Chapter 3: A Year of Turmoil and Transformation at Manhattan Community Board 5
In which my community board faces more scandal and elects a Chair
All takes are my own and not the views of Manhattan Community Board 5.
From the last two posts, you might remember that CB5 had had the same chair for 15 years (Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2 here). Nikki ruled the CB with an iron fist, and she resigned in February. It seemed like there would be a peaceful transfer of power to another seasoned CB5 leader who would lead in Nikki’s image. But then a series of shocking resignations polarized the board and rendered its new leader, Badminton, victim to an unruly board. Right when it seemed that Nikki’s institution would regain strength, their pick for Chair got kicked off the board. We’re set to vote for a new Chair. In the midst of all this tumult, CB5 is also about to weigh in on the biggest citywide rezoning since 1961.
And if my first two chapters of this saga didn’t convince you to apply to your community board yet, Chapter 3 definitely will.😅 Here’s the application for Manhattan— due next Friday Feb 28!
Scandal unveiled days before Chair election
Ten days before we were set to vote for CB5 Chair and other leadership positions, The City published an article about Nikki, Mr. Permits, PTA President, and Versailles, all former CB5 leaders who either quit or were kicked off in the last couple months. The article reveals they violated CB5 financial protocols and possibly engaged in conflicts of interest.
A little background: Versailles ran for Assembly back in 2022– you remember her: she’s French and into preserving historic buildings. She quit CB5 right before she was about to become Vice Chair. Anyway, when Versailles ran for Assembly, one of her main platforms was that she opposed the Penn Station redevelopment. At the time, her campaign received donations from local property owners opposing redevelopment. That makes sense– that’s how campaigns work, they get money from people who stand to gain from the candidate’s policies. However, she also led CB5's Penn Station taskforce, and what this new article uncovered is that her taskforce solicited an anonymous donation. The anonymity of the donation is the weird part. Since the source and purpose were unclear, there could be a conflict if the donation influenced CB5’s policy recommendations affecting those same property owners that funded Versailles’s Assembly campaign.
The article also shed light on the timeline that might have influenced some of the resignations. Counsel to the Borough President’s office talked with Mr. Permits and Versailles about the Penn Station taskforce a week before they both unexpectedly quit.🤨
This information surfaced a week before we voted for leadership of the community board. But the only person involved in the anonymous donation who was still on the board was 30 Rock. He was the Board’s Treasurer, and was running to keep the Treasurer position. You remember 30 Rock– he worked at 30 Rock and lived on the Upper West Side.
One might have expected that this article would affect polarization on the board one way or the other. It could either dissipate the tension, since it uncovered new facts that complicated the “developers and special interests” narrative. Or it could have amped up the pressure, since it directly scrutinized the integrity of the group that was leading the community board. From my perspective though, the article didn’t make much of a splash either way. The thing affecting polarization more at the moment was the campaigning that was happening, leading up to the election. Everyone who was running for a leadership position was sending emails, making calls, having coffees, to convince members they were the best candidate. And candidates were trying to make the case that they were the best choice to bring the board back to a productive state, where CB5 isn’t in the news every day, where we’re not spending hours arguing about who should lead a meeting, and where we look like a functional group of people who are qualified to weigh in on policy issues.
The election
Since PTA President got kicked off the community board, someone else had to run against Badminton for Chair. Enter Limestone. Limestone led the Landmarks committee with Versailles until she resigned. I serve on the Landmarks committee, so the first conversation I remember having with Limestone was early in my tenure at CB5 and the committee was debating the use of limestone on a particular building. While Limestone and I often disagree on historic preservation, we do so respectfully, and he chairs meetings effectively.
The election took place at our full board meeting, which started with public comment. Anyone can give public comment, including CB5 members, so I took a couple minutes to share why I was planning to vote for Badminton as Chair. I shared about how when I started on CB5, the culture was unanimity and order above all else, which came at the expense of members being able to voice their perspectives. I shared about how I’d seen positive change since Badminton became Chair, how he made committee discussions more inclusive, and how, should he be re-elected, he would give members more choice on what committees they serve on.
In the end though, I think too many members associated Badminton’s time as leader with the polarization and environment of distrust that he was thrust into. Not to mention the negative news environment. Many community board members really didn’t want to be in the media anymore. All of that led to Badminton losing to Limestone, by just 4 votes.
