BY BEN BRACHFELD
Ousted southern Brooklyn
Councilmember Chaim
Deutsch’s staff are offi cially
out of work as of Friday, July
23, leaving constituent services
further in the lurch in
the memberless district.
Deutsch was expelled from
his seat in the Council’s 48th
District — which includes
Brighton Beach, Manhattan
Beach, Sheepshead Bay,
Homecrest, and parts of Midwood
— in April after pleading
guilty to tax fraud charges.
Residents at the time worried
that constituent services,
which were known to be particularly
strong in that offi ce,
would decline in quality as the
staffers knowledgeable of the
district’s ins-and-outs were
removed. Now, the reality is
worse than they could have
imagined, said one staffer.
“We try to do our work, but
it just sucks,” said the worker,
who asked to remain anonymous
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fearing retaliation.
“There’s no response from the
agencies because there’s no
member. No matter how hard
we try, if an agency doesn’t
respond to us, we can’t hold
them accountable. We have
no member. Usually it was
the member’s job to cultivate
those relationships, hold them
accountable when they don’t
do what they’re supposed to
do. But there’s no check and
balance anymore.”
Staffers were told back in
May by the Council’s central
offi ce that they would be laid
off on July 23. Some staffers
managed to get jobs in the central
offi ce, some joined other
offi ces, and some joined campaigns
hoping to get a job with
a new member — but much of
the team will be packing their
bags come Friday afternoon.
When Deutsch left, District
48 lost its legislative teeth, but
the offi ce did keep constituent
services — such as providing
information on vaccines and
voting, helping businesses
obtain various licenses, and
helping obtain permits for different
activities.
The former-staffers technically
worked for the Council’s
central offi ce, under Community
Engagement Division
staffer and alleged Bronxite
Walter Algarin. Deutsch staffers
say that the central offi ce
is unresponsive to constituent
concerns, are unfamiliar with
local issues, and that translators
who speak the district’s
languages, like Russian, are
diffi cult for residents to reach.
“The system we use doesn’t
work, they have to call central
offi ce,” said Jack Plushnick,
Deutsch’s legislative director,
who will be laid off Friday.
“A lot of people aren’t calling
the offi ce anymore because
they think based on the messaging
Ousted Councilmember Chaim Deutsch (front). John McCarten
system that the offi ce
is closed.” He said that callers
often don’t get a response and
are asked to leave a message,
which is then emailed to the
central offi ce, though a spokesperson
for the Council Speaker
noted that the phone number
constituents can call is still
the same as it was before.
Plushnick and another
staffer said that soon after
Deutsch was expelled, staffers
from the central offi ce went to
the district offi ce and seized
the hard drives of staffers’
computers. Staffers were then
locked out of the district offi ce,
after already being locked out
of the City Hall offi ce, leaving
staffers to either work from
home or in the fi eld, and without
materials that had been left
behind at their desks, he said.
“They changed the keys, we
couldn’t go back to the offi ce,”
Plushnick said. “We were not
permitted back to the offi ce
until about three weeks ago.
Some of us last week,” Plushnick
said. “When I went there,
the place was a mess. It looked
like things were out of place.”
Plushnick attempted to
fi nd work elsewhere, serving
as campaign manager for Steven
Patzer’s unsuccessful run
for the Democratic primary in
neighboring District 47. Now,
CLEARING HOUSE
Ousted councilmember’s staff canned,
leaving constituent services in the lurch
Continued on page 14
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