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June 08, 2006
Carrion's revenge
Remember when Bronx Community Board 4 voted 16-8 last November to oppose the New York Yankees stadium project, and local residents exulted, "We beat the Bronx machine"? Well, the stadium may have been approved regardless, but the Bronx machine apparently hadn't forgotten the slight - on Tuesday, members of the board learned that borough president Adolfo Carrion had booted CB4 chair Ade Rasul and several other longtime board members for their role in the stadium nose-thumbing. (Rasul had actually backed the plan, but apparently not fervently enough for Carrion's tastes.)
"This whole thing is truly shameful," CB4 member Lukas Herbert, who still has a year to go on his board term, told me in an interview for the Village Voice website. "It's an unpaid advisory board where everyone's a volunteer, and some of these people have over 20 years of experience. To have the borough president kick them off the board simply over a one-issue disagreement is absolutely disgusting."
FYI, just learned it was four board members (out of nine up for reappointment) who got bounced: Ade Rasul (board chair), Gertrude Lane (voted against the stadium), Louise Williams (likewise), and Marie Stroud (who no one can remember what she did, and there was no roll-call vote so no official records exist).
Posted by Neil on June 9, 2006 10:14 AM