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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JANUARY 12, 2020
LOCKED OUT!
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
City Hall must be more transparent
about its plans to demolish
the Brooklyn House of Detention
and rebuild a larger lockup in its
place, local civic leaders said Friday.
“They haven’t been transparent
and we don’t want to respond,
we want to be part of the decision
making,” said Sandy Balboza of
the local advocacy group Atlantic
Avenue Betterment Association.
“They call it a borough jail — this
is a neighborhood jail, this is in
our neighborhood.”
Offi cials with Mayor Bill de
Blasio’s Offi ce of Criminal Justice
and the Department of Corrections
took the Atlantic Avenue jail out of
operation around mid-December,
when they moved all 390 detainees
there to other facilities in Manhattan,
the Bronx, and Rikers Island.
Throughout that process, city
reps met with the Neighborhood
Advisory Committee — a group of
local civic leaders and stakeholders
— on Dec. 13, and then with Community
Board 2’s Land Use Committee
on Dec. 18, but didn’t tell
either group that the facility had
already moved out its detainees
and effectively ceased operations.
The city would ultimately wait until
Jan. 2 to announce the closing
through a Brooklyn Paper report,
without alerting local civic gurus.
“I am disappointed to be learning
these milestones from the media,”
said Community Board 2’s
District Manager Rob Perris.
Council approved de Blasio’s
land use application on Oct. 17
to construct four jails in all borough’s
except Staten Island — part
of the city’s $8.7 billion plan to close
Rikers Island by 2026, which came
with assurances from First Deputy
Mayor Dean Fuleihan that offi
cials would regularly meet with
the communities surrounding the
new jail sites.
Without regular updates, civilian
watchdog groups cannot
anticipate the impact of construction,
and not monitor spending to
ensure that billions of dollars in
taxpayer funds are used appropriately,
according to one local civic
honcho.
“All of Brooklyn will be interested
to know when they close
Atlantic Avenue, State Street or
Boerum Place — it’ll be a mess,”
said the Boerum Hill Association’s
president Howard Kolins.
Kolins went on to claim that
private developers have been operating
with great transparency and
with more open lines of communication
than his own government,
saying constructing fi rms such as
Alloy Development offer to connect
local civic leaders to company
liaisons, who do a good job of picking
up the phone.
“Nearby residents have the cellphone
number of the construction
manager, people are very accessible
and that’s very appreciated,”
he said.
Now Balboza is demanding
more than just regular presentations
Boerum Hill civic leaders slammed Mayor de Blasio for not being transparent
enough with his plans to close the House of Detention. Photo by Zoe Freilich
— she wants a seat at the table
— and says the city should create
some apparatus for advocates
to provide meaningful oversight of
the jail’s construction and its criminal
justice initiatives, including
expanded pretrial services and
programs designed to divert people
away from incarceration.
“We’re looking for a way the
community can participate and
not just sit down and listen to a presentation,”
she said.
A spokeswoman for Mayor de
Blasio did not immediately return
a request for comment.
Locals slam mayor for lack of jail transparency
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