Judge Voids Hiring of CB-9 District Manager

From DNAinfo by Rachel Holliday Smith:

A Brooklyn judge has voided the controversial hiring of a Crown Heights community board district manager after he ruled the 2016 decision was illegal.

Judge Wayne Saitta ordered that the hiring of longtime area resident and Community Board 9 member Carmen Martinez was done without following the board’s by-laws for forming a search committee and without proper notification to the community about the administrative job opening and its $100,000-per-year salary.

The ruling, which was signed on October 12, was the culmination of a lawsuit brought by Alicia Boyd, leader of the local activist group Movement to Protect the People, who sued the board shortly after it voted in private to hire Martinez in the summer of 2016.

At the time, some board members voiced concerns over Martinez’s job record, which included a forced retirement from the city’s Comptroller’s office for misusing city time, and close ties to ex-Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr., for whom she worked as treasurer before his conviction for violating campaign finance laws.

Martinez has been barred from working as district manager since Boyd filed her lawsuit more than a year ago and has instead volunteered at the CB9 office while the court case was decided.

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One Comment

  • Yankel Goldstein

    Finally Justice served !!!! I was chairman of CB9 fo 34 years thru good and bad times . When Boro President Adams took over he made it his primary goal to remove the then 30 year District Manager Pearl Miles by removing 19 board members , putting in new board members who then made up charges against Ms. and fired her . Several weeks after his election BP Adams approached me to fire Perl I Responded to him saying ” What are the charges” , he responded by saying ” I am the Boro President and you will do as I say” , he threatened me that he would not reappoint me and carried out his threat . Pearl and I sued him in the Federal Courts and the City settled with us for a sustancial amount of money rather to go to trial . Enter Carmen Martinez who was a political operative for Clarence Norman whose goal was to make Carman the District Manager and I stood in the way . I refused to bend to Adams . The hiring process was sued in court and the Judge struck it down . He saw the sham hiring procedure and put an end to it . For the past 2 years we have no District Manager for CB9 and our Community has gone down the drain . Just look around and you can see it on a daily basis . The swamp needs to be drained and the fish stinks from the head down . Now the Judge has ruled and maybe the Community Board will be able to move forward .