if the library is sold. This is because, if the library is sold and shrunk Saint Ann's will be able to get paid for transferable real estate development rights, walking away with a free-and-clear amount that may exceed the cash the city is netting when it sells the library.

This CB2 member told us that we should not begrudge Saint Ann's its payday, because the school is entitled to benefit by selling what it owns and that we should not be concerned if Saint Ann's is working hard behind the scenes to lobby local politicians for the sale and shrinkage of the library.  `You can lobby elected officials against the sale,' this CB2 member told us.  We can do it behind the scenes if we want and we can wine and dine elected officials in the process he said.  There is truth to some of this analysis, but mostly we disagree.  Among other things, we probably don't have the same kind of access, nor can we reach deeply into our purse believing that any war chest expenditures will be more than replenished by a coming payday.

The fact that we know this CB2 member to be a significantly close confidante and advisor to one of our more important elected officials makes us wonder whether this is advice that has been given to that elected official and whether it is reflective of the kind of lobbying that Saint Ann's is doing behind the scenes condoned at least by some.

Certainly, if nothing else, the influence that Saint Ann's has had with respect to Brooklyn Heights Association relating to this proposed transaction is improper.  And the Brooklyn Heights Association has, indeed, taken a very odd position supporting the transaction that would benefit Saint Ann's.  That matters a lot.

One example of how it matters?:  The Daily News printing its editorial defending this real estate transaction prominently advised its readers of the BHA's support.  In the editorial it seemed as if the Daily News was working hard to ridicule those opposing the sale and shrinkage of libraries and wanted to suggest that those doing so don't have that right.

So these are just some of the things the CB2 members are considering as maters of concern when debating this transaction.  There are a good many more for them to think about as well.  The BPL is not being transparent about what it is doing.  That includes not releasing documents like its "Strategic Real Estate Plan" (dating back to 2007) and "The Revson Study," both of which would help the public to know which libraries the BPL will target as real estate deals next.

The BPL also worked with the developer to cynically release hundreds of pages of withheld environmental documents (along with all sorts of other documents) in an information dump two days before the hearing on the 17th and those documents have some startling revelations.

How Self-Contradictory Can The Brooklyn Heights Association Be As It Advocates Sale And Shrinkage of The Brooklyn Heights Central Destination Downtown Library?

Three strikes and you're out?

The Brooklyn Heights Association has now taken three solidly self-contradicting positions as it digs in to argue for what's an obviously absurd stance for it to be taking in the first place: its promotion of the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn's central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza West at the corner of Tillary and Clinton.

 • First, the BHA now arguing for the shrinkage of a library that it previously advocated be enlarged and which was, in fact, thereupon enlarged and considerably upgraded at appreciable public expense and inconvenience, reopening in the fall of 1993.

. .  Calling for the shrinkage of a library the BHA had previously called for the enlargement of?. .

. . . That's inconsistency Number 1.

 • Then, how is it that when Citizens Defending Libraries (of which I am a co-founder) asked the Brooklyn Heights Association to call for proper funding of New York City libraries so that the Brooklyn Heights, Mid-Manhattan, SIBL and Pacific Branch libraries would not be sold, the BHA refused to call for proper funding, saying such funding was NOT a neighborhood concern?. . . BUT NOW---  The Brooklyn Heights Association is calling for the Brooklyn Heights Library to be sold because (supposedly) the sale and shrinkage would mean that libraries in other neighborhoods would get better funding? . . . Actually, that is such a treacherously false belief about funding as to be patently silly, because there is no guarantee that money would actually go to libraries, this library is being sold off at a huge public loss in a transaction that may net less than zero cash, and selling off libraries to developers as a self-cannibalizing funding program may simply foster more underfunding.

Switching from saying that proper funding of NYC libraries is not a BHA or neighborhood concern to saying that it is an important enough BHA and neighborhood concern so that it's a reason to sell off the Brooklyn Heights Library is inconsistency Number 2.

