BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Criticizing the leadership of Community Board 3 apparently comes at a steep price.
Ayo Harrington, an outspoken member who accused Gigi Li, the board’s chairperson, of a pattern of failing to appoint black and Latino members to C.B. 3 leadership positions, received a letter this week telling her she had not been reappointed to the East Village board.
Harrington — who is black and whose request for a committee chairpersonship was rebuffed — was not the only board member to make the complaint, but she became the loudest voice calling for reform.
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer conducted an Equal Employment Opportunity investigation into the charge, which ultimately found it to be “unsubstantiated,” as The Villager reported in January after obtaining the final report through a Freedom of Information Law request.
The report stated that Li had not chaired the board long enough, just one year, nor made enough appointments, six, to have established a “consistent pattern” of failing to appoint qualified blacks and Latinos.
The report was so heavily redacted that every single name was crossed out of it — which, the Borough President’s Office said, was done to protect individuals’ privacy since the complaint didn’t pan out.
Nevertheless, the report did find that Li and the board’s leadership “failed to sufficiently emphasize the value of diversity and inclusion.”
However, now, after only serving on the board for a quick cup of coffee — the minimum one two-year term — Harrington has not been reappointed. Brewer announced her Manhattan community board appointments this week.
There was no clarification coming from her office on the decision on Harrington.
“The Manhattan Borough President’s Office does not comment on the specifics of individual community board appointments,” a spokesperson stated.
The Villager, though, asked how this situation — if any ever did — does not clearly warrant an explanation, since Harrington had been such a high-profile critic of how Li ran the board, to the extent that it even led to a full-fledged probe by Brewer’s office.
But the B.P.’s office would say nothing more.
For her part, Harrington said, she felt that at least she had started to make some improvements in the board’s culture.
In a statement to The Villager, she said, “I am satisfied with my work on C.B. 3, which, among other contributions, resulted in African Americans being appointed to leadership positions. However, not one Latino has been appointed, which remains a problem.
“Several people have said my not being reappointed sends a wrong and disturbing message.”
But, personally, she said, she remains undaunted, and the snub won’t dampen her activism.
“I have never needed a status quo platform or sought permission to work on issues of concern in my community or anywhere else,” Harrington declared. “So, for me, nothing changes.”
Harrington is president of the All the Way East Fourth St. Block Association, a member of Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens (LUNGS) and a former member of the social-justice, a cappella singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock.
As for why the borough president didn’t reappoint her, word is that Harrington was told that “the number of people who applied to C.B. 3 was larger than for every other Manhattan board.”
Li and Harrington were said to have been getting along pretty well after the investigation concluded. Maybe not BFF’s, but they’ve been cordial to each other.
Li did not respond to a request for comment.
Community boards are each composed of 50 volunteer members. Half of these members are appointed by the B.P., and the other half by local councilmembers, with half of the board members up for reappointment every two years.
Harrington was appointed by former Borough President Scott Stringer, and had remained a B.P. appointee under Brewer.
The two councilmembers who have members on C.B. 3 — Margaret Chin and Rosie Mendez — had no inkling Harrington was going to be axed, according to a Chin spokesperson and Mendez.
“This is a decision made by the Borough President’s Office,” stated Sam Spokony, Chin’s communications director.
Asked if Chin and Brewer had talked about it beforehand, Spokony said, “I’m not aware of any discussions that took place.”
The political wisdom is that Li is Chin’s protégé, being groomed to run for her seat on the Council — or possibly for another elected office — someday.
Harrington was co-president of Coalition for a District Alternative in 2013, the East Village’s leading political organization, when CoDA declined to endorse Councilmember Chin for re-election in her Democratic primary race versus Jenifer Rajkumar.
Meanwhile, over the past year, Mendez and Harrington have stood shoulder to shoulder at demonstrations to demand that the old P.S. 64, at 605 E. Ninth St. (the former CHARAS / El Bohio Cultural and Community Center) be restored as a community center instead of being renovated by Gregg Singer into a private university dormitory.
In an interview Wednesday, Mendez told the newspaper that what she’s had to deal with in her district lately has been daunting and all consuming: namely, the nightmare March 26 Second Ave. gas explosion that leveled three buildings and killed two men; small businesses suffering due to that calamity and in general; and a rape in a bar bathroom in the northern part of her district by a sex offender from the Bellevue Men’s Shelter on E. 30th St.
“No, I have not spoken to the borough president about Ayo not being reappointed,” she said.
Asked if she had any feelings about it, Mendez said, “I don’t feel one way or the other. I’ve been overwhelmed with all the issues in my district right now. … I would never think to tell the borough president who she can or can’t appoint.”
At the end of the day, community board appointments always seem to boil down to pure politics.
Harrington’s term runs through the end of this month, and she does plan to attend Tuesday night’s full-board meeting at C.B. 3. Word has it she’s undecided if she’ll make any statement of her own about being summarily booted off the board — but that she’s definitely hoping some other members will speak to the issue.
Anne Johnson, a former C.B. 3 chairperson and a Harrington ally, would only say, “My comments will be forthcoming soon.”
One C.B. 3 member spoke on condition of anonymity, claiming he was now fearful to talk openly after what happened to Harrington.
“For a government official to take an action that is decidedly nonprogressive — Gale is too smart not to know that this action would have a chilling effect,” he said. “And that raises the question if that wasn’t her intent, then.”
