Laurie Cumbo Removes Safe Streets Advocate From Brooklyn CB 2 After Just Three Years

Hilda Cohen was not reappointed, ostensibly to ensure turnover, but several CB 2 members who've served much longer than her were still given seats by Council Member Laurie Cumbo and Borough President Eric Adams.

Hilda Cohen, far right, at a press conference for Albany legislation to encourage safer driving. Photo: David Meyer
Hilda Cohen, far right, at a press conference for Albany legislation to encourage safer driving. Photo: David Meyer

If you stand up for traffic safety projects on a community board where the local council member doesn’t share your views, watch out. You might lose your seat like Hilda Cohen.

Compared to many of her colleagues on Brooklyn Community Board 2, Cohen was a fresh voice. She was first appointed in 2015, more recently than several current board members — maybe most — who’ve had their seats for at least the better part of a decade.

But Cohen was not reappointed by Council Member Laurie Cumbo this year, ostensibly to ensure turnover at CB 2.

After three years on the transportation committee, during which she spoke out for traffic safety projects in this northwest Brooklyn district, Cohen was informed by a letter from the office of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams last month that she would lose her seat on CB 2 so that “other devoted community residents be given an opportunity to make their contributions as well.”

The explanation doesn’t wash, since so many CB 2 members have tenures much longer than Cohen’s and still retain their seats.

If the decision not to reappoint Cohen was about making room for new people at the board, you would expect people who’ve served on CB 2 longer than her to also lose their seats. But that’s not what happened. Cumbo reappointed at least three people to CB 2 this year who have served longer than Cohen.

Streetsblog contacted Adams and Cumbo for an explanation as to why Cohen was not reappointed. Adams’s office directed us to Cumbo, who did not respond to the inquiry.

Neither CB 2 nor the borough president’s office would provide information on the length of board members’ tenures. But evidence online gives some indication of how much time other CB 2 members have been in office.

Samantha Johnson has been on the board since 2014, according to her LinkedIn profile. Dorothea Thompson-Manning was elected co-chair of CB 2 in 2014, indicating she had already established herself on the board. And former CB 2 chair John Dew has been on the board since at least 2006, according to New York Post coverage of his reappointed to the chairmanship in 2009. Cumbo reappointed all three to the board this year.

Adams also reappointed longstanding members of the board. Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project Executive Director Meredith Philips Almeida has serve since at least 2014. Betty Feibusch has served since at least 2009. And Barbara Zahler-Gringer has served since 2008, according to her LinkedIn.

Cohen served as the vice chair for land use at CB 2, as well as on the transportation committee. The last two years, she received a certificate from the board for attending every meeting.

During the 2016 debate over DOT’s proposal for a two-way protected bike lane on Clinton Avenue, Cohen was repeatedly maligned by bike lane opponents for her outspoken support for safe bike infrastructure.

Cohen hopes that wasn’t the reason Cumbo didn’t reappoint her. “It’s a little difficult to believe that that’s what it was, but maybe — maybe someone made the complaint that I’m too one-sided, even though I park my car on the street just the same as everyone else,” she said. “There are a lot of people on the board, and there are a lot of people on the board who are outspoken. That shouldn’t be what stops us from giving back to the community in the way that we can.”

Cohen also serves on the board of StreetsPAC, which twice endorsed Cumbo’s opponent in primary elections for City Council District 35.

Term limits are often discussed as a potential avenue to refresh community board membership. But the impetus for term limits comes from members who’ve served for dozens of years, like Ann Pfoser Darby, the longtime Queens Community Board 4 member who spewed anti-immigrant bile at a transportation committee meeting last year.

Selectively booting an outspoken community board member after just three years isn’t a step toward reform. It’s a purge.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

This Week: Speak Up for Safe Streets in Fort Greene

|
The sun is out and the snow is melting (or accumulating in large piles where it will remain until April). The Streetsblog calendar is here to help you get over any lingering cabin fever. The headline event is tomorrow’s street safety town hall in Fort Greene. Council Member Laurie A. Cumbo is holding the forum in […]

Cumbo Calls for Safer Atlantic Ave, and Trottenberg Promises Action

|
Minutes after Council Member Laurie Cumbo and street safety advocates called for immediate action to reduce traffic violence on Atlantic Avenue, Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg told the audience at a Vision Zero forum in Crown Heights last night that DOT intends to make Atlantic one of its early priorities for safety fixes. Atlantic Avenue is […]

Family of Victoria Nicodemus: Get Reckless Drivers Off NYC Streets

|
The family of Victoria Nicodemus is calling on NYPD to do more to get reckless drivers off city streets. Nicodemus died last December when Marlon Sewell struck her with his SUV on a Fort Greene sidewalk, in a crash that injured two other pedestrians. Sewell, whose driving record reportedly includes incidents of unlicensed driving and speeding in school zones, […]

This Week: Get Ready for the Youth Bike Summit

|
In addition to a big slate of street safety meetings, on the Streetsblog calendar this week are a discussion of infrastructure resiliency, an effort to bring countdown clocks to bus stops, and the annual Youth Bike Summit. Here are the details: Monday: DOT will present plans for a neighborhood slow zone in Bedford Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill […]

Council Candidates at Fort Greene Forum Agree: Don’t Touch Parking

|
If you were hoping for inspiring leadership from the City Council on transportation issues after the next election, you may want to look somewhere other than District 35, which covers the neighborhoods just east of downtown Brooklyn. Two-thirds of households in the district are car-free, according to the 2000 Census. But while most candidates supported traffic calming […]