 • Now you can read on the BHA's website that the BHA is opposing new buildings in Brooklyn Bridge Park because:

Public school overcrowding will be exacerbated by the additional development. PS 8 is already operating at more than 140% capacity and turning away local kindergarteners for this Fall.

Right!  . . . But tearing down and shrinking a library supporting educational pursuits and consequently the school system isn't a similar problem, or an even greater exacerbation of it?

That's inconsistency Number 3! . . .

. . . Three strikes and you are out?

Why then might we theorize the Brooklyn Heights Association wants to be so terrifically, consistently inconsistent when it comes to wanting to see the library sold?

Click to enlarge if you dare- The Library-squashing tower that would benefit Saint Ann's private school and a developer if built, but not the public.

Here is Noticing New York coverage where you can read about two things to which we must unfortunately give connected consideration:

• How at the June 17th Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee hearing about selling and shrinking the library the developer refused to say what Saint Ann's school is being paid as a result of the library's sale and shrinkage because,"it's a private transaction". . . He said that even though this private transaction is driving a public one!

• How Saint Ann's-connected people are deciding for the Brooklyn Heights Association that the BHA should promote the sale and shrinkage of the library.

Friday, June 26, 2015, Embarrassment of Past Riches!: Augmentation of NYC Book Space At Two Business Libraries Simultaneously- Only Recently The Brooklyn Heights Association Fought For Larger, Not Smaller Libraries.

Brooklyn Hts Blog: Who do you support?

Who then do we want to trust on this?  Do we want to trust the consistently inconsistent Brooklyn Heights Association?  Or as the Brooklyn Heights Blog asked after the 2014 Brooklyn Heights Association annual meeting: Who do you support, the BHA or Citizens Defending Libraries?

I think it's pretty clear: If the Brooklyn Heights Association wants to truly represent the community and the public interest, as is its responsibility to do, it's time for the Brooklyn Heights Association to contradict itself just one final time, changing its position to oppose the sale and shrinkage of the library, and the BHA should do so now while doing so can still have a beneficial effect on the process. . .

It would be the most consistent thing it could do and the thing most consistent with the public's interest.

Embarrassment of Past Riches!: Augmentation of NYC Book Space At Two Business Libraries Simultaneously- Only Recently The Brooklyn Heights Association Fought For Larger, Not Smaller Libraries

Click to enlarge if you dare- The Library-squashing tower that would benefit Saint Ann's private school and a developer if built, but not the public.

Do you know that in the 1990s, not so very long ago at all, New York City substantially augmented its library resources by spending to create more library space at two major central destination business libraries simultaneously?  And, if you rewind the clock, looking at one of those libraries, the Brooklyn Heights Association was in the thick of things fighting for more library space. . .

. .   Now, as fate (or the real estate industry) would have it, both of those central destination business libraries are besieged by those who would sell them, hand them out as juicy deals.

. .  And, for reasons that seem suspicious, the Brooklyn Heights Association now finds itself on the other side, advocating to shrink the library it once fought to enlarge.

The First Ever Hearing On Selling and Shrinking a Public Library- Running Into the BHA

Wednesday June 17, 2015 was the first ever hearing about selling and shrinking a NYC library, the Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn's central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza West at Tillary and Clinton, was held before the Land use Committee of Brooklyn’s Community Board 2.

Patrick Killackey, president of the Brooklyn Heigts Association now favoring the sale and shrinkage of Brooklyn's Brooklyn Heights Library.- From the Brooklyn Eagle

At the end of the hearing I approached Patrick Killackey, the new president of the board of the Brooklyn Heights Association, and told him the BHA was long overdue in following through to reconsider and change the position it took in favor of selling and shrinking the library, a reconsideration Killackey’s predecessor, Alexandra Bowie, said publicly the BHA might be willing to entertain when I questioned her as a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries at the February 24, 2015 annual Brooklyn Heights Association meeting:

"I will take that up with our library committee, which is how we operate, and if the library committee feels that it wants to revisit the question, then I will take it to the full board," Bowie said.

