On a Friday night (yes, shabbat no less) word comes from the CB9 Executive Committee that it has moved to remove the longest serving District Manager in NYC - Pearl Miles. While Pearl is known for her blunt and gruff style, she's admired by many in City Government for her effectiveness. And the complaints against her (see below) seem to be mostly about her style, rather than her ability to get stuff done. I've personally seen her be extraordinarily effective in bringing together agencies and provide services. Her work on budgets is particularly adept, since almost no one on the Board ever engages that aspect of their mandate. But...maybe that's because of her style? Hard to say. Each Board member will vote their experience I guess.
Who's behind the move? Like an Agatha Christie mystery, there is no shortage of suspects. Over the years Pearl has made many enemies, often in the name of truth-telling, but let's be honest - in politics, the truth is not always received with applause. Still, the Q would be lying himself if he said he enjoys the environment of rancor that permeates CB meetings and meetings of their committees. It takes a hearty constitution to hang in there, and I've done my best to do just that.
Let's be clear; this is the serve, and Pearl has a chance to return it. It's not necessarily an ace. Look for the issue to be on this month's agenda - not next week, but the week after on a Tuesday, October 27.
I don't know what it is about middle-age, but I'm embroiled in "board" issues throughout my personal and professional life - PTA's, non-profit boards, and now this. Actually, this one I'm watching from a comfortable distance (as a Board member not on the exec), and while I can see why the current executive committee is making this move, it wold seem the timing is very much related to what I like to call Year I in the Calendar of AB. Alicia Boyd has made it her expressed mission to oust Pearl, and many of the complaints listed above are replicas of her very public complaints about Pearl. Not fair say I. Removing Pearl for her personality and professionalism is one thing; knocking her out for her behavior over the last year is another altogether. She's done an admirable job of keeping the office open while being bombarded with lawsuits, abuse and verbal attacks, even physical on a couple of occasions. It's my hope that the Board will look at her career in its entirety rather than just the past 14 months or so.
One last note of analysis. The above documents were very carefully crafted. One must assume that counsel was involved, if not NYC Corporate Counsel then certainly someone familiar with the tools available to depose a District Manager.
To be continued...
20 comments:
There are numerous ways to make sure that CB 9 remains dysfunctional; one, which has been tried many times is the past year is to disrupt meetings and shout down speakers. This approach, obviously, has worked, but has the disadvantage of inviting arrest and, ultimately, exposing the foolishness of it's practitioners. Another, somewhat more subtile, or perhaps insidious, approach would be to remove one of the few people associated with the board who actually knows how City government works. Not withstanding Pearl's sometimes abrasive personality, I really hope this effort to remove her does not succeed.
I agree, I hope Pearl Miles prevails....
Once upon a time, only residents of Crown Heights South attended CB meetings, and the CB and its manager catered to them. Then these pesky types from a neighborhood they called PLG started showing up and, boy, was that a problem. They started asking for things like bike lanes, speed cameras, and an increased police presence south of Empire Blvd. and those things made the old guard CBers angry, and they made Pearl angry because now she had to figure out where exactly this "new" neighborhood was. I have heard her publicly admit that she'd never heard of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, despite the fact that it's been known by that name since at least 1979 when the Historic District was designated (and the person who introduced her to the name was a board member from PLG). We've been overlooked and slighted for too long. I admire Pearl's performance in withstanding the past year's idiocy thanks to MTOPP & co., but she said she was retiring a few years ago and it's time.
Poach Shawn Campbell from CB14!
I too heard Pearl once claim that Leffertts Gardens was "not a contiguous neighborhood," so why should she listen to our concerns? At one time she was a real roadblock to getting anything done in our hood, but at some point she turned a corner and became more responsive to those of us below Empire.
Like any human being, Pearl responds to kindness and gratitude. Almost no one ever thanks her, and people are generally not nice to her. I think through the years the gruffness has grown as a direct result. Not saying it's justified, but she is human after all.
There's human and there's competent. If you manage a Community Board you should be familiar with every part of it - every block and every neighborhood (She told a neighbor of mine that his house wasn't in the historic district (it is & has been since 1979) & he started some alterations & got a violation from the LPC. His wife still blames Pearl for making him so angry he had a stroke & died.), whether the people who live there conform to your priorities or not. She doesn't live in the area and she's had the job for 20+ years. Times have changed and we need someone who really knows her job. Conduct at CB meetings is a joke - if the Chair isn't familiar with proper meeting procedure, at least the PAID District Manager should be. This is the only paid position on the board and we deserve much better.
I can't have an opinion on Pearl Miles because I have never met her.
