Dr. King 1st Victim of Gentrification in Newburgh

Apparently, one of the first redevelopment acts to take place in Newburgh will be the removal of the recently dedicated bronze bust of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from its perch at Dr. King Boulevard and Colden Street, if the city and it’s preferred developer have their way.

Dedicated this past January at a ceremony witnessed by the city’s top officials who stood, according to the press, “at the sidelines” by previous agreement, the bust is to be moved and some streets currently carrying Dr. King’s name are to be renamed before the redevelopment of the downtown waterfront by Leyland Associates begins.

Singer, activist and Newburgh city mayoral candidate Lillie Howard was to the point in her description of the meaning of the proposed move and street renamings. "Who do you think is going to be moved next?” she asked tenants at a recent meeting.

“Think about it – you can hardly make it on the rents that are already in place. There is no rent control or other protection for tenants in place. What do you think it will be like after the townhouses and condos are built on our waterfront and in our downtown?” she asked.

Howard stressed that the present residents need decent-paying jobs and affordable housing, saying that neither of these are a serious and material part of the current administration’s plans for community .redevelopment. She again called on the present city council to adopt her Jobs/TAP proposal for community job training and tuition assistance at the proposed SUNY/Newburgh (see below).

“They are saying something very specific to the community and the larger world by banishing Dr. King from the Newburgh waterfront at the outset of this process,” said Howard. “The question is, is the community listening and will the community hear what is being said in time to do something about it.”

The bust was made by sculptor David Frech, who described how impressed he'd been to see in a documentary about King the man's extraordinary power in the face of anger and hate. In a press account published last January, Frech described the absolute calmness with which King met an angry white man during a protest march in the South. King was, he reportedly said, utterly calm, "simply attentive" to the man.

Frech said a man who knew King described him as "a teacher by word and example."

Howard was concerned about the turnout at a presentation of the proposed King removals last Thursday evening at City Hall, where very few residents of the affected area were in attendance.

“Now is the time to wake up and organize to make sure you will be able to remain in the community,” read a flyer which was handed out to neighborhood residents prior to the meeting.

Howard said that the organizing “has to happen from the ground up and it has to happen soon.” She called on clergy and community leaders to convene “a summit on gentrification” before any formal process is begun by the city or the developer.

Meanwhile, city officials said that they plan to have a Development Agreement prepared for execution within a few weeks. Howard said that this was much too soon to bind the city to a plan when so many affected people have been left out of the process.

“It’s our city, and it’s show time on that” she said. “Now we’ll find out who our real leaders are by their actions. I know that I, for one, will DEFINITELY not go quietly into that good night on this one. The people will soon see who else stands with us – and them.”

DATED March 31, 2007

CONTACT: Lillie Howard at LilHow214@aol.com

JOBS/TAP PROPOSAL: APPRENTICESHIP/JOB TRAINING & TARGETED HIRING PROGRAMS

Our city is on the verge of major redevelopment. Approval of the proposed Newburgh/SUNY & Waterfront Redevelopment projects will mean that massive construction will take place here.

Construction in our community should translate into jobs for our local residents and especially for those who need them the most - those were identified in the January 29, 2006 "Promised Land" report in the Times Herald-Record.

According to that report, 52% of families in our city earn less than $35,000 a year; 25.8% of families earn below the federal poverty line for a family of four (currently $19,350); and 39% of adults are not in the workforce at all, with many looking for work who can't find it.

Since "bricks & mortar" activity means that people are working, I want to make sure that those cited in the statistics above will benefit from all of the construction that will soon be going on in our community. Therefore, I am suggesting that the developers and the unions form a partnership to establish a strong Jobs Training Apprenticeship Program (Jobs/TAP).

This Jobs/TAP program will enable those represented in the statistics to become a vital part of the rebuilding of our city.

Those participating in Jobs/TAP would be granted one year or more free tuition to attend a Newburgh/SUNY college program.

County Legislator Kulisek has agreed to have a meeting with me and others to begin to work on this project. I am hopeful that this will be the first step in moving our city forward, for when those who have the most needs begin to prosper, we all will prosper.

Jobs/TAP would enable people to eventually become homeowners, which in turn will increase the tax base of our city, and which will help to ease the burden of our present homeowners.

Large developments always have substantial social and economic impacts in many areas which are borne by the host communities. I intend to make sure that these impacts benefit those most in need, which will in turn benefit the whole community.

Jobs/TAP would help to mitigate the negative impacts by contractually insuring positive impacts. It would address issues such as the type and quality of jobs, training of local residents to fill them and provision for permanent economic activity and employment opportunities.

Because most planning processes do not include formal considerations of these wide-ranging impacts, Community Benefits Agreements, which are deals between developers and coalitions of community organizations, address a broad range of community needs. They can implement safeguards to ensure that affected residents share in the benefits of major developments, which the Newburgh/SUNY Project and the Waterfront Redevelopment Project truly are.

Union jobs are middle-income jobs that pay good wages; good wages are central to the city's economic health because they reduce the burden on social, health, and housing programs and assure an adequate supply of discretionary income, in turn resulting in higher tax revenue for the city.

For many development projects, the developer's primary selling point is jobs, but unemployed individuals may need job training in order to become qualified for the new positions; if not, the jobs may be filled by individuals who live in other areas.

One way to assure that our local residents get those jobs is to incorporate targeted hiring requirements that employers in a development hire local individuals - if needed, with the assistance of Jobs/TAP. Targeted hiring programs will help development projects fulfill what is often their most fundamental selling point: building an economic base in low-income communities.

Targeted hiring policies advance what is often the main function of development projects: to help a depressed area by increasing economic opportunities there.

This is often the main purpose cited to justify a development's public subsidy.

Targeting jobs to residents of the neighborhood development is also compelling.

Anytime a development project is built in a low-income neighborhood, residents of the neighborhood are urged to support the project based on promises of job opportunities the project will provide. It is only fair to require that projects promoted on that basis include some mechanism to ensure that local people actually get some, if not most, of the jobs. Therefore developers and local government dangling the prospects of local jobs should be willing to take concrete steps to make their promises a reality.

To that I say that this is one of the major reasons that I'm running for the mayoral seat of the City of Newburgh to assure that these types of safeguards are put in place so that our city can truly benefit and prosper, for when the low- and moderate-income residents are doing better the entire city will reap the benefits of it.

Respectfully submitted by:

Lillie Howard, Mayoral Candidate, City of Newburgh