Tensions boil over at meeting over Southeast Queens park
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Tensions ran high at a Southeast Queens meeting concerning Roy Wilkins Park on Monday night with community activist James Johnson (pictured) shouting at Queens Borough President Donovan Richards. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Tensions over who is to blame for the troubling conditions at a Southeast Queens park and community center came to a head Monday night when Queens Borough President Donovan Richards got into a shouting match with a local organizer.
The long-simmering conflict over the state of disrepair of Roy Wilkins Park and its community center — and over who is responsible for improving it — boiled over at the meeting, which was hosted by the Parks Department and a number of elected officials, including Richards, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and local Councilmember Nantasha Williams.
While the meeting was pitched as an opportunity to update locals on a number of park projects in the neighborhood, Richards said the real purpose was to address what he called “misinformation” regarding ongoing negotiations over control of the park between city officials and the South Queens Parks Association, a nonprofit with a checkered past that operates at Roy Wilkins.
With no agreement finalized between the groups, the premature meeting ultimately only inflated tensions and became a forum for airing grievances, rather than coming to solutions or informing the community.
During the meeting in Jamaica, Richards went back and forth with Jamaica community activist and onetime City Council candidate James Johnson, who at several points interrupted Richards and the other officials hosting the forum.
Johnson, a community organizer who serves in an advisory role at SQPA, called on officials to “tell the truth,” and accused the Parks Department of not addressing heating and fire safety issues at SQPA’s community building.
The 33-year-old organizer, whose father-in-law is chair of the Queens County Democratic Party Rep. Gregory Meeks, shouted at Richards, who in turn accused Johnson of using the troubles at Roy Wilkins as a “catapult to run for office.”
“We know you want to be elected,” Richards said, resulting in a chorus of jeers from the meeting’s attendees.
Johnson told the Eagle he does not currently have plans of running for office again.
The BP and his staff at one point during the meeting threatened to remove Johnson, who stayed for the meeting’s entirety.
“There's a lot of things they were saying that kind of triggered me,” Johnson said. “As a community member, we've been on the fight…and just trying to act like the community doesn't matter, that's the problem, and that kind of insults our intelligence.”
Richards downplayed the conflict on Tuesday.
“I don't want to call it tension,” he told the Eagle. “What I would say is everybody's aiming for the same thing – we all want Roy Wilkins Park to be a quality park.”
During the meeting and when speaking to the Eagle on Tuesday, Richards said that there is a misunderstanding about the history at Roy Wilkins, SQPA’s history of legal issues and where the funding for the park and the nonprofit comes from.
“I think the frustration comes from misinformation out there,” he said on Tuesday. “I don't think the individuals who were speaking up actually knew the facts around the investments. We can give all the rhetoric we want, but it costs money to fix things.”
However, Johnson and Richards both agreed that the meeting may have come too prematurely.
“There was no real reason to have that meeting, because there hasn't been a deal done,” Johnson said.
Richards told the Eagle that while he did not want to hold the meeting, he felt it was necessary.
“I really did not, in all honesty, want to do this meeting,” he said. “But we could not allow the misinformation to fester into the public's eye.”
SQPA Executive Director Jermaine Sean Smith, who took the reins at SQPA in 2022, had mixed feelings about the meeting.
While he said he doesn’t feel anyone left the meeting more upbeat, they at least left more informed.
“It was important that the community got together in that fashion,” he said. “To see the borough president, the speaker and councilmember convene this meeting so that the community can hear and also some myths and facts can be discussed and come to an understanding, I think it was super vital. It just shows how much this means to our community and for Parks to get a glimpse as to how much this means to our community.”
In addition to getting the community center fixed, SQPA has said they hope the negotiations result in them regaining some of their authority over permitting and use of the park, which they once held but lost after some members were found to have violated the power.
Richards said he was hoping to strike a deal with the organization soon.
“We got to get to the table, and we gotta get a deal done,” Richard said. “In a deal, and I've negotiated these, everybody doesn't get 100 percent of what they want, they don't get 100 percent, but we aim for it.”
