Post 27: Dysfunction and a warning

As always, with the exception of public figures, I use altered names to protect the individuals in this history.

Once all the options had been transmitted to the community boards, it was the task of CWG, according to the plan that Jay had set out for us seven years prior, to press our plan forward with action. Instead, CWG handed the future of the plan to the CB's, especially CB3 which covers the lions' share of Chinatown and all of the LES areas in the CWG plan. 

Anticipating that the complexity of CB politics and its composition that included interests beyond Chinatown and the LES areas of the plan, I warned CWG that the CB's would likely drop the ball on the plan or tear it apart, amend it or otherwise betray its intent. The CWG should pursue the plan actively and not let any other body or agency pursue it for CWG. In particular, CWG should immediately meet with DCP and begin pressing it with them. 

CWG ignored this warning. When the new DeBlasio administration rejected the plan as too ambitious, CB3 immediately gave up and dropped the ball. When the Coalition complained to CB3, the Land Use Committee told them that there was nothing CB3 could do. When the Coalition continued to complain repeatedly to CB3, the Land Use members turned on the Coalition, viewing them as irascible, irrational, and incorrigible. The Land Use members did not reflect on their own responsibility to press the plan. Instead they deflected their responsibility with their indignant anger towards the Coalition. 

This response to the Coalition was common. When Victor and Maurice of CB1 (I've altered the name) resigned from the CAPZ, NMASS wanted the CWG to force them to remain. This was not only absurd -- CWG members were volunteers, there was no contract enforcing Victor and Maurice to remain -- but also unnecessary and counterproductive, since, as I pointed out to Don, the NMASS representative at the time (I've altered the name) that in the vacuum of power in the CAPZ position, he could assume chair. Don rejected the suggestion without any explanation. At the moment when CWG should have been meeting with DCP, NMASS was completely immersed in insisting, month after month, on Victor and Maurice staying on. This incomprehensible behavior frustrated everyone at the meetings except the Coalition. It was not only distracting us from what we could have been accomplishing, but it was time-consuming, divisive, impossible, and beyond understanding. After finally leaving, Victor publicly blamed his leaving on the impossibility of working with the Coalition, a convenient cover for the real reason, which was that he was working with Extell. 

NMASS tactics have often puzzled me. I fully support them in their goals and I consider them an indispensable representative of the residents and workers who have no other organized voice. I understand the usefulness of the race card for a labor organization. Labor has no prestige and a non union labor organization has no power either. To get heard at all it has to be loud, and nothing is quite as loud as the race card. It's not a tactic I'd want to use, or have ever used, but I completely understand the usefulness and maybe even the necessity of using it to get attention, regardless whether it is used accurately or not. But I could not understand the irrational demand that Victor and Maurice remain as CAPZ co-chairs. 

One explanation may have been that the Coalition members, like most members of the CWG, didn't know the jargon and technicalities of the zoning text and so relied on people like Victor and Maurice. This was in fact why I attended CWG meetings. I knew full well that the only people in the group who understood zoning were the developers, their hired experts, and the technocrats who had no contact with and didn't understand an immigrant or low income community. It was only when CAAAV became conversant with the zoning text, I took a back seat. Until then, I felt that the group needed someone with no financial or institutional interest to monitor its activities, since a community not at all familiar, much less conversant, with zoning would be vulnerable to decisions adverse to their interests, whether those decisions reflected the intent of those with financial or institutional interests or just reflecting their lack of understanding of the LES and Chinatown community. To put it simply, I attended CWG because I felt the local community needed someone on their side with knowledge of zoning to prevent them from being misled or even hoodwinked.

Another possible explanation would be a fear that without Victor and Maurice, the plan could not be moved forward. Both of them were well connected. But since Don never gave me any reason why NMASS insisted that Victor and Maurice remain as co-chairs, I can only speculate.