Borough-based jail plan fails first test as community board rejects recommendation
In a decision that came down to a single vote, Brooklyn Community Board 2 decided not to support a modified version of the city’s plan to expand the Brooklyn Detention Complex Wednesday night, after a contentious meeting where the board’s chairman threatened to have rowdy community members escorted out by security.
It was an important first test for the borough-based jail plan, which would see four new jails rise, including the one in Boerum Hill, to allow for the closure of Rikers Island. Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 is the first of four community boards to vote on any of the new jails. The other community boards — the Bronx’s CB1, Manhattan’s CB1 and Queens’ CB9 — will vote later this month. The board in Queens is likely to follow suit; a committee voted against the plan on April 23 and earlier this year the full board demanded the process stop in its tracks.
“This sets a precedent for everyone else,” said CB2 board member Sam Johnson, who voted no on the recommendation. “The no means something. There’s a lot of people saying no because they don’t want a facility of this magnitude, whether it be from a NIMBY perspective or a human rights perspective,” she said.
The board’s vote is purely advisory, and it voted not to recommend support for the proposal rather than to make a specific recommendation against the project. When the proposal ends up in front of the council, the councilmember whose district includes the project tends to follow the recommendation of the community board, and the rest of the council often follows suit.