Brooklyn's Lindsay Park Co-op Board Corrupt, Residents and CB1 Chair Say

Aug. 22, 2014 — With their local Community Board chairperson in agreement and on their side, nearly 900 residents of Brooklyn's Mitchell-Lama Lindsay Park Housing Cooperative (click image to enlarge) are petitioning to change a board election process they say leads to an entrenched board that is secretive, non-responsive and, as 64-year-old Elizabeth Blizinska told DNAInfo.com, "a dictatorship."

The co-op board of the seven-building Williamsburg complex gathers "general proxies" that don't name a candidate, rather than "directed proxies" that do — which the bylaws allow. The corruption comes in, petitioners say, when the longtime board president uses the proxies to re-elect herself and her allies, sometimes after having misled or intimidated immigrant and elderly residents into signing away a vote. CB1 chair Dealice Fuller agrees with the dissidents. Board president Cora Austin has denied knowledge of any petition, said DNAInfo, but the website cited memos Austin sent to residents earlier this month warning them not to sign it.