Neighborhood Council Chooses New Chairman

The , an elected advisory body, chose new leadership this week.

Members of the newly-elected council, which returned only seven of its 20 members in September's election, chose new member Ben Day as chairman. Day is executive director of Mass-Care, an advocacy group working to establish a single payer healthcare system in the state.

Day replaces Andrea Howley, who shepherded the volunteer board through one of its most turbulent periods — the controversy over Whole Foods coming to JP.

The group took a secret ballot at its Tuesday meeting with Day and Howley as the candidates. It did not release vote totals.

In remarks to the board before the vote, Day said he had to address "the Whole Foods elephant in the room."

"I would not use the chair as a bully pulpit for my views on Whole Foods," he said.

Day is among the candidates which Whose Foods, an anti-gentrification group opposed to Whole Foods coming to JP, encouraged people to vote for in the Sept. 24 elections. He says he is on the "critical side" when it comes to Whole Foods. In May, the Gazette published a letter from Day thanking State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz for her stance on Whole Foods.

Day says that Whole Foods is a small part of a larger issue: gentrification.

"We need to have a much, much broader discussion," Day told Patch in a Friday phone interview. "Everyone [who is critical] has an issue beyond Whole Foods. We can address those broader issues without killing each other."

In Howley's remarks before the board vote on Tuesday, she underlined her deep roots in JP as a lifelong resident. She said her way of chairing the Neighborhood Council included going to lots of community meetings outside the council.

"I go to three or four meetings a week that are not directly to do with the council," said Howley, who sits on the board of the Jamaica Hills Association and is an overseer of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.

Howley was among those who in March voted against characterizing Whole Foods as "." That's perhaps the watershed vote taken by the advisory board during the Whole Foods debate. Howley's group of "no" voters lost narrowly, 9-8, in approving a strongly-worded letter to Whole Foods opposing them coming to the neighborhood. The grocer .

In other leadership votes taken by the Neighborhood Council on Tuesday, longtime Councilmember Red Burrows was elected vice-chairman over Councilmember Michael Reiskind, who has been on the advisory board since it was formed in 1986. The two were on opposite sides of the March "Whole Foods is not a good fit for Hyde Square" vote, with Burrows saying "yes" to the statement and Reiskind voting "no."

Councilmember Francesca Fordiani, by acclamation, was named secretary/treasurer for the group. She also was on the "yes" side of the March vote about Whole Foods.