Notably, Limestone will continue policies that started under Badminton’s leadership, like allowing CB5 members to discuss policies in committees that they’re not assigned to. Limestone is leading a new era of CB5– one where there’s more member voice and choice than under Nikki. This new phase does come with a little conflict. But it’s productive conflict that allows members to feel heard and also for the group to come to a more representative consensus.
The other votes for Treasurer, Secretary, and Vice Chair were also razor thin margins. 30 Rock lost the Treasurer role by just one vote, even though he mismanaged the anonymous donation process. Media lost the Secretary role by just 3 votes, even though he was the one that wasted an hour of everyone’s time with his “Badminton can’t lead the meeting” act a couple months before. I clearly have my point of view– and yet only about half of the board agreed with me. Which is great. Community boards are meant to be places for diverse perspectives.
City of Yes for Housing Opportunity: a case study in productive conflict
Just a month after Limestone was elected Chair, we voted on the most important policy to come before the community board all year: City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. This citywide rezoning would make it easier to build more housing in every neighborhood. Given that CB5’s #1 priority is the housing crisis, this was our chance to recommend a policy that would increase housing and lower rents.
However, it wasn’t a given that we would back this housing policy. You’ll remember that in January 2024, CB5 recommended denying the last housing and rezoning proposals that came before us: City of Yes for Economic Opportunity and Green Fast Track for Housing. Back then, CB5 leadership only allowed particular members to be on the Land Use committee, and didn’t allow any non committee members to discuss the policy. There just weren’t pro-housing voices at the table. Versailles, the chair of the committee at the time, said, “Doing away with regulation does not do anything for the public good…We see a vibrant real estate community in New York that is able to do a lot in a framework that is fairly low regulation.” In January 2024, it was a small room of people that opened and closed the policy recommendations– no disagreement, no conflict, a short full board meeting.
But that was in January. Now it’s July. The summer meetings and process are more inclusive. Many non-committee members joined and deliberated in the many meetings that led up to the committee’s recommendation and decision. The committee sent their policy draft to the rest of the board a week early, so any member could send their edits. In addition to the multiple meetings intended for public and member input, we had a long and lively full-board discussion on the policy as well. There was conflict. They were not short meetings. And everyone’s diverse perspectives were heard.
Interestingly, our debate didn’t end up being about rents. It ended up being about power. Some CB5 members feared losing community board control over developer proposals. The rezoning made housing easier to build as-of-right, bypassing political processes– because the political process adds time and cost to each housing project. We were voting to give up some of our own influence. And we did the right thing – we recommended approval of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. 🎉
Turns out CB5 just had the most violent reaction to what all the other Manhattan community boards are also adjusting to
Four days after our pro-housing vote on City of Yes, this NY Times article hit. It’s positive press about how the Borough President is appointing more pro-housing people to community boards.
The article sums up what CB5 has been wrestling with: leadership adjusting to new members with different perspectives. Yes, CB5 is more pro-housing now than it was in January 2024. No, it’s not due to infiltration by real estate interests. It’s due to integration of regular pro-housing people because that’s the majority sentiment in the city. Even though 81 percent of New Yorkers support building more housing in every neighborhood, community boards are just starting to reflect that perspective.
This article, and the last one about the anonymous donation, opened the aperture to shed light on what was so confusing back in March. Why did all those CB5 members quit so suddenly? Was it all part of some bigger strategy? Was there some end goal to attack Open New York or to influence community boards against City of Yes? There’s a spectrum of least charitable to most charitable interpretations:
Maybe they quit because they were about to run into problems with the Conflict of Interest Board.
Maybe they quit because they saw the writing on the wall and wanted to go out with a hail mary. The Borough President was slowly reshaping the community board by appointing more diverse members. CB5’s previous leadership recognized that the new members would soon outnumber them. But this change would unfold gradually, with slow erosion of their influence over time. So maybe they figured that instead of dying a slow death, they’d opt for a more aggressive approach. By striking head-on, they turned what was a small disagreement into a full-fledged battle. Perhaps their thinking was that creating a public battle would stir fear and anger towards both Open New York and the Borough President, causing more damage than simply fading into irrelevance.