I've never seen her at a community event - an art show, a street fair, a store opening or what-have-you. I have never seen a post from her on a neighborhood discussion group. What she looks like I couldn't tell you even though I know Eric Adams, Diana Richardson, Kevin Parker, Geoffrey Davis, Tim Thomas etc on a first name basis.
It's true I could obviously go to a community board meeting but until recently I never found the CB to be an important part of our neighborhood. Is that due to Pearl? I don't know. But her lack of engagement with the district has always troubled me. As someone very involved in the community I have not found her or the board to be a particularly strong force affecting change one way or another in the long term.
On the PLG Facebook group where people will argue about anything, a post about her potential ouster drew zero comments. Nothing. Nada. Crickets chirping.
Maybe she does a good job in the midst of those who are board members and conduct its business. But that's not enough. Other CB heads are well known throughout their areas and are intimately involved with the people their efforts impact.
It's time for someone new.
I agree about Pearl having "turned a corner" RE: our neighborhood. My first contacts with her, when I was president of LMA in the '90s, left something to be desired, but she was far more receptive to PLG concerns when I served on CB 9 a few years ago.
I'm a retired career City employee (30 years, ending as an Administrative Staff Analyst). Pearl's gruffness reminds me of the "depression babies" (career employees who started in the 1930s and were very highly qualified because private sector jobs weren't available). They knew EVERYTHING and were great teachers but one of their lessons that I (and many others who started during the Lindsay administration) chose not to follow was "always say no; you can change and say yes later".
Please keep the comments coming! Looks like we're going to have to vote on this and I'm not sure at this point what's in the best interest of the neighborhood. But I do know that it will be very awkward to move forward knowing that the Chair and Exec have publicly expressed their desire to can her.
Best interest will be determined by her replacement, no? Is there anyone lined up?
SHAWN CAMPBELL FOR CD9!!
Alex: We need a local resident DM. What's so great about Shawn's performance at CB14? It's been average at best.
Shawn's a friend and she's fab. CB14 seems to do better than CB9.
Pearl and her work in the community has been sensational. Especially with dealings over Alicia Boyd MTOPP and her gaggle of incendiary race-baiting clowns. I hope she dominates the naysayer. She is a champion of historic preservation.
Alex: CB14 is different from CB9. Apples and oranges really. CB14 success is because of head Alvin Berk. He runs a tight ship and 14 was doing great under Doris and Terry. Let's get Alvin Berk if you want a shakeup. But be warned he is insular. Tough. I know Shawn enough to know she's not a good fit. We have demanding people in 9 and lip service and stalling won't work here. No offense to you or your friend. Things are different out here.
Oh, and CB14 managed to change their zoning to prevent outsized development. Don't know if that happened during Shawn's tenure, but it does indicate that CB14 functions better than CB9.
Pearl Miles a champion of historic preservation? Hardly! She didn't even know the boundaries of the PLG Historic District as recently as four years ago, and she's certainly always come down on the side of anti-landmarking for Crown Heights South, as are the area's residents, who want to continue maxing out their FAR and altering their houses with impunity.
I do admire how she handled the whole Alicia Boyd/MTOPP fiasco; it was probably the best work she's done in her 20-year tenure. However, that's not saying much and it's a case of too little, too late.
About Pearl and historic preservation; when I was a CB9 member she was receptive to the Ocean on the Park landmarking request, which was the issue I was most interested in. Unfortunately landmarking in Crown Heights South is likely to be a non-starter, however worthy the neighborhood may be in the abstract. AFAIK the Landmarks Preservation Commission will not proceed in designating an area that lacks strong support from residents. When I was trying to lined up votes in favor of the Ocean Avenue HD I was told by a number of Chassidic members that they'd vote in favor as long as I wasn't also advocating landmarking for their neighborhood.
I strongly suspect that the LPC's reluctance to designate areas where there isn't strong community support must have a lot to do with the abortive Steinway Historic District in Queens in the mid-'70s which was designated by LPC in 1974, but overturned by the old Board of Estimate the following year because of opposition by residents.
All things being equal I'd love to see an Historic District designation in the neighborhood to our north, but I don't think it's politically practicable and I'd much rather see designations proceed in places like Parkside Avenue, and the south side of Fenimore St. in our neighborhood where residents actually WANT designation.
I had a wonderful experience working with Pearl. She was the first person I've met in my decade living here that seemed as genuinely concerned as myself about stopping the lakes of sewage that back up in the basements scores of building along Ocean avenue whenever it rains. Let's hope that, however this turns out, there'll still be somebody we can count on to help solve this issue...
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