Dennis Holt And Trudy Whitman
School Issue Raised at Recent Community Board 6 Hearing
BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK — A meeting to be held next Monday evening at 5 p.m. at Polytechnic University to discuss the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the proposal to build Brooklyn Bridge Park is not likely to be the usual detailed, orderly occasion, many observers say.

The following developments have taken place within the past several days:

• Organizations and web site addresses opposing the park are springing up everywhere. There are Friends of Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund and an e-mail address “Save the Park @gmail.com.�

• People have been overheard in public talking on cell phones discussing strategy and tactics for opposing the park, or elements of the park plan, including one person bringing up the absence in the DEIS of the possible extension of the Clark Street subway platform for pedestrian access to the park.

• Some members of the above-mentioned groups have been talking about a lawsuit or suits whose objective is to either significantly delay or to prevent the building of the park as it is currently planned.

• The Willowtown Association, which has passed a resolution discouraging board members or others from communicating to the press on board issues (although there is no board at the moment), has encouraged others to tap into the web site of a community newspaper “which has extensively covered the criticism of [the park] Conservancy.�

• That newspaper has come under attack from a variety of community leaders for its reporting on the issue, leading one of them to say, “I, for one, am growing weary of having to clean up after this reporter’s messes.�

It is probable that unresolved park elements — noise attenuation and the design of entrances, to name two — will be advanced as reasons to delay further park development.

Many Meetings
Meetings have been the order of the day. Opponents of the park have been meeting in the Cobble Hill community room on Baltic Street; the Park Conservancy held a meeting last week with neighborhood and community organizations to bring them up to date; as this paper is going to press, the Park Development Corporation is meeting with its Community Advisory Council; and then there is the September 19 meeting.

CB 6 Session
Before a meeting of Community Board 6 this past Monday night, Roy Sloane of Community Board 6, who is also active in the Cobble Hill Association, sent an e-mail to all Association members. He said, “No one should let the developers get away with this corrupt hijacking of the taxpayers’ dollars.� A goal of that meeting, held this Monday, was to get Community Board 6 to put itself on record opposing the current park plan. Sloane even offered people prepared testimony to read into the record. However, no resolution on the park was offered, although many speakers expressed their views against the plan. Speakers included members of the Cobble Hill Association, Willowtown Association, Fort Greene Association and the Sierra Club.

One new concern raised was that the Department of Education plans no new school to accommodate families of the planned new buildings. (On that question, the DEIS finds the existing P.S. 8 and P.S. 29 underutilized and capable of absorbing the increase.)

The only public official present, City Councilman David Yassky, called the park a valuable amenity, but called the DEIS “misguided.� He suggested that the residential component should be scaled back one-third and the revenue made up from other sources.

Issue of Recreation
Supporters of the park plan are expected, among other things, to rebut opponents’ claims that the new park plan eliminates most recreational facilities found in earlier plans for the park. Plan supporters point to the inclusion of courts for basketball, volleyball and handball, as well as three playgrounds and four acres for soccer, field hockey and other sports.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2005
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