Kew Gardens Community Board Votes Unanimously Against Jail Plan

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — The Kew Gardens community board voted unanimously Tuesday night against the city's plan to build a jail in their neighborhood.

Queens Community Board 9 issued a scathing seven-page resolution opposing the jail proposal to the City Planning Commission, calling the city's process of developing the plan a "travesty."

"From the beginning, this administration has been a steamroller; the so-called neighborhood advisory meetings have been a farce," the resolution says.

Community board members voted 28-0 to support the draft resolution, written by the co-chairs of the board's land use committee, Sylvia Hack and Sherman Kane. One member abstained because he is a city employee, and about 10 board members were absent for the vote.

The vote is largely symbolic: The City Planning Commission is not bound by the community board's vote, but its commissioners must explain any decision that goes against the community board's recommendation.

The commission will decide whether to advance the jail proposal to a City Council vote, after which the plan lands on the mayor's desk.

"We believe the city’s borough-based jail plans are inexplicably rushed and ill-considered," the resolution reads. "A fiscally responsible plan should be created that reflects an honest, complete evaluation of justice reform."

Mayor Bill de Blasio last year announced plans to build four new jails — one in every borough except Staten Island. The new jails would replace detention facilities on Rikers Island, de Blasio says, and reduce the city's jail population from 9,400 to 5,000 by the year 2026.

Advocates say they doubt the city will stay true to its promise to close Rikers, since there is nothing legally obligating officials to follow through on that pledge — and many of those officials, including de Blasio, will no longer be in office by 2026.

"There's language in the ULURP itself that references the intention of this is to close Rikers," Dana Kaplan, deputy director of the Mayor's Office for Criminal Justice, said in response to a question asking what guarantee New Yorkers have that the Rikers jails will close.

"That's clear in the ULURP application, that the purpose of this is to close Rikers," she added.

Standing room only at tonight’s Kew Gardens community board meeting. The board is scheduled to vote on whether or not to recommend @CrimJusticeNYC’s jail plan to the City Planning Commission.

As I’ve reported, this vote is largely symbolic.https://t.co/L2ZIernAQJ pic.twitter.com/7skUehM1xA
— Maya Kaufman (@mayakauf) May 14, 2019

At a heated public hearing in April, many Queens residents and criminal justice advocates urged the community board to vote yes but with conditions, like a smaller jail.

The May 14 community board meeting, in contrast, primarily attracted advocates from No New Jails NYC, who asked board members to vote no.

"I’m asking you not just to oppose this jail because you don’t want to face the brutality of the jail system — of the criminal punishment system — in your community, where you would gladly have it in other communities," Kew Gardens resident and No New Jails member Tia Keenan said.

"I’m asking you to look at this problem and to say that you do not accept the criminalization of poor people, of black people, of Latinx people, of mentally ill people," she added.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who has said publicly that the mayor should restart the process of developing the new jails, will issue an advisory recommendation to the City Planning Commission next month.

"I continue to have deep concerns with the size, lack of meaningful community engagement and plans to replace one bad institution with another," Katz said in a statement, responding to the community board's vote.

"While I look forward to holding a public hearing on the matter, I do not foresee a scenario in which I would vote in favor of this proposal."

Read Queens CB9's resolution here: