Crown Heights community board looking to fi ll
high-ranking staff position vacant since 2015
BY COLIN MIXSON
A Crown Heights community
board is looking to fi ll its most
senior staff position for the fi rst
time since 2015, four years after
a fateful decision to fi re the last
longtime employee to hold the
spot setoff a series of lawsuits,
which have left the position vacant
ever since.
Community Board 9 started
advertising the opening for a
district manager position —
which pays between $75,000
and $90,000 — earlier this year,
seeking candidates with at least
a bachelor’s degree, and three
years of experience in government,
public administration,
or city-planning work.
District managers serve as
a community board’s highestranking
staffer, responsible for
scheduling meetings, drafting
resolutions, and communicating
with city agencies on behalf
of board members.
And — while the board’s unpaid,
volunteer members may
come and go — district managers
often stay on the job for
decades, mustering a degree
of personal infl uence, and becoming
institutional sources of
neighborhood lore.
That’s in part due to the position’s
enviable pay, and some
Kings County district managers
rake in well over six-fi gure
salaries, including $122,777 for
CB10 District Manager Josephine
Beckman, $126,882 for
CB1 District Manager Gerald
Esposito, and $154,725 for CB18
District Manager Dorothy
Turano in 2017.
Community Board 9’s former
district manager, Pearl
Miles, served the board for 30
years, but was canned in 2015
after CB9’s executive committee
recommended members
give her the boot.
Prior to fi ring Miles, however,
then-recently elected Borough
President Eric Adams allegedly
told the board’s then
Chairman Jacob Goldstein
that Miles was too old for the
position, and then threatened
to kick him off the board if he
tried to help Miles keep her job.
The spurned staffer fi led a
federal age-discrimination suit
6 COURIER LIFE, MAY 3–9, 2019 PS
against Adams in 2016, which
ended with both her and Goldstein
walking away with “substantial
settlements,” the former
CB9 chairman said.
To replace Miles, the board
in 2016 hired fellow member
Carmen Martinez, who worked
for the Comptroller’s offi ce until
she was fi red for spending
work time on personal projects
in 2014, and was a member of
Assemblyman Clarence Norman
Jr.’s staff, until he was
eventually convicted of violating
campaign fi nance laws.
But Martinez’s reign as the
board’s lead staffer was short
lived, and local anti-gentrifi -
cation advocate Alicia Boyd
made quick work of the wellconnected
board member with
a 2016 lawsuit that alleged improper
hiring practices on the
board’s part, and resulted in a
judge barring her from working
for more than a year, before
removing her from the position
altogether in 2017.
The job has been vacant ever
since, a result of what Boyd described
as infi ghting between
factions within the board split
over supporting Martinez’s rehiring,
and elevating fellow
member Simone Bennett to the
high-paying position.
Boyd claims the board is only
now moving forward with the
hiring process because Martinez
has agreed not to seek the
district manager spot, although
she expressed concern that the
board hasn’t properly advertised
the position by failing to post it
on the city’s job website, and that
the group have only received
seven resumes as a result.
Multiple messages left to the
board’s current chairwoman,
Patricia Baker, have not been
returned.
OUT OF OFFICE: Community Board 9’s Carmen Martinez briefl y served
as the board’s district manager, but was booted by a judge in 2017, and
the position has been vacant ever since. Photo by Rachel Holiday Smith