Bklyn Hts Blog: Who do you support?

The BHA’s original decision to support the sale and shrinkage of the library was rushed, secretive, lacking in public input and suspect in a number of ways.  We have asked the BHA to change course from the start, including at the previous, 2014 BHA annual meeting.  Back then, as well, it was very clear that public sentiment was strong on our side.

The last time I approached Mr. Killackey entreating that the BHA finally reconsider its position was at the May 9, 2015 annual Brooklyn Heights Association house tour where a majority of those on the tour wore our Citizens Defending Libraries “Don’t Sell Our Libraries” buttons.  Mr. Killackey told me then he was “off duty.”

I am sure Mr. Killackey believed I came on strong as I approached him after the hearing, and I probably did as I was very annoyed that at the hearing the BHA had just delivered inane testimony in favor of selling and shrinking the library Ms. Bowie herself standing to read it into the microphone.  Mr. Killackey may also have felt beset upon under the circumstances, because the hearing that had just concluded was packed with people.  Setting aside those people whose salaries (via the real estate industry or closely analogous situations) depended upon the testimony being in favor of a library sale and shrinkage, the hearing testimony was virtually unanimously opposed to selling and shrinking the library, leaving the Brooklyn Heights Association an odd outlier.

People told me they left the hearing more passionately opposed to the library sale and shrinkages than when they arrived.  This was after listening to Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson protest to a groaning audience that “the BPL is not in the real estate business.”  And it was after hearing the developer refuse to say what Saint Ann's school is being paid as a result of the library’s sale and shrinkage because, he averred, “it's a private transaction” . . .  even though it is driving a public one!

I told Mr. Killackey that the BHA should be meeting with Citizens Defending Libraries and that we could educate the BHA about what was wrong with their position and the way that it had been reached.  Mr. Killackey seemed insulted and told me that I didn’t know anything about him or what he already knew about the library sale.

Fighting To Properly Fund Libraries

We then got into a discussion where Mr. Killackey made the point that NYC libraries have always been underfunded and have always had to fight for funds.  I have had a number of discussions with various people recently and it seems to me that this is a talking point that people arguing for the sell-off and shrinkage of libraries are now using to contradict what we have made a point of saying: NYC libraries are being underfunded at an unprecedentedly low level as an excuse to sell them off.

The explanation for library underfunding!  It's easy to see: The generation of deals like this, the 50-story building replacing the Donnell library.  And the proposal to replicate the Donnell sale swindle with a 38-story building replacing the Brooklyn Heights Library.

If you see things the way we do then what seems to be a very hard thing to explain becomes easy to explain: You ask “why should a `progressive’ mayor be engaged in an unprecedented underfunding of the libraries in a time of plenty?” - Then you look at the huge luxury condominium tower proposed to replace the Brooklyn Heights Library, shrinking it down to one-third size, and you say that’s the answer staring me starkly in the face!  And the answer is all the more obvious when you realize that the real estate development team “lurking right behind the curtain” to build it is sending money to the mayor.  See:  Saturday, June 6, 2015, WNYC Reports Mayor de Blasio's "Furiously Raising Funds"- Including From Developers "Lurking Behind The Curtain" of Library Real Estate Sales- And WNYC's Money?

We Used To Fight For Funds To Expand Libraries: Business Libraries As Case In Point

Mr. Killackey is correct that there is a history of libraries needing to fight for their funds from the city, just as every department or entity seeking city funding fights to justify its case for funds.  But the libraries never before had to fight for funds so that underfunding wouldn’t be a reason to sell and shrink libraries.  Au contraire, in the past, libraries were fighting for funds to expand.  And fighting for funds to expand vs. fighting for funds not to sell and shrink libraries is  hardly an apples to apples comparison.

Two central destination libraries (the Downtown Brooklyn heights Library and SIBL) that were both funded at the same time, both with a special focus on business.  The facilities for library patrons were thus mightily expanded, an embarrassment of rishes.  And now both may vanish at the same time? 

