Email Exchange with Kwame Brown Regarding West End

---Original Message---
Subject: Re: Emergency legisaltion re West End Library
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:25:14 -0400
From: Brown, Kwame (COUNCIL)
To: Robin Diener rdiener[at]savedclibraries.org
CC: Esparza, Irma (Council)

Ms. Diener, thank you for your email. I will contact you tomorrow on this matter. Kwame
---
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Device

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---Original Message---
From: Robin Diener rdiener[at]savedclibraries.org
To: Brown, Kwame (COUNCIL) KBrown[at]DCCOUNCIL.US
CC: Kranz, Sharlene (COUNCIL) SKranz[at]DCCOUNCIL.US
Sent: Tue Jul 10 23:19:46 2007
Subject: Emergency legisaltion re West End Library

Dear Councilmember Brown:

My understanding from tenants at the Tiverton is that the only agreement
between the Tiverton Apartment tenants and the Eastbanc group is an
agreement to negotiate. Your enactment of emergency legislation tonight
gives the developer the upper hand in negotiations with the tenants,
something I am sure you did not mean to do. If Eastbanc told you they
had a written agreement with those tenants concerning the purchase of
their building, Eastbanc overstated the case. I have been told that the
tenants have canceled a meeting with Eastbanc for tomorrow night owing
to the misrepresentation they now believe has occurred.

Jack Evans has never met with the tenants of the Tiverton Apartments. I
have lived in Ward 2 for 15 years and have never received any
information from Evans concerning his interest in or attempts to put
together something for the library and firehouse.

I am very disappointed that no one from your office contacted me or my
organization about the "round table" you held on this matter, since we
had such a good working relationship with you and your staff last year.
I did not see anything about it in your newsletter about it, either.
Drawings that you may have seen at your roundtable and which CM Barry
said he found highly persuasive must have been very different and far
more developed than the simple "massing" plans that were shown to the
public at numerous presentations over the last few months.

Finally, I still do not see how you can classify the legislation as
"emergency" especially with so many meetings being held over the last
few months. The Board of Library Trustees has taken no position on this
matter: they plan to discuss it at their July 20 meeting, and the
Friends of the West End Library are scheduled to have a presentation by
Eastbanc this Saturday. Where is the emergency? For all I know, it may
be a great plan. Why is the public being kept from the table? Their buy
in would be the best barometer and would create enthusiasm for the
project.

Robin Diener
Director
Library Renaissance Project
387-8030

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