Brooklyn Borough President

ELECTED OFFICIALS ANNOUNCE FILING OF LEGAL ACTION AGAINST CITY TO KEEP FIREHOUSES OPEN

Photograph by Sarah Liriano
	In photo: Pictured - left to right - Councilmember James Davis, Borough President Markowitz, Councilmember Bill de Blasio, Councilmember Simcha Felder and Councilmember Erik Martin Dilan on the steps of City Hall

On May 14th, a bipartisan coalition of 15 city and state elected officials filed a legal action against the City of New York, the Fire Department, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, challenging the FDNY’s decision to close eight firehouses around the city.

The legal action was filed in Kings County, where the offices of the FDNY are located. Judge Laura Lee Jacobson ordered a hearing for Tuesday, May 20 at 9:30am. The hearing is before Judge James G. Starkey

The action seeks seeking to declare null and void and vacate the City’s decision to close eight firehouses and eliminate and/or relocate ten individual fire-fighting units.

Plaintiffs (technically, petitioners) include elected officials whose districts are served by the affected firehouses and community residents and organization that depend on the affected firehouses. Elected officials joining the action include:

Borough President Marty Markowitz, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, Senator Liz Krueger (Manhattan), Senator Serphin R. Maltese (Queens), Assemblymember Vito Lopez, Assemblymember Joan Millman, Councilmember Joseph Addabbo, Jr. (Queens), Councilmember Bill de Blasio, Councilmember James Davis, Councilmember Erik Martin Dilan, Councilmember Eric Gioia (Queens), Councilmember Sara Gonzalez, Councilmember Bill Perkins (Manhattan), Councilmember Diana Reyna and Councilmember David Yassky.

Several community residents from neighborhoods served by the affected firehouses are also participating in the action.

The principal legal arguments made by the petitioners are:

• The City’s action requires formal environmental review before it can be taken, under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and the corresponding City Environmental Quality Regulations (CEQR). No action may be taken before the required review is conducted.

o Commissioner Scoppetta has admitted that no environmental review as prepared.
o In similar circumstances, in 1994, the Appellate Division held that the City’s plan to eliminate fire alarm boxes was an action which required an environmental assessment under SEQRA and CEQR, and blocked the City’s action until, at least, the assessment was prepared.
o A lower court in 1991 said that a plan to close a larger number of firehouses “might constitute” action require performance of an environmental review under SEQRA/CEQR.

• The City’s action was arbitrary and capricious because it came as the result of a preordained political decision.

o The analysis and recommendations of the so-called “blue ribbon commission” must be discounted in light of comments made by the Mayor and other city officials stating that the decision to close firehouses was inevitable.

• Various aspects of the notices provided by Commissioner Scoppetta were procedurally deficient. As a result the 45-day notices sent out by the FDNY on April 7 must be declared null and void.

o The Manhattan-based community board that covers Roosevelt Island did not receive notice of the closing of Engine Co. 261 (which resides in Queens).
o The Commissioner’s notices do not specifically mention the relocation of Battalion 40, which is based in the firehouse of Engine Company 278 in Sunset Park.
o No analysis whatsoever has been offered by the Commissioner of the impact on Manhattan of replacing Engine Company 44 with Squad 252, vastly different fire-fighting units.