今天6/4紧急动员：阻止贪腐的纽约市长出卖图书馆换取个人政治利益！

纽约剑客-3072  06/04   5382  
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时间：中午12:00点
地点：5108 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11220
Come protest the de Blasio library sales that are being criminally investigated.

SATURDAY, June 4, 2016 Noon
Press Conference and Rally About Library Sales
Sunset Park
Outside Sunset Park Library (Fourth Avenue, and 51st Street)
5108 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11220
(Take R Train to 53rd Street Stop)

Michael D.D. White and Carolyn McIntire of Citizens Defending Libraries, write:

Saturday Noon Rally in Sunset Park to Protest de Blasio Library Sales Under Criminal Investigation

Come join us. Hear our speakers. Mayor de Blasio's "pay to play" culture and his library sales are being criminally investigated. We need to speak out and make our presence felt. The Sunset Parl Library is being sold for nothing, put into a real estate deal that was planned in secret keeping the community in the dark. The Brooklyn Public Library is linking this sale to the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library now reportedly to subject of criminal investigation subpoenas of the de Blasio administration's handout of the library as a juicy deal for a developer, an inferior bidder at that, with the BPL getting back just a miniscule fraction of the library's value to the public. The Fifth Avenue Committee getting the Sunset Library without bid has worked overtime to endorse de Blasio "pay to play" Brooklyn Heights Library sale.

[Mitchel Cohen sez: The Sunset Park Library deal is being pushed by City Council member Brad Lander, who used to head the Fifth Avenue Committee before he became a City Council rep. Talk about corruption! The Fifth Avenue Committee was notorious for attacking community gardens on behalf of real estate developers who wanted the land to build housing on those sites. The Green Party defended the gardens and called out the Fifth Avenue Committee on this corrupt nonsense, at the time.]

Meanwhile, the NYPL has announce that it is talking with the de Blasio administration to turn another library into a similar real estate deal. .. .

. . . They are not saying which one, but describe it as in "northern Manhattan" (Harlem?).

It's time to say "NO!" and to get more news coverage of de Blasio's scandalous conduct selling off our libraries like we did a week ago Thursday . . .

With News Coverage About Investigated "Pay to Play" Brooklyn Heights Library Sale Brooklyn Heights "Town Hall" Wasn't What Councilman Steve Levin Wanted It To Be

Councilman Steve Levin sold out the community delivering to de Blasio an approval of the de Blasio's "Pay to Play" Brooklyn Heights Library sale. Levin surely hoped the community would forgive and forget such treachery. He also surely hopes he isn't himself a subject of the investigation. . . . At the same time Levin is still refusing to fulfill his basic bottom line obligations as a Councilman and insist on transparency about the library sale, something that is important, even now after those dirty deeds.

The community is NOT forgetting! Levin sent out an announcement inviting everyone to a "Brooklyn Heights Town Hall" for the community to "share thoughts on issues facing the community" and headlining it as somehow theoretically a most important thing: "the introduction of new litter baskets to the area." Really?

What Levin got was News12 TV coverage of our library defenders at the Town Hall demanding transparency from Levin and investigation of the "pay to play" sale.

You can catch the News 12 coverage here:
News12 Brooklyn: Critics want probe into "pay to play" developments, May 26, 2016

http://brooklyn.news12.com/news/critics-want-probe-into-pay-to-play-developments-including-brooklyn-heights-library-proposal-1.11845942


We also link to it with pictures here where we also have the new front page Heights Press coverage of the de Blasio administration being on the defensive about the investigation plus the recent AM New York coverage opining that the Brooklyn Heights Library should not be sold ( Library-condo deal heightens mayor's plight- By Liza Featherstone June 1, 2016.)
Subpoenas Are Issued By US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance In Investigation of de Blasio's Apparent `Pay to Play' Sale of Brooklyn Heights Library

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/05/subpoenas-are-issued-by-us-attorney.html

At the event Senator Montgomery distributed pictures of the event she recently held with us at Truth Park, part of the library property de Blasio wants to give to the developer. Congresswoman Valaaquez's letter objecting to the termination of the Brooklyn Heights Library's Federal Depository functions was read by her representative.

Interestingly, there was some confusion at the Town Hall. Despite Levin's announcement inviting all to attend, they were fearful the library issue would supersede all others in importance and initially wanted to restrict entry to the town hall to the residents of three co-op buildings, which would still have wound up with multiple library defenders present that evening including one interviewed by News12.

Here is an interesting inside baseball fact: When Levin circulated his announcement of the Town Hall he (unwittingly) accompanied it with an old picture of the headquarters of CDL, a building that is also the residence of the one of the BHA's most fervent supporters (and testifiers for) the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library.

