"BX. Beep Decks Anti-Stadium Board" NY Post 06/12/06

BX. Beep Decks Anti-Stadium Board

By BILL SANDERSON in NY Post

June 12, 2006 -- Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión is playing hardball with the community board that tried to block his pitch for a new Yankee Stadium.

Four of the nine members of Community Board 4, including its chair, are up for reappointment, a spokeswoman for Carrión noted.

And while Carrión isn't revealing his lineup shuffle, this may well be payback time for the board's November 2005 vote against plans to bulldoze two popular public parks in favor of the new stadium.

The only stadium supporter not reappointed is Chairman Ade Rasul, and that, board sources say, may be because he failed to persuade his colleagues to back the controversial project. Rasul did not return a call seeking comment.

Board sources say others denied reappointment include longtime members Gertrude Lane, Marie Stroud and Louise Williams, none of whom could be reached for comment.

The five reappointments are the fewest so far to any of the Bronx's 12 community boards. Eight members are returning to Community Board 5 and at least 10 to each of the rest.

Board members are volunteers assigned by the borough president to two-year terms. Community Board 4, bowing to residential pressure, voted 16-8 to reject the Yankees' plan. Five members abstained.

But the board's role is only advisory, and Carrión, the Planning Commission and the City Council ignored it and green-lighted the project.

Board member Tim Birkett suggested that Carrión, mentioned prominently as a possible 2009 mayoral candidate, was irked less by the vote than by some board members' threats to fight him politically.

bill.sanderson@nypost.com