To Battery Park City Residents: Renters & Condo Owners, and other Stakeholders:
As you may be aware serious concerns have been raised about recent decisions of the Battery Park City Authority Board and how they are adversely effecting our neighborhood.
Yesterday’s BroadsheetDAILY article, Many Voices, One Refrain, read in conjunction with the January 19, 2016 Dwellers or Donors? article, in The Broadsheet does a great job of summarizing the issues. Many of us long-time residents of BPC have had enough, so we have joined together to demand Democracy for Battery Park City – Democracy4BPC.org
As a first step, we believe that having local residents and business-owners appointed to the BPCA Board would go a long way towards mending the disastrous relationship BPC has with the Battery Park City Authority. That is what our Petition to Governor Cuomo asks for.
It is important to note that this is not the first time Battery Park City has called on a governor to stop the taxation without representation. In fact, this month is the tenth anniversary of Community Board 1 first enacting a Resolution calling for greater community representation on the BPC Authority. But having said this before is not a reason not to say it again.
And there are several very good reasons for saying it again now:
* We’ve just been through a year of bad decisions by BPCA, such as the marina decision, and opening access to the ball fields to outside groups and issuing quarterly permits only, and firing Tessa Huxley, and bringing in Allied Barton Security.
* Every one of these decisions was made in defiance of the expressed will of the community, and our Community Board, and our elected officials.
* We have reached a tipping point where we can no longer continue with business as usual. We all need to yell: “We are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore.”
And the time is right to renew this push for other reasons:
* Our elected officials have recently joined us in calling for a majority of BPCA board seats to go to residents and stakeholders
* Senator Daniel Squadron’s call in November, 2015 to shut down the BPCA and transfer it to City control has definitely got the Governor’s attention
* The Battery Park City Homeowner’s Coalition is on record a supporting BPCA board seats or residents
* We got some great news at the January 26, 2016 Community Board 1 Full Board Meeting: Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Deborah Glick introduced a Bill that would require Governor Cuomo to appoint local residents to a majority of the seats on the BPCA Board.
Senator Squadron spoke at the meeting as well, saying in part: “…the good news is that it takes a relatively small number of deeply committed citizens to impact the narrative. If residents of Battery Park City and CB1 in general get together and make a really big push here, create a petition, begin a local movement with organic support here, it can make a huge difference, in some ways more than the elected officials.”
* In less than 1 week, Democracy4BPC.org already has over 350 signature! Our goal is to get the majority of the 13,000+ residents of Battery Park City to sign!
By signing the Petition at Democracy4BPC.org you will be joining the chorus of voices calling for greater local representation on the BPCA board, and together we can take a first step toward fixing what has become a deeply dysfunctional relationship.
If you are on-board, share the link with your friends and neighbors. Let’s keep up the pressure and the momentum!
Sign the Petition: Democracy4BPC.org
(See also our Facebook Page: Democracy 4 BPC fka Save the Winter Garden Staircase).
Thank you,
Democracy 4 BPC
Justine Cuccia, Crystal Aurnhammer, Sarah Cassell, Maryanne Braverman