Williams, who is also involved in the negotiations, did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment before print time.
‘They stop turning the heat up’
Monday night’s conflict is just one skirmish in a long-term fight playing out in the BP’s backyard at a park he enjoyed as a kid growing up in Southeast Queens.
SQPA, which was birthed from a 1970s community effort to reclaim public land in the majority Black community, operates programs and community events in the park and the community center.
For years, SQPA was given the authority to run the park. However, after several staff members were convicted of embezzling funds from the group, management of the park on Merrick Boulevard fell back to the city.
Last fall, Johnson and Sean Smith, who says he has pulled the organization away from its tenuous history, held an “Emergency Town Hall” to inform residents about ongoing issues at the park and to garner support for their efforts to regain control of it.
A meeting was held Monday night by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, the Parks Department, Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmember Nantasha Williams to address ongoing negotiations regarding control of Roy Wilkins Park. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
Almost immediately following that meeting, Parks officials came in and addressed many of the issues at the long decrepit city structure, and negotiations began concerning SQPA’s future control and place in the park.
While everyone agrees the building, the park and Southeast Queens as a whole has been historically underinvested in, neither SQPA nor Parks has taken responsibility for who is to blame for the building’s issues.
Johnson and Sean Smith say the fault lies with Parks, who they claim are attempting to push the nonprofit out.
“Parks have not done their job,” Johnson told the Eagle on Tuesday. “When the landlord doesn't want you there anymore, they stop turning the heat up.”
On Monday, Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue denied that fire safety at the building was out of code, and reupped prioritizing the community center’s maintenance in the future.
“There is no way we could run a center that was not safe,” she said. “It is always our top priority, in all of our centers, that they are safe for children and families.”
Separately, Parks said to the Eagle that the building meets safety standards, and that they are determining if more work needs to be done to potentially have the sprinkler system repaired.
Parks also said that they have never denied a permit request from SQPA.
Donoghue also outlined around $27 million in work done at the center, including HVAC fixes.
While Johnson said the agency’s work on the park is “just talk,” Sean Smith said the situation has gotten better.
“I feel like they've been showing that they're making genuine efforts,” he said, adding he and local Parks officials have had an open line of communication regarding outstanding issues.
Richards blamed the brunt of the park’s issues on SQPA’s past, and the proverbial doghouse the organization found itself in following the conviction of its previous manager.
“When you have law enforcement looking at your organization, your funding is frozen,” he said.
In general, the BP said he is focused on maintaining funding for the park, as well as SQPA.
“I wouldn't certainly allow SQPA to be dissolved, or anything of that nature,” he said. “We want the best for the organization, we want the organization to run quality programming, we want the organization to flourish.”
On Monday night, Richards promised to match $3.5 million in federal funds that are allocated to SQPA, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s continued scaling back of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which could harm the Black-led SQPA.
“We need to make sure we're Trump-proof,” Richards said, getting his most positive response of the night, including applause from Johnson.
The future of Roy Wilkins Park, and potentially SQPA, lies with the plans for a new $132 million community center that will essentially replace the current one.
The building, which is still in its early planning phases, will include new community spaces as well as a pool and a gym.
However, there is nothing concrete yet to say it will also include SQPA.
While Richards and Parks say that they intend to give the nonprofit space in the new building, Johnson has yet to take them at their word.
Roy Wilkins Park in Southeast Queens has been a local community gem for more than half a century. Wikimedia Common photo by Tdorante10
“They don't want SQPA to be in the new building,” he said. “They haven't said anything about it yet, and every time that the community asks about it, they don't say anything.”
The most powerful person in the room on Monday was Adams, who was mostly silent throughout the meeting outside of her opening and concluding remarks, in which she called for unity and increased self-fundraising from locals for the park.
“You have the power, Southeast Queens, in your community to make your money work for you,” she said. “I implore you, get a fundraising committee going to help ourselves.”
“We can't continue to prosper on handouts to pull us up,” she added. “This is what other people talk about our community for doing that we can't do for ourselves. We can do it for ourselves instead of warring with ourselves.”