Maybe they quit because it just wasn’t fun anymore. It's emotionally challenging to transition from a place where you have control, feel accomplished, and are validated, only to watch it all start to slip away. CB5’s previous leadership had everything running exactly the way they wanted, no surprises or hiccups. And when they started to see that starting to unravel, they decided to quit instead of discuss. It’s not unreasonable that they thought: “It’s fun for me to run a meeting where everyone agrees with me and tells me I’m doing a great job. It’s not fun to debate policy with people that don’t agree with me.”
My interpretation of the turnover at CB5 : Some combination of all three.
Polarization set in in the spring because some CB5 members also didn’t see the nuance between the headlines. When the resignations started in March, CB5 members and the community were caught off guard. There was no information as to the reasons behind all the resignations. In a low-information environment, it’s easy to grasp onto simple explanations that polarize and destroy trust: good vs bad. Community vs. developers.
Now that more information was available, it was like all the previous headlines were shining a flashlight at a narrow sliver of information, missing the forest for the trees.
Reaching a Steady State?
Since July, it’s been much quieter. During CB5’s August break, there were more resignations. Including 30 Rock, the last of the old leadership team. But these resignations weren’t loud. There were no headlines. Some very influential leaders left, fading out quietly, no tweets or ALL CAPS email subject lines.
Here’s some data that puts 2024 into perspective. The below bar chart shows CB5’s full board meeting duration by month and what was going on at that meeting. Some meetings were limited by our venue’s 3.75-hour cutoff, but you can tell that there’s a pattern here. We started the year with shorter meetings, had a stretch of longer ones, and now we’re back to shorter meetings again.
You might look at this and think: “CB5 is back to normal. They went through a period of turmoil, and it’s back to status quo now.” That’s partially right– we’re back to a steady state, but not back to the old status quo. That period of turmoil changed our board entirely.
It’s a totally different board in terms of who’s leading it. All leaders have changed since January 2024: Chair, Vice Chair, etc. That’s a big deal when you consider that CB5 had the same Chair for 15 years and most leadership had been on the community board for over a decade. All of our committee chairs are different now too (e.g. the chair of the Land Use committee). That’s another big deal since committee chairs have a ton of influence over the decisions that come out of their committees. Don’t remember how that works? Read here.
It’s a totally different board in terms of who’s serving on it. Almost half the board turned over. Since January 2024, 29 CB5 members have remained the same. That’s more than half of a 50 person board, but not much more. Think about if your workplace had the entire leadership team turn over in a year. And ~half the staff. That’s a lot of change.
And average CB5 member tenure has dropped significantly. In Jan 2024, the average CB5 member tenure was over 6 years. Now it’s less than half that: 2.6 years. Taking a look at the chart below, you can see that most of today’s board has less than 2 years of experience. This is a trend that’s likely to continue with community board term limits going into effect citywide in the next couple years. In the future, it won’t be possible to serve 9 consecutive years, much less 30. This is a good thing for bringing more diversity and change to community boards, and it’s also a challenge since community boards don’t have great onboarding processes for new members yet.
Now CB5 has new leadership, new members, and a new culture. It’s not as top-down. There’s more room for diverse perspectives and that means there’s more productive conflict.
To be clear, I’m not saying that short meetings are an indicator of the success of a community board. Rather, in this case, they’re more of an indicator of harmony. Before Nikki resigned in February 2024, there was lots of harmony, but not all voices were being heard. In the spring and summer, we didn’t have much harmony, and there was conflict. Some productive conflict (discussing housing policy) and some less productive (arguing over who should chair a meeting). For now, we’re back to a steady state where there’s more harmony only because there are fewer contentious policies coming our way. When a divisive issue does show up in the future, now we’re better equipped to navigate it through debate and discussion.
Here’s my headline for last year at CB5:
Such a fascinating piece! Thanks for sharing, Sachi.
I find it really interesting to see how the different community boards’ bylaws are so different. On Manhattan CB8, for example, our board chair is limited to three consecutive one-year terms. In addition, any CB8 board member is allowed to vote in any committee meeting they attend — even if they’re not a member of that committee.
As a member of the same class of Manhattan Community Board Five as the author, I find the characterization of the former members in this article rather disingenuous and much less than generous.
As unpaid volunteers they dedicated their time and efforts to our community and, regardless of their leadership styles and policies, were models of civic engagement, as is the author.