Brooklyn Mystery: Why Won't Albany Pay the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods???

Way back when, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods was promised $100,000 to report on the Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards. The group did a good job of coordinating the "community expert review" of a terribly complex document and was vigilant in monitoring what some would say was a deeply flawed process. It turns out they were never paid. (Norman Oder digs into the issue on his Atlantic Yards Report here and there is an item on No Land Grab as well.)

The Council includes cornerstones of the Brooklyn civic and neighborhood world: the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, Boerum Hill Association, Boerum Hill For Organic Development, Brooklyn Bears Community Garden, Brooklyn Vision Foundation Inc., Cambridge Place Action Coalition, Clermont/Greene Ave Block Association, Dean Street Block Association, Develop Don't Destroy-Brooklyn, East Pacific Block Association, Fans For Fair Play, Fifth Avenue Committee, Fort Greene Association, New York Preservation Alliance, North Flatbush Business Improvement District, Park Slope Civic Council, Park Slope Greens, Park Slope Neighbors, Pratt Area Community Council, Prospect Heights Action Coalition, Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, Sierra Club-Atlantic Chapter, Society for Clinton Hill, South Portland Avenue Block Association and the Warren Street St. Marks Community Garden

Now, the group has started a campaign among each of its members to contact elected officials in Albany to find and turn over the money that has "disappeared" or that was made to vanish by political opponents such as former Assem. and Atlantic Yards supporter Roger Green. The letter reads in part:

CBN needs your help immediately. As you have read in the local papers and as we have discussed at our meetings, CBN was promised $100,000 from the New York State Assembly last year to fund our report on the Environmental Impact Statement of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project. The report is finished and being used by many officials, including the State Assembly but the promised funds have not been forthcoming...

Some of the sample text:

The Assembly appreciated that the scope and complexity of this analysis would require the use of environmental experts working on the community’s behalf when it originally approved the CBN funding. Based on these assurances CBN contracted a team of consultants who produced an excellent series of reports in a completely transparent manner. The work has been done and is being used by the Legislature. It is unconscionable that the funding has not yet been made available.

Hopefully, a public airing of what would seem to be a hardball political payback will help resolve the situation so that everyone that did good faith and top-notch work analyzing the Atlantic Yards document will be paid.