Bushwick CB Chair Pushes Back on Lower Cyclist Penalties
Long-time CB4 chairperson Robert Camacho (center right) sent a letter to the borough president’s office in protest after fellow board members proposed lessening penalties for cyclists.
By Jacqueline Cardenas | news@queensledger.com
BUSHWICK — As neighbors settled into tables draped in red plastic tablecloths at the Hope Garden Senior Center for Brooklyn Community Board 4’s monthly meeting, Chairperson Robert Camacho read aloud a letter he received from the Brooklyn Borough President’s office.
Camacho said the letter was sent in response to his concern that the Environmental Protections/Transportation/Sanitation + Parks and Recreation Committee had “overstepped” its authority by proposing, without community input, a resolution to decriminalize cyclists who run traffic lights.
The resolution would allow cyclists to pay off traffic summonses instead of going to court, similar to car drivers.
According to the letter read Wednesday evening, the borough president’s office said the matter did not warrant investigation because it involved internal board procedures and showed no violation of the City Charter.
The resolution later sparked debate over how community input should be gathered to ensure a range of concerns are heard before decisions are made.
Some community members suggested door-knocking or leafleting could be a way to collect input, though Anne Guiney, Economic Development + Housing and Land Use Committee Chairperson, maintained that the board cannot be “naive about how hard and how important community engagement is.”
“We have to be so clear eyed about this, about individual capacity, group capacity, board capacity, the Board Office is understaffed right now, and we’ll probably be understaffed for a minute,” Guiney said during the public comment period.
She also questioned what the parameters of door-knocking would be.
Anne Guiney suggested that requiring extensive door-knocking for ever proposal was unrealistic, giving the volunteer board’s capacity.
“If we are relying on the board staff again, like, do you do a block? Do you do 20 blocks? Do you do 80 blocks? Like, Bushwick is big,” Guiney said.
District Manager Celestina León said she encourages people who want to knock on doors to do so but she can also send mail to everyone’s home on specific blocks.
“I’m happy to see if the board has the budget to do that, and I think that that’ll eliminate that issue,” León said. “It’s always been an option. It’s just never been one that the board has recommended for anything because we haven’t had particularly contentious hearings.”
“We all know that community outreach can be an imperfect process,” León added. “The only way that we can improve is by having just very clear standards and expectations for how the board wants to act and how they would like for the district office to support that.”
But not everyone agreed with Camacho’s belief that the committee had overstepped the community board’s authority in the first place.
“There are quite a few New York City community boards that pass resolutions that advise and ask the city for resources or for certain policy changes, and that’s what this recommendation was,” said community member Jason Gertz. “I don’t believe that there’s anything in the charter or in our bylaws that contra-indicates that.”
The back-and-forth at CB4 mirrors similar debates at community boards throughout the borough — including a discussion at CB6 over a proposed “Low-Traffic Neighborhood” in Gowanus late last year.
Gertz said he didn’t believe it was “fair” for Camacho to say there was “insufficient community input.”
“It’s not just six people on a committee that voted on this resolution,” Gertz said. “It was the entire board that voted on this resolution, and there were members of the public who spoke on this matter, and quite a few members of the board that spoke on this matter.”
Ben Tocker, Chairperson of the Environmental Protections/Transportation/Sanitation + Parks and Recreation Committee, said many residents are unaware of committee-level actions until they reach the full board and suggested that contentious resolutions should be presented at the full board or at both levels.
Tucker suggested this because he said he believes community members “would be [more] inclined to come here at the full board level and not necessarily the committee level, to share their feedback.”
The office of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso did not respond to the Brooklyn Star’s request for comment regarding the decision not to probe into CB4’s internal board procedures.