Chaotic Jail Meeting Ends With Brooklyn CB Failing To Take Stance

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — A heated, often chaotic meeting discussing plans for a 40-story jail on Atlantic Avenue ended with Brooklyn community board members failing to support or reject it.

The Community Board 2 meeting — at which the 1,437-bed jail was only one item on the agenda — was the board's chance for comment during the review process for the 275 Atlantic Ave. jail expansion, which would become one of four jails meant to replace Rikers Island.

The board's Land Use Committee had recommended last month that the board accept the plans, with a series of conditions.

But, after much of the discussion Wednesday was spent trying to quell protesters who chanted and yelled over the committee report and the vote, members voted not to support the committee's recommendation — but didn't vote to form their own opinions.

The board shot down the committee's recommendation by a single vote to the tune of cheers for no votes and chants of "shame" for yes votes from the crowd. When things settled down members debated whether this meant they had in fact voted on the application, but ultimately agreed the vote was only to turn down the recommendation, not to either support of reject the jail proposal itself.

"We've taken a position not to support the committee's recommendation, but we've taken no direct position on the application," one board member, who is also the board's attorney, told the chair. "The report to the borough president on June 6 is that Community Board 2 took no position."

A representative from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams office, where the jail application will head for comment next, agreed, telling board members that her report will tell Adams that Community Board 2 has no recommendation.

Some board members tried to call for another vote at the end of the meeting, or asked that a new working group be created to discuss the what the board's stance should be. But, most ultimately resolved that there wasn't enough time both that night or with the review process deadline to give the recommendation the discussion it deserves.

Board members contended that records of the discussion during the meeting, the committee meeting, and during a similarly fraught public hearing on the plans, will make their thoughts part of the record either way. Others told Patch afterward that they might collaborate to submit an independent position statement on their own.

Discussion Wednesday and in previous meetings mainly circled around the concern that the larger jails planned for Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan don't fit with the city's promise to cut down its population of incarcerated people.

Activists and members reiterated Wednesday that, although they agree with the goal of closing Rikers Island, they believe the new plan will only move the prison's infamously questionable conditions to new facilities.

"If they can't get it right then, they're not going to get it right now," board member Samantha Johnson said. "I'm voting no because my community is telling me to vote no, but I'm also saying, 'A cell, is a cell, is a cell.' If you paint it a different color it's still going to hurt our community."

Johnson and others argued that the board should be rejecting the plans outright to make a statement, rather than accepting them with conditions.

The Land Use Committee had approved the Atlantic Avenue jail application 10 to 1 with a long list of provisions, including that the bed count be brought down from 1,437 to 875, that a jail on Staten Island be included in the city's plan and that there be increased training for correction officers.

The city's current plans would build a 395-foot tower, 292 parking spaces, retail and community space on Atlantic Avenue and calls for rezoning the block bordered by Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Place, State and Smith streets to do so.

The ultimate goal of the plan is to shutter the eight-jail complex on Riders Island and Bronx jail barge and reduce the incarcerated population from its current 7,500 to, most recently, 4,000. Many activists, though, argue that recently-passed criminal justice reform could bring that population down even further, making the need for the larger jails obsolete.

The current plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in an update last month, is scheduled to be completed by 2026 and cost $8.7 billion.

Those who support it, including those who do so with conditions, have argued that not working with the city toward a viable plan now could leave incarceration reform off the table.

"My fear is that if we don’t address this issue head on we won’t close Rikers Island, which nobody in this audience wants," Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon told the crowd Wednesday.