Example?: A really good one is this very library that Killackey’s BHA is advocating be sold and shrunk.  In June of 1992 Crain’s New York Business was reporting about the expansion going on at this library.  The point of the article was that the BPL’s fight to fund the library was going to be more uphill because of competition as the city simultaneously went forward with another expansion of library space,  plans for the NYPL’s Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) at 34th Street in the former B. Altman’s building:

The usually subdued leadership at the Brooklyn Public Library is peeved that Brooklyn’s pre-eminent business library is being cast aside as city and state officials build a library that may duplicate work already done by Brooklyn Public.

Not to worry: Both central destination business library expansions were fully funded and completed in the end.

The BPL spent $5 million, the equivalent of nearly $10 million in today’s dollars, on its central destination Brooklyn Library.  Opened in 1962 with 90,000 books its collection was by then up, substantially, to 130,000 volumes, plus periodicals and other resource materials.  The library reopened Tuesday, October 12, 1993 in a no-cost-overrun renovation.  The library added new second floor space over two of its wings.  It involved a substantial gutting for the installation of upgraded mechanical, wiring, air conditioning and heating (an automatic system), energy efficient lighting, while providing and adding space for on-line computer services recognizing the “technological revolution.”  It alleviated what had been “a cramped atmosphere.”  (See: Heights Press: Library Reopens Next Tuesday, by Roanan Geberer, October 7, 1993 and Library Renovation is Moving Along, by Roanan Geberer, July 23, 1992.)  The Building (now 63,000 square feet) was thereby expanded “by nearly a third.” (See: The Phoenix, Expansion Work To Close Branch For 12-16 Months, Michael Armstrong, May 2-10, 1991.)

In Manhattan, SIBL moved forward to completion, opening in the spring of 1995.  It’s 160,000 square feet of new additional library space cost $100 million (consider adjusting that for an equivalent in today’s dollars).

Reverse Course On Both Business Libraries- Simultaneously?

The Crain’s June 1992 article discussed to what extent these two libraries competed with each other, duplicating services, but what library patrons got was investment and expansion of such services at both sites simultaneously.  Now, with a proposed concurrent sale of both libraries, library patrons would lose services at both locations simultaneously. . .

. .   In fact, part of SIBL has already been sold.  In 2012 the NYPL quietly sold off 87% of SIBL’s space for just $60.8 million.  What it sold off was space where books could be stored and readily retrieved from.  With the sale books disappeared from the site, most of what in the 1992 Crain’s article NYPL president Timothy Heally described as SIBL’s “overused . .  business and science collection” of 2.5 million volumes.  Librarians tell us many of these volumes now take appreciable extra time to retrieve for patrons because they are in Chicago.  According to Crain’s, SIBL was also “a depository for patents and government documents from not only the United States, but nations of the European Community.”  Similarly, the Brooklyn library enlarged in 1993 was a designated Federal Depository (and still is).

The unsold portion of SIBL that’s threatened by the NYPL’s announced intent to sell it, constitutes, just as it is all by itself, a very valuable viable library notwithstanding that so much of its book storage space has been sold off.  That’s even though SIBL now has far fewer books than the 90,000 volumes the Brooklyn library had on premises when it opened in 1962.  By contrast, in Crain’s in 1992 the NYPL bragged that SIBL’s book count was “20 times that of Brooklyn’s” and that it had “60,000 periodical titles.”

Visit SIBL at 34th Street and Madison and see what you find there.  It continues, in beautifully designed fashion, to have every imaginable resource that a library intended to provide a platform for and to work with computer resources is supposed to provide.  Although SIBL’s book count has been devastatingly diminished, it has expanses of currently empty shelves that could be refilled, this at a time when library circulation is up about 60% with almost all of that increase being physical, not digital books.

Knowledgeable About The Turnaround?

