Wils Says Goodbye to Community Board 1 By Barry Owens and Carl Glassman With a tearful speech and a wave goodbye, Madelyn Wils bid farewell last month to Community Board 1 “I just want to say how proud I am to have served with all of you,” Wils said, speaking at the group’s monthly meeting on April 19. “It has been a pleasure, an honor and a privilege to serve this community. I have never had any other agenda other than a love of this community and the people in it.” Wils, who was a member of the board for 18 years and its chairwoman for five, was forced to walk away from the board after Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields notified her that she would not be reappointed for another year. The announcement cut short Wils’ term as board chairwoman, which was to end in June 2006. Many at the April 19 meeting were still fuming over Fields’ actions and took the opportunity to say so in brief speeches to the board. “The way this was executed reeks of Tammany Hall-style politics,” said Martha Gallo, a Battery Park City community leader who spoke highly of Wils’ service. Like others who took the microphone, Gallo said that Fields’ decision to remove Wils from the board was a mistake that would cost the borough president Downtown votes in her bid for mayor. “I don’t understand the decision, either practically or politically,” said board member Michael Connolly, adding that he planned to campaign against Fields. “To me it shows how out of touch the borough president is with the Downtown community.” Less than two hours before the meeting, Fields had yet to approve the reappointment of four board members, all of them on CB1’s Executive Committee. Community board sources said that Fields finally signed off on the reappointments after it was agreed that language lightly critical of the borough president for Wils’ dismissal would be removed from an Executive Committee resolution that praised and thanked the departing chairwoman. “CB #1 deeply regrets that Madelyn Wils will not be allowed to finish the balance of the two-year term as Chairperson to which she was elected,” stated one of the deleted sentences in the resolution, which was up for a vote at the April 19 meeting. “On the heels of losing Madelyn, we didn’t want to see our board go up in flames,” said a CB1 source familiar with the decision. The four members whose reappointments came at the last minute   were Albert Capsouto, co-chairman of the Tribeca Committee, who wrote the resolution; Richard Kennedy, now the board’s acting chairman; Sheila Rossi, board secretary; and Marc Donnenfeld, chairman of the Seaport/Civic Center Committee. It is not clear whether Rossi’s and Donnenfeld’s reappointments were held up because of late paperwork or for other reasons. “If this is an example of the borough president’s management style,” Donnenfeld said, “I’m very concerned if she were to become mayor—both by her inefficiency and her bully politics.” By agreement, there was no public mention by board members at the meeting of the resolution’s revisions or the circumstances surrounding Fields’ 11th-hour reappointments. But board member Jeff Galloway said that Wils’ removal could have a chilling effect on board decisions as a whole. “We are supposed to act in the way that we think is responsible and not have to worry or look over our shoulder and wonder if we are going to be removed,” he said. A spokesman for Fields did not return a call seeking comment. Half of the CB1 appointments are made by Downtown’s City Councilman, Alan Gerson, and half by the borough president, who must sign off on all the choices. Kennedy and Capsouto had been appointed by Gerson. Several board members said that communication on the reappointments went through Gerson’s office. “I said the focus on Madelyn [in the resolution] would create a better atmosphere and tone down the animosity and indirectly make [the reappointments] easier to accomplish,” Gerson told the Trib. “But there was never any quid pro quo that I was aware of.” In a written statement earlier in the month, Fields said that Wils’ involvement on other organizations’ boards “may adversely impact on her ability to adequately and fully participate as a Community Board member.” Fields also said that it is her policy to “give new people an opportunity to distinguish themselves.” Wils is president and CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute and sits on the boards of the Hudson River Park Trust, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Downtown Alliance. She is up for reappointment to the Trust by Fields later this year. Fields, whose visibility in Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11 was eclipsed by Wils, had reportedly wanted Wils to resign last year, but at Wils’ request the borough president gave her a year to complete negotiations on several projects, including a new k-8 school on Beekman Street. Wils was not without her detractors on the board. During the meeting, three members abstained from voting on the resolution thanking the chairwoman for her service, and a handful of members remained seated as others rose to applaud her entrance. Board member Una Perkins said she was troubled that Fields’ actions were being condemned by board members when she was not there to defend herself. “Has anyone even bothered to invite the borough president?” Perkins asked. Acting chairman Richard Kennedy said that Fields would be invited to address the board next month. Linda Roche, a longtime board member who was defeated by Wils five years ago in an election for board chair, commended Wils on the job she had done, particularly in the dark days following Sept. 11. “In 2000 I ran against her and I lost. I will tell anybody today that I’m thankful that I did,” Roche said. “Things happen for a reason, and maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe she’ll be our next borough president.” During her tenure on the board, Wils worked zealously for the rezoning of southern Tribeca and the South Street Seaport area, which helped prevent high-rise development in those neighborhoods. She was also the driving force behind the creation of Millennium High School and was closely involved with the effort to gain city approval for the k-8 school that is planned for Beekman Street. A nominating committee was elected at the CB1 meeting, and this month it will announce chair candidates for elections to be held in June. Also see An Interview With Madelyn Wils