Tuesday's Historic District's Council Award to Library Defenders (including Citizens Defending Libraries specifically), New Yorkers for a Human Scale City (a coalition of which CDL is a part), and a Lifetime Achievement Award to Bevery Moss Spatt

Tuesday, May 24th was quite a day. . .

. . . We hope to report about the HDC award night more fully and add to the pictures up. You can go here for now:
Tuesday, May 24, 2016, Historic District's Council Award to Library Defenders Including Citizens Defending Libraries

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/05/historic-districts-council-award-to.html

Just briefly-
• There was a lot of focus on the libraries at tthe Historic District Council awards evening event, particularly the Brooklyn Heights Library fight and new developments in regard thereto.
• There was much talk in the various addresses to the audiences about the Federal investigation re Brooklyn Heights

• The introduction for the award to the library groups (by Jeffrey Kroessler) was spot-on and astute in framing the issues and also had a nice focus on the way that BPL trustees in place at the BPL are largely antithetical to its mission.
• New Yorkers for a Human Scale New York also got an award which was a nice tie-in since it was only slightly more than two weeks ago we did the City hall steps press conference with them asking for the Preet investigation we just got word has now surfaced.
• Beverly Moss Spatt got a lifetime achievement award along with us and part of her introduction was the reading aloud to the audience of a letter she had published in the New York Times opposing the sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library (one we actually have up on our website.)
• Of course it was also important to tie this all in with the new NYPL Harlem Library sale, Pacific Street, Sunset Park, Central Library Plan, SIBL, Donnell, etc. Connect all the dots.

In short, it was a very valuable evening that will be significant in helping us continue the fight we need. Also, without naming names, we want to recognize with great thanks that there were angels at the event who have been important, financially and otherwise, in accomplishing some of the things we have needed to accomplish in some of our very critical fights, contributing significantly to our victories.

Mystery About Why Libraries Are Being Sold

Solve this mystery! It doesn't appear that the impetus for closing and selling libraries in London, England is to hand out real estate deals. The local council said that libraries were being closed to "save money". . . . BUT it turns out that closing the libraries has cost up to three times as much per day as keeping them open because private guards cost more than the librarians.

So why are England's local elected officials targeting libraries and shutting them down?
The Guardian: Council closed libraries to cut costs, then spent more to guard them- Security at closed libraries in Lambeth, south London, cost up to three times as much as the price of keeping them open. By Peter Walker, May 22, 2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/22/lambeth-council-closed-libraries-security-guards

HBO Vice Episode on Surveillance

If you didn't catch it the most recent HBO Vice episode "State of Surveillance- Can Anyone Truly Protect Their Private Information Online in 2016?," it features Edward Snowden in its reporting on just how completely everyone's smart phone ensures that they are easily trackable through the internet. Not mentioned was anything about electronic books or the zones of privacy we might want libraries to extend to us.

Really Strange! What Does or Doesn't She Know?: Michelle Obama "Honors" the Brooklyn Public Library

The Brooklyn Public Library was just honored by First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House on June 1st?

Really? The same BPL that is selling and shrinking the Brooklyn Heights Library in a "pay to play" de Blasio deal that's being investigated and the same BPL that is leveraging all of its libraries in real estate deals under a "strategic real estate plan" it insists on keeping secret?

The same BPL that is setting up its own award contests to reeducate librarians to unlearn what they learned in library school and learn, instead to think of themselves as "project managers" forming "partnerships" with the private sector?

Does first lady Obama know, or not know this? Isn't this award a cover for the BPL to continue doing more harm to the public? What PR lobbyist (Berlin Rosen?) was tasked with going out to finagle this award?

And speaking of first ladies in the White House, let's remember that former first lady Hillary Clinton now has her national campaign headquarters in Forest City Ratner property that is actually party of the same real estate development parcel as the Brooklyn Heights Library. We've asked her to oppose its (now investigated) sale. . . .And no word from her.

Hope For the Future: Last Wednesday's Student "Don't Sell Our Libraries" Rally

We will leave you with some encouragement, students rallying to save our libraries. Lynn Rosen reopened the amazing PS 135 school library. The students are passionate about wanting libraries to be protected. The picture gallary is here with video to be added:
down?
PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: June 3, 2016 Student Don't Sell Our Libraries Rally at Brooklyn's PS 135

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/06/photo-video-gallery-june-3-2016-student.html

Thank you for caring about your libraries. There is hope and courage in protecting public libraries and assets for the good of all. There is no courage or caring in selling them for private gain.

Citizens Defending Libraries
http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite@aol.com




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