Mr. Killackey's thus-it-has-ever-been-so assertion that libraries have always had to fight for their funding with his accompanying implication that we are not now facing a new threat as their sale is blames on that underfunding, ignores that fact that throughout the Giuliani administration we were expending public funds to expand libraries.  It was only when the Bloomberg administration came in, also looking at selling off other public assets (schools, public housing, etc), that we made a 180% turnaround.  It ignores how the BPL’s minutes document that before the BPL was planning to sell libraries there was no backlog of capital library expenditures.  It ignores how the minutes of the BPL document that when the plans to sell libraries were being launched the BPL agreed with the city to defer and build up those capital repairs rather than fund them and that this was done in tandem with an effort to “strengthen the argument for” its “strategic real estate plan” to sell and shrink libraries.  All of this had been documented in Noticing New York, but Mr. Killackey seems unaware (.Sunday, August 31, 2014, Mostly In Plain Sight (A Few Conscious Removals Notwithstanding) Minutes Of Brooklyn Public Library Tell Shocking Details Of Strategies To Sell Brooklyn's Public Libraries.)

As Mr.Killackey says, I don’t know what he knows, but what he knows seems to ignore how, at approximately the same time, just after Bloomberg got his third term, he dramatically started cutting funding to libraries even as library use was increasing greatly.  The de Blasio administration, proceeding with library sales, has not restored those cuts.

When The BHA Fought For a Bigger Library and Smaller, More Contextual Buildings

too "bulky" said BHA

The expansion of the Brooklyn Heights library with the 1991-1993 construction effected an increase to the library’s space for which the Brooklyn Heights Association had been fighting for a number of years.  In 1985 when the Brooklyn Heights Association was fighting Forest City Ratner’s huge new One Pierrepont Plaza building planned for erection next to the Brooklyn library as too “bulky,” a deal was reached allowing the Ratner building greater height in exchange for cutbacks at its top and Ratner’s promise to give 12,000 square feet in the building to the library for it to expand into.  This sweetener was intended to deal with the overcrowding at the library’s adjacent site.  (See: Pact on Brooklyn Tower Reached, By Josh Barbanel, October 25, 1985.)  Ratner’s building was completed in 1988.

Library Space Promised to Sweeten Deals For Bigger Development- Not Delivered

Ratner’s 1985 offer of library space as a sweetener to induce approval for a bigger development is reminiscent of how in discussions of transforming libraries into mixed-use redevelopments there has been crass frankness about the manipulative offer of libraries as a “placating gesture” to get the public to approve greater development.  More recently, Two Trees Development offered the public 15,000 square feet of new library space in its BAM South luxury tower as sweetener for a substantial increase in the size of the permitted building, a deal handed out to it from the city by the Bloomberg administration that, like the 1985 Ratner deal, was given away without a bid.

Interestingly, Ratner apparently was never required to make good on its 1985 pact for the libray space sweetener.  Similarly, on May 27, 2007 BPL spokesman David Woloch quietly confessed to CB2’s Youth and Education Committee that instead of providing the 15,000 square feet of library sweetener space in the BAM South project once promised, Two Trees would be giving just 2,500 square feet, one-sixth of what was originally promised.  (See: Friday, February 1, 2013, City Strategy Of Withholding Basic City Services To Blackmail Public Into Accepting Bigger Development.)

The proposed luxury condominium tower that would squash the library down to one-third size dwarfs the adjacent1988 Ratner tower and has no cutbacks.

At a June 10, 2015 BPL presentation to Brooklyn's Community Board 7, Mr. Woloch assured members of the Sunset Park Community that if its library is torn down for redevelopment into a mixed-use facility there will be no bait and switch, that what is promised will be built.  The Sunset Park plans were first disclosed here in Noticing New York with the BPL catching up to give out information afterwards.  In a sense there has been a victory in that for the first time since Citizens Defending Libraries has been on the scene a library being sold is proposed to be enlarged, in this case to 20,600 square feet, virtually the same size the central destination 63,000 square foot downtown library is proposed to be shrunk to.

