Tenants Fight Organizing Ban By HEATHER HADDON
Standing on the steps of the Bronx County Courthouse, Coalition members and tenants wore cardboard clocks around there necks, and chanted: "Don't turn back the clock on our civil rights!" They were joined by Deputy Borough President Earl Brown and Council Member Joel Rivera, who also decried the lawsuits. "The Constitution guarantees our freedom of speech and right to assemble," said Rivera to cheers. Palazzolo was also the subject of ire for neglecting dozens of Bronx buildings that mortgage lenders and the city's housing agency consider him responsible for. Palazzolo claims to only be a lender. But, as the Norwood News has previously reported, he regularly signs mortgage documents as the president of the companies that own the buildings. The lawsuits, filed by New Line Realty Corp, have effectively prohibited the Coalition's ability to meet with tenants. The lawsuits charge that the Coalition and two other community organizations - the United Committees for University Heights (one of the Coalition's nine neighborhood affiliates) and Highbridge Community Life Center - prevented New Line from refinancing their mortgages with Washington Mutual Bank. Coalition members have met with bank executives about the conditions in the Palazzolo buildings. A Westchester judge, Joan Lefkowitz, signed off on a temporary restraining order last November, which prohibited organizers from meeting with tenants in one building. Lefkowitz agreed to another motion last December that brought the number of off-limits buildings up to six - including 2315 Walton Ave. and 1055 Grand Concourse. The lawsuits seek to make those restraining orders permanent. Pro bono lawyers defending the Coalition filed a counter-lawsuit last month asking that the case be moved from Westchester to the Bronx, where the activities under dispute actually took place. "We live in the Bronx," said Karen Washington, a Coalition board member. "We want it [the lawsuit] to be held in the Bronx." Wendy Stryker, a First Amendment attorney with Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, who is defending the Coalition, sees the litigation as a "slap suit" - or the practice of suing advocacy groups to make them stop targeting private interests. "Slap suits are clearly prohibited under New York law," she said. "These landlords should be paying contractors to fix roofs, not paying lawyers to muzzle tenant groups." Hilda Burgos, a tenant of 2315 Walton Ave. for the past 20 years, agrees. "Palazzolo got a restraining order for the Coalition, but he doesn't have a restraining order for the people selling drugs and drinking in the building," she said. Burgos' building, like many of the approximately 100 buildings Palazzolo is thought to be responsible for, is decrepit. It is plagued by leaks, broken locks, and other security and structural problems. In a statement read by Brown, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion called Palazzolo "subhuman," "shameful" and a "bully." "I'm in full support of the tenants and advocates," Carrion stated. While the Coalition was scheduled to present oral arguments last week, Lefkowitz postponed it to examine written testimony submitted by their lawyers, according to Stryker. A new date has not yet been scheduled.
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Last Thursday, about 100 tenants, advocates and officials rallied against two lawsuits
filed by landlords associated with Frank Palazzolo. The suits, filed last winter, have
already stopped the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition from being able
to organize - or even talk to - tenants in six Bronx buildings.
