Stigiano CB4 Brooklyn opposes 501
Giovanni Stigiano, board member at Brooklyn CB4, opposes Intro 501, arguing the district manager's institutional knowledge is critical especially as term-limited members depart. He warns the bill would cripple the board's ability to hold city agencies accountable in a neighborhood experiencing gentrification and nightlife growth.
Good afternoon to the committee, Chair Brewer, and the rest of those that have testified today.
My name is Giovanni Stigiano, and I am a community board member with Brooklyn Community Board 4.
To amplify the sentiments of the other community boards that have testified today, in addition to my direct district manager, Celestina Leon, and our chairperson, Robert Camacho.
I'm also lending testimony against Intro 501.
Our district manager is extremely knowledgeable, has a ton of institutional knowledge that is valuable to our community board.
And unlike other community boards in that, particularly where waiting, they are, you know, waiting lists.
To join the community board.
That's not something that we really experienced in Brooklyn CD4.
And that's something that's experienced in other Brooklyn community boards.
Because of the loss that we're going to be experiencing next year with our chairperson, who is now term limited,
It would, like the passing of this bill would severely cripple our community board because
as most of the people that are joining don't have any institutional knowledge or the knowledge that they do have of city agencies, city laws, just policies in general are minimal and very specific.
We depend greatly on our district manager.
For information.
She is always, she's very quick to give us information, very quick to answer our questions, and very quick to keep us accountable.
This intro really is kind of like a power grab, and I just don't feel like it's appropriate to have somebody, you know, a president or anybody
to have the ability to remove a district manager because the process already exists to remove them if the community board so chooses.
It's unnecessary, and I think that it would have implications and ramifications in the future that things right now that we wouldn't even be able to anticipate.
So I would hope that this bill also just stops here and it doesn't move on any further because, again, the processes exist to already remove a district manager.
And if that happens in our Brooklyn Community Board 4, many of our knowledgeable members are also 10 million and leaving next year.
We won't have.
The ability or the efficacy to continue the work that we do on our committees.
We won't have quorum.
We won't be able to
Hold city government and city agencies accountable, especially in a neighborhood like ours, Bushwick, that is, you know, it's still experiencing gentrification.
It's still experiencing hostility from landlords.
It's having a tremendous growth in nightlife, concentrated in a single area, something that the state liberal authority, you know, honestly doesn't give.
Two thoughts about it.
And our borough president is like up, you know, he might be in Congress, you know, like he's on his way out.
We don't know what state of politics we're going to be getting into in the next coming years.
You need to wrap up.
It's really important that we continue to have our district manager at our community board.
So thank you so much for your time.