Illusory Promises- One Reason the BHA is Wrong
 
Unfulfilled and unenforceable promises provide a perfect segue for talking about more of what is wrong with the Brooklyn Heights Association’s position to back the sale and shrinkage of the library.  A top reason the BHA gives for selling and shrinking the library is that, “proceeds from the sale will go to the BPL, which will use them to renovate other branch libraries.”

This is wrong on a number of counts:

    1.    As one of the CB2 Land Use Committee members noted there is no way to assure that net funds, if any, would actually go to such funding of other libraries.  There is no way to track it through or assure that New York City, to whom the money would go, would actually give more money to the libraries as a result.  The city could actually just give less overall to the libraries.  There is only the vaguest idea that morally money ought to come back to the libraries, but the libraries are already funded at an immorally low level, below what was compacted with Andrew Carnegie when he gave libraries to the city.  What's more, if low funding translates this way into hand-offs to real estate developers, we are only apt to see more of this kind of low funding in the future.

    2.    The BPL is being totally untransparent about how there will be virtually no net proceeds from the sale of the library.  It may wind up with a negative cash result.  The BPL is disguising, underestimating and refusing to acknowledge the costs that must be netted out of the transaction.

    3.    The proposed self-cannibalizing sale of this library doesn’t generate resources for the library; it involves a huge loss of library resources.  It would cost $60 million to rebuild the library building.  The building together with the land there and the rights to expand for additional public uses there mean the dollar value fo the library to the public is well over $100 million, probably around $120 million. . . and yet the BPL would net virtually nothing from a sale, perhaps less than zero.  (See: Sunday, June 14, 2015, Selling a $100 Million Plus Library For What? A Pittance! More Transparency Please.)

More On Why the BHA is Off Track, Including The Saint Ann's Problem

The BHA’s testimony also includes a reference to the private Saint Ann's School in weirdly suggesting with rather out-of-the-blue belatedness that perhaps there should be some negotiation for a larger library:

Given the recent announcement that Saint Ann's School will not purchase the space originally assigned to them, we urge the Brooklyn Public Library to consider negotiating with Hudson for additional space in the building. In the event that the underground space is unsold, we welcome Hudson's plan to excavate less of the site.

If the reverse-course shrinkage of this library is truly the colossal mistake most people think it is and the library should therefore be larger, or if in the future it's determined the library should be larger because the city, borough, central business district and surrounding residential neighborhood are all growing fast (which they all are) there is a problem: Stuck in the bottom of a residential luxury tower, the library can never be enlarged afterwards.*  Yet the BHA suggests negotiating for a larger library, but is ready to just shrug if those negotiations don’t work out?  Come now!  How contradictory can you get?

(* Sunset Park has a similar problem where a no-bid. behind-the-scenes process now puts that library on track to be put in the bottom of a residential, not a commercial, building, and also precluded the use of anther better site for the expanded library.)

Perhaps more important, the BHA’s mention of Saint Ann’s School in its testimony is deceptive.  It makes it sound like Saint Ann’s was paying for the space it was getting in the building rather, than as was the case, being paid with the transfer of that space for its development rights.  Remember the developer refusing to say how much Saint Ann’s is being paid?   The BHA’s wording also makes it sound like Saint Ann’s School was no longer going to be involved in the transaction, a misleading impression the developer and BPL apparently tried to foster right before the hearing.

If fact, it must be recognized that private Saint Ann’s School is getting a substantial pay day due to the fact that because the library, a publicly owned asset, is being sold and shrunk, Saint Ann’s can sell its development rights free-and-clear without the nuisance and cost of having to demolish and reconstruct its own building.

Who were the BHA’s library deciders, that core to the BHA committee that passed its judgment that the library should be sold and shrunk in this developer-pleasing transaction?

BHA board member library deciders conferring at the June 17th hearing- Both on the BHA's library committee- Right Alexandra Bowie who delivered testimony- Left Erica Belsey Worth high-end architect and Saint Ann's parent.

