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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
November 27, 2014 • $1.00 Volume 84 • Number 26
Tobi Bergman is elected new C.B. 2 chairperson; Gruber is praised by pols BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
I
C.B. 2, continued on p. 24
Mendez is not sold on Chin’s 10-cent ‘tax’ on single-use bags BY GERARD FLYNN
N
o doubt this Thanksgiving week, festive-minded New Yorkers will add significantly to the burden of the estimated 1,700 tons of plastic bags the city’s Department of Sanitation collects weekly. But not everyone is buying into the proposal for a
PHOTO BY DONNA ACETO
n the first competitive chairperson election at Community Board 2 in eight years, Tobi Bergman held off two opponents, Bo Riccobono and Richard Stewart, to win with 57 percent of the vote. Forty-nine C.B. 2 members
voted. Bergman got 28 votes to Riccobono’s 13 and Stewart’s 8. Bergman, who was elected to a one-year term, will take over the leadership of the all-volunteer board on Dec. 1. In the race for first vice chairperson, Terri Cude beat
10-cent fee on disposable plastic and paper bags in convenience stores, supermarkets and delis around the city, proposed recently in the City Council by co-sponsors Margaret Chin and Brad Lander. In fact, the proposal is causing progressive legislators to butt heads. Dennis Phandular, for BAGS, continued on p. 3
Chanting “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” protesters decrying the decision on the Michael Brown shooting marched down Christopher St. Tuesday evening. See pages 14-15 for more photos.
N.Y.U. plan foes appeal to state’s highest court BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
T
he broad coalition of opponents fighting New York University’s South Village expansion mega-plan have filed an appeal of last month’s stunning decision in favor of the university. The intensely watched case could potentially determine the fate of countless treasured public parks and open spaces throughout New York State, according to the opponents.
In January, State Supreme Court Justice Donna Mills ruled mostly in favor of the plan’s opponents, when she found that three of four openspace strips — Mercer Playground, LaGuardia Park and LaGuardia Corner Gardens — on the university’s two South Village superblocks are “impliedly” parkland and thus de facto parks. Mills’s ruling effectively blocked much of the 2-million-square-foot, four-building project from being constructed.
The plaintiffs argued, and Mills agreed, that under the Public Trust Doctrine, the park strips first needed to be “alienated” — removed as public parkland — by the state Legislature before the parcels could be razed, modified or otherwise used for the construction — such as for staging areas. However, Mills didn’t find that the fourth strip, including the Mercer-Houston Dog Run, is impliedly parkland, N.Y.U. PLAN, continued on p. 13
Cars kill cyclist, homeless man.....................page 9 Chuck truck study: Soho activist...................page 11 RCN rebuffs L.E.S. graffiti legend.................page 16 ‘Rollo Wild Oat’ revived...............page 21
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