BRAMA, April 25, 2001, 11:00am EDT

NYC Dept of City Planning meets with Cooper Union: access denied to Ukrainians

New York - A scheduled meeting between The Cooper Union and various NYC officials took place on April 24 regarding development plans in the East Village. About 20-30 Ukrainians representing the concerns of the community turned up at the Department of City Planning (DCP) offices, but they were prevented from joining the meeting by DCP representative Nicole Ogg.

The DCP meeting was described as an "interagency mapping conference" to which all critical NYC agencies critical to city infrastructure were invited. The agenda - "The technical aspects of an application filed by The Cooper Union … to eliminate Tara [sic] Shevchenko Place between East 6^th and East 7^th streets, and to establish a public access easement located in Manhattan, Community District 3." Twenty DCP officials were included on the list. Also invited were 43 representatives from various NYC agencies such as the NYC Department of Transportation, the MTA, DEP Sewers, DEP Water Supply, Fire Dept.

Nicole Ogg stated that "only DCP agencies were invited." However, listed on the DCP invitation list were Washington Square Partners, a private real estate consulting company, as well as utility companies Con Edison and Verizon.

No Ukrainian or other community organizations representing the interests of the local residents and businesses were invited to attend. St. George Parish, which has property affected by the demapping proposal, was also not invited. Only Community Board 3 received an invitation, but because of a prescheduled meeting that day, no board members were able to attend the DCP meeting.

"Unfortunately," Anna Sawaryn, a Ukrainian community activist, pointed out, "no Community Board 3 members were available to attend the meeting, therefore the community was not, in fact, represented." She also said that the DCP was informed in advance by Board 3 that it would not be present at the meeting. Mr. Epstein, chairperson of Community Board 3, had extended the meeting invitation to Ms. Sawaryn, but Ms. Ogg (DCP) did not honor that request. When pressed by Ms. Sawaryn about the lack of community representation at this meeting, Ms. Ogg's only reply was "Community Board 3 is your representative."

Citing the "Sunshine Law," other Ukrainian community members demanded to be included in the meeting. The law "gives the public the right to attend meetings of public bodies, listen to the debates and watch the decision making process." Only very specific circumstances permit closed-door meetings according to the law. These were cited to Ms. Ogg in detail, showing that those circumstances were not met, yet access was denied to the community representatives present.

Ms. Ogg insisted that the "interagency" meeting was in fact a "staff meeting." When challenged by the Ukrainian representatives about the inclusion of The Cooper Union and other non-NYC agents such as a private realty company and a utility company, she persisted in denying access, saying that the Sunshine Law does not apply to this case. Demands by those present to speak to New York City counsel were ignored.

The chairperson of the newly formed "Taras Shevchenko Preservation Committee," Jaroslaw Kurowyckyj, objected vehemently to the lack of representation on the part of the Ukrainian community and the East Village community at large. He submitted a statement of protest to Ms. Ogg, making clear the community's objections to not being permitted by the Department of City Planning and The Cooper Union to join in the process.

Ms. Sawaryn, who is working actively to prevent the demapping of Taras Shevchenko Place, noted that the DCP was distributing notices about an upcoming [May 3] neighborhood meeting that was has been called by The Cooper Union. "Cooper Union has contacted a few Ukrainian organizations so far about that meeting, but there has been no sincere effort on its part to reach the wider local community to attend," she said. "It's very strange and disturbing," Ms. Sawaryn continued, "that the Department of City Planning is using its resources to push the Cooper Union-arranged meeting, but this same New York City agency has done nothing to enable representation of the people of our East Village community."

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