Alexandra Bowie, who operated with great secrecy at the beginning, was one of them.  Some years ago when Ms. Bowie was still President of the BHA and Mr. Killackey was still an unelevated board member, my wife and I tried to express concern about what Ms. Bowie had said to us about the users of the library that came to the library from the nearby projects.  Mr. Killackey was dismissive of our concerns.

Architect and Saint Ann's parent Inger Yancey- “The Yancey's were an early founding family of Saint Ann's School.”

Other BHA board members who are library deciders for the BHA and therefore for the entire neighborhood that the BHA is suppose to represent?:  Erika Belsey Worth and Inger Yancey.  Both are architects.  Both are Saint Ann’s parents.  Ms. Belsey Worth designs for those with a more refined taste who can afford it. As for Ms. Yancey, reading the Brooklyn Eagle it is apparently a point of pride that:  “The Yancey's were an early founding family of Saint Ann's School.”   

Frankly, this is unfair and lacks proper process.

A Dead-locked CB2 Land Use Committee and A Declared End To Public Hearing Input While The Developer Continues To Lobby

After the hearing the CB2 Land Use Committee deadlocked and did not vote to approve the library sale and shrinkage.  One reason expressed by committee members was the lack of any true assurance that any funds, net or otherwise, from the sale and shrinkage would actually go back to the libraries.  That concern took hold despite the fact that the BHA blithely ignores that problem.  Another reason expressed was that the committee had previously voted not to approve any big new developments until the infrastructure problem of local school PS8, at 140% over capacity is attended to. .  It was recognized that voting to approve the transfer of the public land to build this tower would have overridden this stance established by the committee’s previous vote. . .

. . .  What we see is a worsening imbalance as we try provide the public infrastructure necessary to keep up with development as privatization of once-public assets accelerates with transfers such of these.

The deadlock was apparently unexpected, the BPL and the developer having timed their progress in requesting a vote to their belief that with behind-the-scenes lobbying they had locked up the votes they needed.

Hopefully the committee was also influenced in its vote by: The public testimony; the BPL’s total lack of transparency with respect to this and other proposed library sales; and the value of the asset being sold versus the insanely low price for which it would be sold off.

As the CB2 Land Use Committee debated its vote there was kibitzing from the some public in attendance calling attention to the fact that two of the CB2 Land Use Committee members are salaried employees of the BHA.  It was asserted that these two members should recuse themselves and not vote.  That’s an interestingly hard call to make because at that very moment those two  members seemed to be doing the right thing and making the right points about why the proposal to sell the library was a problem.  But if the two members who are employees of the BHA were to recuse themselves it could wind up in essentially the same place because a majority of affirmation votes is required for the committee to approve the sale and shrinkage and recusals, like negative votes or abstentions would all similarly subtract from that required total.

The CB2 Land Use Committee is going to be asked to vote on the proposed library sale and shrinkage yet again. 

June 12, 2015 CB2 Executive Committee meeting

At the June 12, 2015 CB2 Executive Committee meeting, CB2 Chair Shirley McRea announced that approval of the proposed sale and shrinkage of the library was being sent back to the committee referring to “an email from the board office.”  Chair McRae said that July 6th was being looked at for the date for the new committee meeting, but that they were having difficulty setting it up. Following the committee meeting she said it was planned that the full CB2 board would take up the matter July 15th.

Ms. McRae told the room:

Now the follow-up meeting to last Wednesday’s meeting, and everyone needs to be very clear on this, the public hearings are closed, There are no more hearings on the BPL.  It’s over.  It's done with.   It was done on Wednesday.  When this committee meets next it will be to do what they were supposed to. .  What should have taken place, what should have taken place at last Wednesday’s meeting without having sat there for three, four, five hours and then trying to come to some decision.  I just want everyone to be clear on that: It is not a repeat of the public hearing.  This is for the committee now to come together and do the business of the committee.

Maybe the “hearing” is technically over, but that Wednesday the 17th, immediately the hearing, the developer was lobbying the committee members to change their votes, so it is not as if the CB2 land Use Committee isn’t still hearing things from the developer.  Hopefully, they will also still be hearing things from the public and it would be nice if one of the things they hear was the Brooklyn Heights Association admitting their decision was seriously flawed and wrong and admitting to the position that we should not be selling and shrinking a valuable library for a pittance.

The BHA we should stand up with us and the rest of the community against these deals that don’t benefit the public, but do benefit private parties with private interests antagonistic to the public’s, a developer sending campaign contributions to the mayor and a private school.

Two Tom Otterness sculptures at the 14th Street Station on the A-Train.  Which way will the library struggles turn out? With book lovers on top?  Or with all our public wealth transferred to the monied interests who will dispense a few pennies as handouts?

New Images of What Developer’s Luxury Tower Would look Like When It Kicks Out Brooklyn’s Central Destination Downtown Library, Stomps It Down To 1/3rd Size

Here are some new images, released in an information dump just before Wednesday’s Hearing (the 17th) on whether the public should approve the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn's central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza West at Tillary and Clinton.

Guess what?:  The new tower is not the 20-story tower or the 30-story tower previously reported about in the press.  It seems to be 36 stories (perhaps, with super-high ceilings, the equivalent of a taller building) with leeway in its zoning envelope to grow.

Here, below, from the slick developer presentation the Brooklyn Heights Association chose to, and waited to be, a conduit of:

Here's a crop a little more in-between.

Here’s more information about Wednesday's hearing.  If you care about libraries and/or want to stand up to rapacious developers expecting our elected representatives to do their biding, not ours you should come, because you can make a difference:

Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee June 17, 2015: ULURP Hearing- First Hearing About Whether To Sell & Shrink Downtowns's Brooklyn Heights Library (Tillary & Clinton)

Meanwhile, quite relevant to what’s unfolding, there’s an article in the Brooklyn Heights Blog about Saint Ann’s, a private school, and its transfer of library development rights to this development.  Saint Ann’s is taking cash and no longer taking any property for its involvement in this transaction. 

What is reported in the Blog does NOT mean that Saint Ann's won't be benefitting from the deal, or that the benefit to Saint Ann's won't continue to HELP DRIVE this deal: Saint Ann's, selling its development rights, will still be getting very substantial cash (with which it could even subsequently buy that cultural space condominium Mr. Kramer, the developer, offers in the Blog article)- This information comes out just days before FIRST EVER hearing this Wednesday.  That hearing starts the process to decide whether public approval should be given to sell and shrink a major NYC library, this one.

Previously it appeared Saint Ann’s was getting cash and property for its development rights.  That property could have been a 20,000 square foot student theater.  Based on these calculations, that theater (of "the an absurd public rip off") might have had a value of about $41.7 million.  So what is Saint Ann’s now getting?: That ($41.7 million) plus more cash?  Maybe $50-$55 million free and clear?  While the Brooklyn Public Library nets considerably below $30 million?  Perhaps effectively less than ZERO? 

If these guesses about who is really getting the most benefit, a private school or the public, seem unfair, remember that this is information that Citizens Defending Libraries (of which I am a co-founder) has asked be disclosed by the BPL.  The BPL devoted to its infinite lack of transparency has refused to provide the information. 

Here is more recent relate NNY coverage of the library sale:

•    Sunday, June 14, 2015, Selling a $100 Million Plus Library For What? A Pittance! More Transparency Please.

•    Monday, June 15, 2015, Municipal Art Society, Once Venerable, Becomes Platform For Disseminating Misinformation Promoting Development, In this Case Backing Library Sales and Shrinkage

•    Saturday, June 6, 2015, WNYC Reports Mayor de Blasio's "Furiously Raising Funds"- Including From Developers "Lurking Behind The Curtain" of Library Real Estate Sales- And WNYC's Money?

•    Saturday, June 6, 2015, Real Estate Deal Revelations In Scott Sherman's New "Patience and Fortitude" About NYPL Central Library Plan Fight: Observer-Owning Kushner Family In At Outset of Donnell Sale